Chicken thigh dum briyani from Al Tasneem

This was a pretty specific craving for the chicken dum briyani from Al Tasneem that brought us back. Since we got the breast meat the last time, I wanted to get the thigh today.

The bird was obviously less meaty on the thigh than breast meat, but it was also not as dry. What I was looking forward to which hit the spot for me was the delicious rice.

Revisiting Punjab Grill

A couple of items which we previously liked at Punjab Grill had been rotated out of the menu at some point. Those for some reasons have made their appearance again so we came back for them. And also to try other stuff that sounded like they might be good.

We were served amuse bouche today. This was spinach fritter with some sauce. Tasted like sweet tamarind.

Papadums looks different from the last time. Also the dips were one less fruit chutney today.

These were spicy.

One of the dishes we wanted to try was tandoori smoked pineapple tikka.

This was delicious. The chunks of pineapple were piping hot off the tandoor, spicy from the marinate and also citrusy sweet. 👍🏼

One of the dishes we came back for was their saag gosht. I've mentioned and compared this to others we've tried a number of times and this in my opinion is still i) the better version ii) on the top on our list. What differentiated Punjab Grill's rendition from the rest was the care in how the palak was made, the additional dimension to the spicing and those chunks of bone in lamb were so good. They charged a pretty penny for it though.

The other dish we wanted to try was their keema kaleji. Minced mutton/lamb with liver. Never had this before and I love it. The dish was like an Indian Bolognese/ragu with chunky diced lamb liver. 

Chunky diced lamb liver I said.

Got ourselves some garlic naan for the keema and palak.

The other dish we came back for was their gucchi pulao - morel mushroom spiced rice. When we had these previously, they told us that the mushrooms were imported from Kashmir. Today, they were strangely described as 'rare kind of mushroom from the foothills of Himalayas'. Maybe that made them sound more exotic. 😅

Paan (betel leaf) kulfi for dessert. Came with dried Maraschino cherries and gulkand - a sweet rose petal preserve. Nice.

A shot of their creamy betel leaf drink at the end.

Chicken McGriddles with egg

I've never had the Chicken McGriddle before. Just a swap of the protein from their usual chicken sausage to a McChicken patty. Got this without mayo. In retrospect, I prefer the regular ones. Didn't taste bad but I don't think this McNugget-y flavour paired as well with the pancakes.

Tsui Wah (翠華), Orchard Road

Just realized that I've never mentioned this particular branch (#02-02 COURTS NOJIMA The Heeren, 260 Orchard Road) of Tsui Wah even though we've been here a few times. But mostly it was for tea and their crispy condense milk toast. And the listed address is kinda weird.

Anyways, the braised pork with cartilage and scrambled eggs with truffle paste on rice. Truffle paste was weak and the pork cartilage was mostly crunchier than the tendon-soft ones we've had before. I thought it was a pity that we didn't get that level of tenderness today. The braising sauce was a deliciously rich soy concoction. Would be remiss of me to not mention that almost aged balsamic quality of the accompaying soya sauce on the side which was thick with sweetness.

Char siew looked better than it tasted. Unfortunately. The pork belly cuts were meaty and with fat - not the "melt in the mouth" type if I might add. I don't know how this was made. While it looked dark, it did not taste caramelized like the renditions that are well received locally (think Roast Paradise or 88 Roast Meat). Neither did this taste like most char siew I remember having from Hong Kong.

Wild Coco, Circular Road

We've been seeing/hearing a bit about Wild Coco. Curiosity prevailed. This was their new shop at Boat Quay (84 Circular Road, tel : +65 9119 3822) not far from Sonny's Pizza.

This drink was called Bossy Balonglong. Most of us that know the fruit used it in would recognize it as buah long long or ambarella; a sour-ish astringent citrus fruit that usually tries to pucker your lips inwards. This juice came with a preserved plum and was pretty refreshing.

Food arrived pretty fast. This was nasi lemak with their chicken thigh berempah and their burnt green chilli. I was imagining that the burnt green chilli which they used sambal hijau to describe would actually taste like sambal hijau. It didn't quite. This had noticeable bitterness with oil richness and little salt. Not the kind like Sari Ratu.

Peanuts were toasted. Sambal was pretty onion-y and packed a bit of heat. Rice nicely infused with coconut milk and sufficiently salted that it was delicious on its own. Which kinda made the sambal redundant for me. Not a fan of their fried chicken - it has a decent marinate but not in a way that ticks my boxes. Not to mention that the burnt green chilli taste was the most of it.

Seafood laksa's nice. Said seafood included a couple of prawns, a scallop and some razor clams; not bad but I wouldn't use 'great' to describe them. A couple of possibilities methinks - natural flavour/sweetness from the seafood was low or the gravy has masked those. Mostly likely both. There's also sliced fish cake and tau pok.

But the gravy rocked. With a rich lemak viscosity it did. Low on the dried shrimp flavour but still heart cloggingly satisfying. Personally, I felt that a good job was done with baseline of the laksa. Their seafood was just a luxe layering that didn't feel so luxurious. 

Kueh binka with ice cream tasted... pretty mundane. Not bad tasting to be clear about it. We were thinking that with the prices we were paying, we'd at least be getting standards from Sinpopo or Chalk Farm.

AMS Steam Seafood Bee Hoon (蒸蒸日上), Amoy Street Food Centre

AMS Steam Seafood Bee Hoon (#02-120 Amoy Street Food Centre, 7 Maxwell Road) appears to be new; right next door to Spicy Wife Nasi Lemak. Here's a recent (relatively) Saturday breakfast plate of their bee hoon in soup with minced meat patty and additional sliced batang, sans their ginger paste. According to the owner, said soup was made with the bones of chicken, fish and pork with vegetables.

What's were the obvious pick ups that I liked? Broth was gently savoury with flavour from Shaoxing wine; minced pork had chunks of water chestnut and the slices of mackerel were thick and firm. Noticed that the bee hoon were more squiggly than the regular variety. Also nice sambal.