Xiang Xiang Hunan Cuisine (湘香湖南菜), One Holland Village

It was only recently that I realized that Xiang Xiang Hunan Cuisine has been rebranded from Hunan Cuisine Restaurant (密斯湘菜馆) which we've eaten at some years back. Now that it's dawned upon me, the revelation was that some dishes from the old restaurant that I liked were also lost when the Xiang Xiang phoenix rose from its ashes. 🐦‍🔥

This was the branch at Holland V (#02-19/20 One Holland Village, 7 Holland Village Way, tel : +65 6263 9170).

Giant lemon tea. I've a feeling we'll be getting this every time we're here.

Menu described this as fried vermicelli (干捞粉丝煲). Noodles which were savoury, flavoured with bits garlic & salted egg and was pretty moreish. It looked/tasted/sounded more local than Hunanese though.

Loved the cauliflower from the last time so we got it again.

Hot plate cumin beef (铁板孜然牛肉). Did not like it because the meat has been sodium bicarbonated to death. Couldn't tell it was beef. The cumin flavouring was pleasant but that was where good ended. Will not get this again.

Never noticed their steamed pork rib and taro (香芋蒸排骨) previously. This one was nice. Rib on the bone was relatively tender and easily removed and the taro was delicious. What brought both together might be pork fat and salt. Will come back for this.

酸菜鱼 because we like the way they made theirs.

How to avoid carbs?

Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger : Year Eighteen

Year XVIII. 24.M2. Happy sweet 18th, Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger! 🥩 Vulkan lives and more years to go!

Revisiting Wooloomooloo Steakhouse

Back at our favourite Australian themed Hong Kong steakhouse. If you've appreciated the veracity in the previous statement, you know it. 😏 Took a while for the fact sink in that it's been a dozen years since we first/last ate at Wooloomooloo? Time sure flew by stealthily. 😓

Focaccia looked the same as the last time. Just more onions. Great munching with butter.

Treated myself to a dirty martini with olives stuffed with blue cheese. Drink's a little salty from the brine and I was hoping for more blue cheese in those olives.

We give thanks to the rabbit holes in YouTube for the subliminal spurring to order a jumbo shrimp/prawn cocktail. I do not even remember if I've ever had one of these.

For some reasons, I had expected jumbo shrimps/prawns to be......you know, jumbo. These were large but not enough for my imagination apparently. But they were nicely chilled and meaty with a light sweetness. What made me enjoy this was their cocktail sauce with avocado mousse and cream cheese. The latter two I guess aren't traditional to these but hell yeah they worked and we liked it.

Lobster bisque which didn't seem to be as great as I remembered it. Maybe the recipe changed or perhaps I remembered wrong, guess I'll never know.

Got a claw in this one.

300-day grain fed I 48 hours marination I 4 weeks wet aged I illinois

I've always been curious about the cajun ribeye in steakhouses so today was the day the cat died. Not a bad experience with that little bit of heat from what I feel tasted like barbeque dry rub. Much prefer the steak without it. Didn't regret ordering this though because now we know. It's tender from the wet aging and very moist unlike dry aged ones which tends to be not juicy. Where wet aging pales in comparison is flavour intensity.

550-day grain fed I marble score 8-9 I south australia

Because we were splurging, Mayura Station chocolate fed wagyu ribeye. 

Meat's tender with texture, laced with melty intramuscular fat and the flavouring was nice with just salt.

I remember their sweet peppercorn sauce from the last time and it tasted like how I remembered it. Still my favourite among the four followed by the red wine Madeira. The au jus and ginger ponzu ties in the third place though that au jus seemed just appropriate with the Mayura Station wagyu. Maybe the ginger ponzu is last then. It's not bad tasting, just not so much my thing with steaks.

Coffee's bitter and not bad.

This dessert was called Gorgonzola & Figs. So it's an elderflower cake with Gorgonzola ice cream and a fruity fig compote. Nice.

The first floor at Komala Vilas

In all the times we've eaten at Komala Vilas (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九), we've never been seated on the first floor until today. A first time on the first floor.

Got ourselves a poori set. Air filled, slightly crusty and with the lightest crisp on the fried bread which was accompanied with dal and spicy chana masala (curried chickpeas).

More dal in an order of dal butter fry. This one was piping hot compared to those ladled over onto the side of ordered dishes. Note to self : Gotta remember to inform them to leave out the coriander.

I've been curious about their Kashmiri pulao for some time now and I've finally ordered one. There's toasted cashews, green & red maraschino cherry bits and finely diced apples with a light ghee flavour in the rice. Not bad tasting per se but also not memorable. Will not be getting it from them anymore.

Some hot masala tea to end.

A recent McGriddles Stack

So the last one was during the first quarter of this year. 

These are back for a while again. Eating them with pepper this time.

Revisiting Casa Vostra

It's twenty to five on a Friday a few weeks after Casa Vostra has opened. There was a queue. Don't these people have to...😕

Calamari fritti had a crunchy batter and was otherwise edible. Nothing special about the squids here. Caper mayo on the side did not taste fresh. Will not be getting again.

Meatballs had a fine grind, was dense and has a fennel-y taste. Would prefer a coarser grind for texture but that's just our preference. Will not be getting again. 

According to the menu, it's Argentinian prawns and prawn reduction on their pizza gamberi. Not getting much out of the latter. I was expecting a taste much more robust from the word 'reduction'. As to the former...for prawns that were apparently known for their sweetness, I couldn't tell. But it was a nice pizza with prawns that were decent and chunky. Even though for some odd reasons, the pie had something in it that reminded me of nachos. Cornicione was still fantastically puffy and tender.