Huong Pho, Upper Boon Keng Road

Heard about Huong Pho lately. They're a relatively new Vietnamese stall located in Food Haven Coffeeshop (5 Upper Boon Keng Road) which is a short trot from Kallang MRT. What they offer looked like the run of the mill variety not unlike most Vietnamese stalls around. Phở, bánh mì, spring/summer rolls and a bit of this and that.

Phở was pretty good. Light and beefy broth with a savoury sweetness and deliciously smooth and slurpy rice noodles. Rice-y tasting rice noodles at that. They obliged my request for tendon only. The only herbs/aromatics they had for topping was a mixture of spring onions and coriander and since the spring onions were tainted, I ended up with a clean bowl. It wasn't very different from a local bowl of beef noodles like that.

What intrigued me was their sardine bánh mì. I heard that their sardines are market purchased and cooked in house. The fish was mashed and spread into the baguette with pickles and some respectably spicy sweet and sour chilli sauce. This one was sans coriander obviously.

The sandwich was unexpectedly hefty. Not bad. Very street styled because the fish wasn't distributed evenly.

I like their chả giò. We waited a while for this and it came out freshly fried and piping hot. Texture was meaty underneath that crispy wrapping and reminded me of Peranakan ngoh hiong. There's wood ear fungus and fine carrot bits inside. This was nice.

Yummy Bites (尚品小吃), Queenstown MRT Station

Eatery at a not so obvious corner at one end of Queenstown MRT (#02-02 Queenstown MRT Station, 301 Commonwealth Avenue). Business appears brisk.

Competent pork trotter rice. I enjoyed it. Stewing sauce passed muster. Meat from the trotter was tender enough that I was separating them with chopsticks.

Their Yummy Fried Rice needed more salt and that minced pork they used. While I inhaled this pretty quickly with that fiery sliced chilli padi, I don't think I'll wanna order it again. The pork trotter rice on the other hand......😏

万里香鸡饭 (Wan Li Xiang Chicken Rice), Ubi

Pretty good deal chicken rice for $5 at 千里香鸡饭 (Wong Poh Kopitiam, 3004 Ubi Ave 3). While it's not close to the top of my list for chicken rice out there, it did the job. This has got to be the first time I'm getting chicken rice with century egg. It's a milestone!

A gyutan sando and more citrus coffee beverage from Gyutan-Tan

Second time here at Gyutan-Tan and coincidentally, at the in between hours where they only serve drinks and small bites.

A gyutan sandwich sounded good.

The savoury cumin infused tongue was sliced thin, stacked and topped with rockets and caramelized onions which had a raisin-y sweetness. Nice. Bread was just so lightly toasted.

Yuzu cold brew was delicious. Like it as much as the lemonade espresso from the last time. Love that velvety yuzu cream/foam/thingy on the chilled coffee which tasted better than I had imagined.

Ya-Mahyuddin Al-Jailani, Kampong Bahru Road

Can't remember if we've ever eaten at Ya-Mahyuddin Al-Jailani (89 Kampong Bahru Road, tel : +65 6222 2754). We were here recently for breakfast and they were definitely worth a mention.

Teh halia was sweet and milky with a hit of that gingery flavour. Not bad methinks.

I got my plaster with molten yolk! 🙌🏼 What I also enjoyed about their prata was the chewiness of the dough. Nothing was crispy here. And I like it that way.

Their banana cheese prata was one of the more memorable banana pratas I've had in recent times. The bananas used tasted like the pisang raja varietal used for goreng pisang which has that tangy sweetness. Like goreng pisang, these had been put through heat and has their sugars released for a more pronounced sweetness and an intensified flavour. Quite a few pieces of those with some chewy bits of cheese in there. Will come back for this.

Pasta Brava, The Scarlet

The last time we were at Pasta Brava, the restaurant was still located at Craig Road. This was possibly the one time we'll be here in their current location (#01-13 The Scarlet Singapore, 33 Erskine Road) because by the time this post is out, they would have been relocated to their new spot at Tras Street.

The menu appeared to be a mix of the old Pasta Brava items and those from Sofi. I was thinking of the former's blue cheese or chocolate red wine sauce steaks but we got totally distracted by their specials.

Specials like a spinach pappardelle in fresh oyster truffle cream sauce. Couldn't taste the truffle in it. The oddity here was the aroma of the oyster that came with the pasta. We could smell it, thinking that it came from the cream sauce. Couldn't taste it in said sauce which was mostly garlicky. While there were oysters in the pasta, we couldn't reconcile what we experienced.

Surfeit crept in partway through and what helped us finish was Tabasco sauce. 😬 The garlicky cream sauce was actually pretty damn good with some splashes of vinegary hot Tabasco.

Another special was grilled ox tongue and mushroom pizza. The tomato on the pie was sharp - reminded me of jarred tomato sauce and was almost overwhelming every other flavour, including the grilled ox tongue.

Dessert was a keto zucchini lime cake with whipped cream. Cake didn't have much sweetness. Couldn't identify the lime in it. Tasted underwhelming.