Il Clay Supper Club, Clarke Quay

Mixed feelings about Il Clay (#01-04 Clarke Quay, 3D River Valley Road). Food's pretty good but portion can be pretty small. Service was spotty. While the restaurant was generally polite and obliging, one of them attempted to pull wool over us by not checking on an order we were inquiring and giving us a reply without ever consulting with his colleagues that were processing it. He shambled one round around the bar and came back with an answer provided by a voice in his head. He thought we did not notice. 

That was a deliberate lie by the wait staff of Il Clay. Not to mention that said staff has a reaction speed of someone high on something. Didn't think it was worth the effort to pursue. I didn't think the restaurant cared much since they hired him in the first place.

Smoked eel and scallops were delicious. Love the olives. Dill looked more like decoration rather than an actual flavouring ingredient. Portion was small.

This burnt cabbage thing was delicious. Steaming hot delicious that involved a nicely done pairing of that chilli jam and whipped feta cream. The menu mentioned truffle oil, ham and something call pistachio crush - I didn't know where were all those things. Bad - very bad form for a restaurant to claim, charge for it and not provide.

Waited pretty long for our pasta. The restaurant looked like it had a lot of people working and wasn't filled up entirely. For some reasons, there was simply a lot of waiting and it wasn't exactly easy to get the attention of the staff.

The oyster reginette (or also known as mafaldine) was outstanding. The sauce was creamy, sour, spicy and garlicky with spikes of heat from.... chilli padi I suppose. Oysters were delicious. 

I thought well in general of their duck confit cannelloni. Looked long and slender like a stalk of asparagus that's filled with the minced confit. Love the Gorgonzola sauce where the flavours from the spots of squid ink surprisingly came through. What I also thought was that double of this "primi piatti" portion of cannelloni should have been more reasonable for what they were charging. 

Pizzas looked intriguing but I don't think I'm prepared to pay their prices. Don't think we will be back in any case since we weren't getting much of the positive vibes. There are surely other better places to spend money on food.

Nur Hidayah & Family, Haig Road Food Centre

So we came across this stall (#01-11 Haig Road Food Centre, 14 Haig Road) which had these roundish brown kuehs which we did not recognize. I now know that they are kuih baka - a Malay grilled (maybe pan fried) kueh. A customer of the stall noticed our interested and recommended us to try them, claiming that they were extraordinary. Which we did. Interesting how the proprietor sliced the kueh through the plastic bags with those clean cuts while leaving the bag undamaged.  

I like them. Texture's kinda like a dense custard with a consistency similar to kueh ambon with a brown crusty surface. Yes, that green represented pandan flavour and there's a regular version which we did not get to try this time. Sweet and nice. Will not mind getting again.

HJ Waliti HJ Mazuki, Haig Road Food Centre

I've been wanting get a bowl of soto anika from HJ Waliti HJ Mazuki (#01-18 Haig Road Food Centre, 14 Haig Road) for a while and that finally happened. For the uninitiated, it's soto ayam + bits of beef and tripe. Broth was kickass with the chilli. Not a fan of the stringy chicken or beef but the tripe's tender and delicious. There's soto babat on the menu so I know what I will be going for the next time.

Otah's decent.

The larger green butterfly at Tai Wah Cooked Food

I did not realized that Tai Wah Cooked food makes larger than their usual pandan butterfly until now. These costed $1.20 instead of $1. Don't know exactly how much bigger they were but I'm guessing that it wasn't significant because I barely noticed. It was only brought to my attention when I was paying and the proprietor asked if it was okay if he gave me the larger ones because the regular ones were out.

Chicken pulao from Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg

Finally got my hands on the pulao from Pakistani Dum Biryani Sg. This one's chicken - came with two tender drumsticks. In spite of appearances, the drumsticks were moist and easily removed from the bone. The difference between their biryani and the pulao was that the latter did not pack heat from the spices in the rice. It was still deliciously savoury which I inhaled in short order. 

More breakfast at Komala Vilas

Another breakfast at Komala Vilas (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八). 

I wanted to see how their parotta was like compared to the local prata. Turned out that it was pretty similar except that it wasn't as oily. Crisp on the outside and kinda fluffed up. The insides weren't as chewy though - these were a bit harder. Served with their korma which we've had once or twice or more previously.

Their samosa looked attractively gnarly. Yeah, that's a description there.

Mostly potatoes inside. Tasted much like curry puffs but more fun with some of those chutney.