Cakes from Sinpopo

Cakes and tea at Sinpopo.

Mao shan wang cake was not bad. Hard pressed to identify anything that might not have been durian in the durian paste layered in the cake. No artificial sweetness from it too. Nice.

Mango cake's decent. If I had to comment, it looked a little better than it tasted.

I didn't think their pulut hitam cake was bad but it's also one of those that I won't be getting again now that I've tried it. Flavour came through but it's not edging anyway close to being impressive.

Teh tarik's passable. Does not taste like real teh tarik unfortunately. Holding back on the sweetness was probably one of the reasons for that. Like their kopi, it's a name they slapped onto their beverage with little to substantiate that name.

Gagahoho Ox Bone Soup, Burlington Square

Got wind of Gagahoho Ox Bone Soup (#01-57A Burlington Square, 175 Bencoolen Street, tel : +65 6518 4157) recently. Noticed that the sign at their restaurant says Gagahoho Ox Tail Soup. There's no ox tail soup on their menu.

One of the talked about things from them is their kimchi. Pretty young without any flavour from fermentation I could detect. The paste was nutty with a hint of ginger and pretty spicy. Possibly the most spicy one I've ever had.  

My inclination is towards kimchi that's more fermented. I enjoy the tang. This was interesting but not something I'll see myself craving for. 

Peppery gamjatang they have. Also ordinary.

Sliced pork from the gamjatang was pretty good with the kimchi.

This was called mackerel pick and braised kimchi. Don't know what the name means but I reckon it's a jjigae -  similar to the one we've previously had at 88 Pocha. Like that one, the fish tasted like canned sardines. Like that one as well, pretty pricey for the portions. But I am a sucker for these because of the pairing of the sardine-y flavour with a more intense kimchi taste.

Suju in May

Inadvertently, we found ourselves back at Suju ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十). The dishes on their menu appears to rotate these days. Not a bad thing that.

We've been wanting to try their uni crostini since we first noticed it at this branch. It's aosa tempura topped with uni and there's caviar (don't know what kind) and shaved miso foie gras.

Couldn't taste the caviar and miso foie gras. But the uni and fried seaweed was nice. Beware, not cheap!

Sweet corn tempura.

Never noticed that they had grilled herring before. This was much better than I imagined. The fish was good quality and the meat was moist.

The bonus was the fish roe that was in the pregnant herring.

What's that you say? Fish roe!

Fish bloody roe! Look at the amount in one fish. And hell yeah it was delicious! 👍🏼

Pork chop hoba yaki. Miso marinated and baked in banana leaf with leeks and shiitake. Nice miso flavour in the relatively tender slices of pork but it's unfortunately not memorable compared to most of the other things we've had here.

Today's hayashi rice was nicer than I remembered it. There was a luxuriant creaminess to the sauce of red wine that accompanied an appreciable balance of sweet savoury tanginess. And thinly sliced beef. So good.

The matcha tiramisu's back after disappearing for a while.

Keisuke Plus, Funan

Keisuke Plus, or is that K+ (#01-15 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6320 3456) is the new offshoot from the Keisuke Group, themed as a ramen/gyoza/sake bar and restaurant kind of eatery. The menu sports a selection of ramen that isn't available in any of their other shops. 

Place looks a little more fancy than their usual ramen joints. The tradition of free hard boiled eggs and bean sprouts is continued here.

One of the things Keisuke Plus appears to be doing is showcasing what they can do with wagyu. Which isn't a new thing or uncommon in this era. We had an order of their wagyu gyoza.

It's delicious. Beefy gyoza kind of delicious, seeping with flavourful oils. This blows the more expensive ones from Mashi No Mashi out of the water just by the virtue that we could tell that it was beef.

This - their wagyu mazesoba.

Nice. There's a mixture of flavours from the ingredients which somehow did not overwhelm the intrinsic flavour from the meat. I'm reminded of a beefy bak chor mee.

Mazesoba was also good with the hot sauce they bring to you for it. This one was not that spicy.

The bowl that hit like a punch from Saitama was their Hokkaido oyster broth ramen.👊🏻 Umami, creamy and intensely flavoured with the shellfish. Good on its own and also good with the squeeze of lemon. I recommend some before the lemon and some after. From the point of flavour intensity as an oyster based broth, this was ahead of the oyster paitan bowl from Konjiki Hototogisu. 

Even with splashes of the Lemosco, it was good eating. If anyone was wondering,  that's a lemony/yuzu-y sauce with a bit of heat - like a lemon Tabasco.

We also came across one of the better if not best hamu katsu in town. Thick with a proper panko crust. This was so much better than the one at Hakata Yakitori Batten Yokatoh.

Revisiting Joo Chiat Beef Noodle (如切牛腩面),

Came back for more stuff Joo Chiat Beef Noodle at Zion Riverside Food Centre. No we didn't get the cow penis. This was a bowl of dry kuey teow with tripe. Tripe was pretty tender and a little chewy. Random thought : why is isn't this place called Zion Canalside Food Centre instead?

We did get tendon this time as well in soup kuey teow. That broth tasted like bak kut teh/zhu zha tang (猪什汤) rather than beef noodle soup. Which is odd because I could have sworn that the broth was from the pot of boiling beef parts.

That's their rendition of 红油抄手. Not exactly has how I imagined but it was a pretty decent eat if not identical to those chilli oil dumplings that are found in Chinese restaurants. There's toasted chilli and some vinegar. Couldn't identify the meat stuffings so I'm assuming it's pork.

Economy Snacks (经济小吃), Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre

Noticed this stall (#01-124 Telok Blangah Crescent Market & Food Centre, 11 Telok Blangah Crescent) selling economy bee hoon the last time we were at this food centre. Made a mental note to come back and here we were.

Pretty decent bee hoon. Love those fried eggs without crispy borders. Luncheon meat was unusually peppery. Chilli's slightly sweet and a little spicy. Definitely don't mind coming back again.