Paris Brest avec le eau noire shake at TWG

Mid day escape to TWG at Swissôtel The Stamford.

We had an eclair shaped Paris Brest previously. Here's another in a more common form. Nice. Loved the praline crème and salted caramel amidst the textures and toasted hazelnuts. 👍🏼👍🏼

No, I did not escape the Dulcet Rose today. But we ventured out and also got us their eau noire shake. Eau noire according to the menu is black tea with lavender, flowers and chocolate. I tasted chocolate and spices. Bugged me that I couldn't tell specifically which ones. The shake's a little dry - meaning that it left little aftertaste which I liked. I wanted to say that it's pretty good but in a flash of lucidity, I realized that's kinda vague-ish and subjective so I'll go with I enjoyed it.

Revisiting Shahi Maharani North Indian Restaurant

Revisiting Shahi Maharani North Indian Restaurant with the intent to try at least one dessert this time round. 😬

There's a bunch of fruits other than raisins in their Kashmiri pulao. The texture was akin to unripe papaya but I couldn't put my finger to what they actually were. Oh there's peas too. First time encountering them in this rice dish. Wasn't bad but I'm not getting the "gotta come back for this" feels.

Navrathan korma. Interesting tidbit I found out recently was that 'navrathan' is a Sanskrit word which means nine gems. The menu described the dish to come with nine vegetables. I don't remember if there were actually nine but the korma was delicious. Like the one we had previously here, it was creamy yet did not settle heavily.

Badshahi keema muttar. 'Badshahi' translates from Urdu to royal/monarch. So I'm guessing that the name of the dish means royal keema muttar - which is minced mutton and peas if anyone was wondering. Not bad this one. Tasted like a spicy meat porridge infused with a pleasing warmth from the spices. 

Raita with cucumber. Yoghurt was infused with cumin.

So a little of this and that. Bread would have been great too but we didn't get those this time round.

Dessert was their carrot halwa - I'm pretty sure there's cooked nuts in it as well, maybe cashews and there's definitely orange zest added to it. Yeap, those are crushed pistachios. These on top of the base buttery cardamom-y sweetness. I like this. 👍🏼

米粉面 from Yip Economical Bee Hoon (葉記經濟米粉)

Queue can get pretty long at Yip Economical Bee Hoon. They're out of glutinous rice this time which I initially wanted to get so I ended up with 米粉面 with some fried eggs, nitrites and carcinogens drizzled in chilli sauce for a yummy rainy morning breakfast. The bee hoon can be inconsistently smoky methinks.

Sweet and sour pork from Xing Long Food Stall (興隆菜社)

We were back here to relive the delicious fermented bean sauce fish head and 红烧豆腐 at Xing Long Food Stall. The proprietress suggested a few other dishes for consideration and we ended up choosing their sweet and sour pork. Aka gu lou yuk. Aka 咕噜肉.

So, the sweet and sour pork. Chunks of pork meat/fat shaped like meatballs, deep fried and then stir fried in their tangy sweet sauce which I found pretty addictive. What's different about this plate were the chunks of cucumber. The texture of those were similar to pickles minus the sour - a first time encounter on gu lou yuk. Love the pineapples.

Ga-Hock Roasted Meats, Upper Bukit Timah Road

There's a roast meat/烧腊 stall right at the front of Ga-Hock Eating House. Got a plate of roasted duck and char siew rice. Ducks were sliced into thin strips and char siew had caramelized fatty parts. I thought they tasted better than they looked. One can choose 油饭 instead of regular steamed rice. Chilli's garlicky and packed a bit of heat too. Note to self : omit the sweet sauce in the future. 

Alimah's Kitchen, Margaret Drive Hawker Centre

I've noticed Alimah's Kitchen from back in the day at Tanglin Halt. Have never patronized until today in their current location (#02-26 Margaret Drive Hawker Centre, 38A Margaret Drive). Like a number of stalls from that old food centre, they've relocated to Margaret Drive Hawker Centre. Options include a smattering of the usual - lontong, mee rebus, mee siam, nasi lemak and nasi sambal goreng.

Got a nasi lemak today. Pretty decent. Sambal's not bad....packed some heat and sweetness. What's to note here was that said sweetness wasn't annoying. Did not like their ikan bilis because they're hard and crunchy. The fried chicken wings though were delicious. There's a crunchy batter coating those wings with a flavour that I can only describe as nostalgic. 😂