Warabimochi Kamakura, Taste Orchard

For a while, I had been wondering how long it might be that we'd have to gaze wistfully at the queues before getting a taste of Warabimochi Kamakura whenever we were at One Holland Village. Turned out that we jumped into a pretty fast moving queue at their new outlet at Taste Orchard (#01-02 Taste Orchard, 160 Orchard Road) and landed ourselves a box and a couple of their beverages.

Coffee's decent. Sugarless with bits of sweetened warabi mochi in it. What impressed me more was the matcha lemonade which featured sweet lemony warabi mochi in green tea. Refreshing.

As far as I can unreliably recall, their warabi mochi were a bit more tender then those that one can sometimes get during the food fairs at Isetan. Kinako is kinako and kuromitsu is kuromitsu. The only variable here is likely the texture of these things and that being said, I can understand why they're popular. 

Ming Fa (明發), Upper Thomson Road

Was looking forward to Ming Fa (46B Upper Thomson Road, tel : +65 6455 4890). They're a local brand for bak chor mee that's been around for years and have never tried their noodles until now.

Middle sized bowl of the mushroom minced meat noodle. That's when the prawn makes appearances. The small bowl doesn't have prawns it seems. I'm guess we get one more for the large?

Anyways, I enjoyed this bak chor mee. Saucing was adequate that all the noodles were well coated and the toppings were of pretty decent quality. Sambal didn't pack a great deal of heat. What stood out were the meatballs. They didn't look hand made but also weren't the generic factory versions as well. These were larger...perhaps customized.

Coffee's sour-ish and not good. No more the next time.

Mongolia Taste (蒙古味道), Killiney Road

Mongolia Taste (109 Killiney Road, tel  : +65 8440 0004) was definitely another one of those eateries which had intrigued us when we walked past their premise, made us tell ourselves we should come back to and then inadvertently forgotten about because reasons. What about these guys that would intrigue with the slew of 东北-esque restaurants scattered about the island you might wonder? Mongolian-esque dishes and more lamb options. 😅 

So we have slice lamb liver - a cold dish tossed with savoury chilli oil with a 麻辣-esque bent. Nice. Love the mutton-y taste.

There's yoghurt on the menu - these were more "rustic" compared to the little pots of refined 酸奶 from Happy Lamb Hotpot. 

All good with honey.

Tried their Mongolian tea. We were told that that it was made with millet fried in 黄油 - the latter of which might be an equivalent of butter or some animal fat. Wondered and still wondering if it's the same thing as the sheep's milk tea we've previously had at Manchurian Lamb Hot Pot. We went all the way and added 奶皮子 (left) and 奶豆腐 (right) which the proprietress mentioned are often paired with the tea.

From the taste, 奶皮子 is probably some sort of cottage cheese/paneer and 奶豆腐 is a similar milk based product with a different texture. We were advised that the tea was meant to be had with salt but we thought it was delicious with honey.

There's their rendition of sour and spicy potato strips (酸辣土豆丝) which wasn't very sour or spicy. Good munching still though.

Nicely salted 干锅菜花.

Had a few skewers of lamb, man tou and thinly sliced potatoes which they call potato chips. It all has that savoury cumin saltiness that made them moreish.

Some salted chicken gizzards which had a dried texture almost like jerky.

Single serving of lamb shank. 

Best enjoyed without utensils.

Will look forward to coming back.

Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg, Maxwell Food Centre

The eponymous Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg (#01-69 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street) is relatively new at Maxwell Food Centre. The chef's from Pakistan from what I read and their take on the popular spiced rice dish is apparently Pakistani styled - which has some differences from the spices that are used in comparison to the local Indian rendition. Don't know the details though. We've eaten there twice and hadn't any luck with their pulao. This was their mutton briyani which we've had on both occasions.

I wasn't able to discern the subtleties of the differences in spices. I could tell that there's more heat than what I'm used to for biryani. Bottom line was that it was delicious with great flavouring and had sufficient salt to bring forth all those spices infused into the rice. Bone in mutton was scratch off the fork tender and the dal on the side which was made with 4 types of lentils packed a nice bit of heat. Loving those. Also strangely reeled in by that chilled raita they have on the side even though I tasted coriander. 

L'antica Pizzeria Da Michele, Club Street

While I've been looking forward to L'antica Pizzeria Da Michele (#01-08, 8 Club Street), I also reminded myself not to be caught up by what's been written about it. There're two camps of writeups generally on this topic. The first are the hype train who're paid or given free food to do so. The second are the "frogs in the well" that are swept by the hype train attempting to convince the world that they've also had a gastronomical moment worth mentioning. We told ourselves that we'd be our own judges.

Okay tasting fritto di mare. Baby squids, a couple of prawns, white bait and zucchini. Not of fan of thick batter in general. While I cannot put a finger to from whence, I'm getting this feeling that we've had better. Not something I would get again.

Not bad tasting margherita. We topped up with extra cheese for $5. Noted the emphasis placed on the Agerola fior di latte which was pretty good tasting. Loved that the tomatoes weren't too tart. Leopard spots are no longer charming when they transcend beyond the thin boundary into too much burnt parts - which was what we got. It's not bad pizza. Just over priced. Not something I see myself waiting in line for.

Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd, Tekka Food Centre

Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd (#01-219 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road) is located along the inner rows of stalls at Tekka where the Indian food stalls cluster - just a couple of units from where Zham Zham Muslim Food is. We were spoilt for choice from the variety of things they were offering. 

Ended up with a delicious 'crisp on the edges' egg appam that had a jiggly centre and an onion uttapam. Former's griddled on order and served with sweet coconut milk and orange sugar. Egg in the centre had molten yolk. Nicely done. 👍🏼 The latter was also moreish with the scorched sweet bits of onions on the sour pancake that paired with their array of savoury and spicy chutneys. Will definitely come back. Spied a bunch of colourful rice on their display which was intriguing.