SKAI, Swissôtel The Stamford

SKAI (#70-01 Swissôtel The Stamford, 2 Stamford Road, tel : +65 6837 3322) - Swissôtel describes it as a contemporary grill. One that is also accompanied with a view at City Hall, that by virtue of its location, encompasses the Marina Bay. We were here for lunch to celebrate a couple of occasions and decided to splurge.

Matcha Hiromeru - made with giffard ginger, nori green tea and tonic water. According to the menu. The nori green tea was just powder on the side of the glass. The drink was refreshingly tangy with something that reminded me of tamarind and just a little bit spicy from the ginger.

Apple Chizukeki's nice. Glenfiddich 12, Calvados, cheesecake foam, vanilla and something described as spiced cloudy apple milk punch. Foam's pretty creamy and smooth. I liked it.

The brioche here was so good. Each serving appeared to be fresh out of the oven. We had about five. Sweet and fluffy which paired harmoniously with that salted butter it came with.

That's the chicken liver and foie gras parfait. Never did I imagine that they'd be presented in the form of three gold flecked obsidian spheres.

There's suppose to be black truffle, sherry vinegar and Timut pepper from what the menu described. Pretty sure there's some other fruity stuff in there that's not mentioned. The sauce was tangy and umami at the same time. Timut pepper kinda reminded us of Sichuan peppercorn. It's that flavour which we associate with mala.

The chicken liver and foie gras parfait was as good as any we've had so that's that.

Their prime sirloin steak tartare that is suppose to contain gochujang. Couldn't taste gochujang. The seasoning was restrained to that point that we could actually taste the intrinsic flavour from beef and the meat was delicious. Flavour's nothing like the French tartare de boeuf. Portion was also kinda tiny.

Their crispy bread that came with the starters were salted so it's not the bland thin crusty stuff.

The bringing out of the more serious looking knives marked the start of the mains. Look at the pretty acid etching on them.

Black cod's superb. Meat was flaky and firm that you could scoop it out by layers. Creamy sauce had ikura, dill and capers and tasted like that. 👍🏼

Lamb was infused with enough cumin to remind us of 羊肉串儿 and mint to remind us that it wasn't 羊肉串儿. 😬 That romesco at the bottom tasted like a muhammara we once had.

Nice racks. Meat was tender, adequately spiced and yet still possessing the natural lamb-y flavour.

SKAI's Waldorf salad's pretty good. Properly tossed endive, apple and candied walnut with Tête de Moine.

This was creamed corn, not mac & cheese. Was a lot tastier than it looked. There was a bit of heat from togarashi and those black stripes were mushrooms. Don't know what kind but they've a nice flavour and a light toasty bitter that's seeped into the corn. 

We finished with Brillat-Savarin and coffee. Cheese was rich and creamy with earthiness from the rind - accompanied by cubes of Manuka honey, fig jam, chestnuts and I wonder why, a token sprinkle of buckwheat. That thick bitter coffee was just the pairing needed.

Sek Tong Gai (食通街), Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre

Sek Tong Gai (#02-76 Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre, 31 Commonwealth Crescent) has been around for years. We've heard them mentioned numerous times over those years but for reasons, their location at Commonwealth Crescent never registered. Noticed the stall recently and we decided to try.

Operation appeared to be a one man show apparently and the wait can be long. We also noticed that proprietor making effort, trying to get our food to us even though he was unwilling to commit to how long a wait we'd have to go through. Our dishes started rolling in after a relatively short 20 minutes...

First in was their claypot chicken with salted fish (咸鱼砂煲鸡). The name of the dish in no way described the dark savoury caramel soy intensity in the sauce. Reminded me of gong bao gravy minus the heat and sweetness. All chicken chunks were boneless. Awesome dish.

Sweet and sour pork tasted different from most. This sesame seed sprinkled rendition had sauce that seemed to be missing something which I cannot put a finger too. Pork was deep fried with a crusty surface there was more crunch to them than we expected. Not bad tasting but the overall taste and texture profile kinda threw me off.

This was called poached kailan in Two Ways. The vegetable's poached with a delicious soy (maybe oyster) sauce and then topped with its deep fried julienned leaves and crispy whitebait. The crispy toppings had a seafood-y umami and the quality of the kailan itself was exceptional. Stems weren't fibrous. 👍🏼

咸鱼蟹肉炒饭. Or fried rice with fresh crab meat and salted fish. It's worth noting that 'fresh' is an operative word here. Meat's not bottled/jarred/canned and tasted like it had been extracted not long ago. There's also plenty of dried scallop bits as well.

The initial impression as that the fried rice was bland. The taste grew onto us as we ate and we also slowly realized that it was pretty lightweight as fried rice that didn't settle heavily as many are wont to. Not bad.

Fai Kee Fishhead Bee Hoon (輝記魚頭米粉), Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre

I've been meaning to try the food at Fai Kee Fishhead Bee Hoon (#02-74 Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre, 31 Commonwealth Crescent) for some time. They're an old school Cantonese styled zi char.

One of the dishes that got my attention was their 三捞河粉, or sum lou hor fan in Cantonese which I'm more used to. It's a dry rendition unlike most. Rice noodles and fish slices had some nice light scorching. A little greasy and light on the salt. I don't know what fish it was they used but it's not the usual type for this dish; texture has a bit more chew/springiness to it. Not bad tasting.

Here's quelling the curiosity about their stir fried fish liver and intestines with bitter gourd. This dish was oil rich and a little sweeter than I imagined. Some sweetness came from the bitter gourd (which was more sweet than bitter actually) and there were also those from the onions in the black bean sauce. 

Fish liver's livery tasting. 😂 Kinda like chicken liver with some faint fishiness and a huge dollop of bitter sweetness. Intestines were chewy with a crunch. Imagine a texture akin to fish maw with the tenacity of overcooked squid or chicken gizzards. But it wasn't unlikeable. All the wok scorching had imparted a nice smokiness to the offal.

One week later...

Came back to try their mui fan (烩饭) because for some unknown reasons, I felt like having one of these. Pretty decent tasting. Prawns, squid, pork tenderloin and some vegetables in egg drop (滑蛋) gravy over rice if anyone didn't know what this was. Enjoyable with pickled green chilli. Meanwhile, I still rank Hillman and Chinatown Sun Seng above this.

Sliced fish stir fried with kailan. Portions were kinda small but flavour's pretty good. These were stir fried in a black bean sauce with garlic that's been scented with ginger. Sauce was also a little smokey. Didn't particularly mind the ginger in this one but I would have liked it better if there weren't any. Note to self : order with no ginger next time. 

Maggi goreng mutton from Ya-Mahyuddin Al-Jailani

Disrupted a neural pathway and ended up with a maggi goreng mutton instead of prata at Ya-Mahyuddin Al-Jailani because they do theirs with mutton keema which I much prefer over some curry mutton/mutton masala some places do. Not bad tasting and not excessively greasy. Minced lamb was fine (as in small) and so nicely dispersed that I couldn't get much of those mutton-y flavour which I was looking forward to. Think I'll have to ask for extra mutton the next time.

Kanada-Ya, Paya Lebar Quarter

First time at Kanada-Ya in PLQ (#03-30 Paya Lebar Quarter, 10 Paya Lebar Road, tel : +65 6966 0505). Was curious about their mala noodles which weren't on menu previously.

While it did not look the part, this was their mala mazesoba. Flavour was pretty good with adequate saltiness pairing with a present but not overwhelming flavour from the Sichuan peppercorn. Spicy without being excessively so but YMMV.

Not as impressed with the mala tori karaage. Chicken's fine - in fact it was nice and juicy. It's the surface that I didn't like. Did not taste like how most tori karaage tasted. 

Kimukatsu, Takashimaya

Kimikatsu (#B201-5 Takashimaya Food Hall, 391A Orchard Road) does mille feuille tonkatsu; it's the only type of tonkatsu they do. If you didn't know what that was, it's a katsu made with thinly sliced pork rolled into a tight package before it's panko-ed and fried. Unlike the common variety which is made with thick sliced pork that's panko-ed and fried. It's not new or unique and it's available from folks like Tonkatsu by Ma Maison, Tonkichi, Tampopo back in the old days and even Gochi-So Shokudo.

They opened up a few years back. Been wanting to try them for a while but whenever we're in the area, we kinda inadvertently get drawn to Nakajima Suisan. Orders here were accompanied with a sauce platter which came with tonkatsu sauce, tsukemono and ponzu.

Tried the salted egg katsu which was a National Day limited flavour. Pork was tender with a nicely browned crunchy surface. Salted egg sauce was decent tasting; not as intense as I was hoping for in the salted egg department and I'm sure it's from some powder. Wonder if it's one of those from Knorr.

I like the garlic flavour more because the flavour from the pork came through all the garlic unlike the one with the salted egg sauce. Not bad tonkatsu here. Will come back and try other flavours.