Ming Fa Fishball (明發鱼圓), Tekka Food Centre

I've noticed this stall (#01-304 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road) in my visits to Tekka Market and have wondered. It was only today when I've finally gotten a bowl of their mushroom minced meat noodle when I realized that this was Ming Fa Fishball, as compared to Ming Fa at Thompson Road. Same same but different.

The bak chor mee was $4.50 here where prices at the Thompson shop ranges from $6.00-8.50 depending on the size of the bowl that is chosen.

Why the difference in pricing you might wonder? There were no fishballs (ironic innit?), no prawns and no pig's liver in this bowl. The one at Thompson has no fried dumpling (which I actually don't care for). This bowl was put together with decent quality ingredients but the texture of their mee pok wasn't what I preferred. Which is...intrinsically a sizeable piece of the holistic take on enjoying a bowl of bcm for me.

Pork Belly Rice (老祖宗卤肉饭), Ubi Road

This stall is located at the ground floor of a building call Zevrex (8 Ubi Road 2). Food's an unusual mix of lu rou fan and bánh mì and gỏi cuốn. Flavour of the braising sauce in the lu rou fan was kinda thin and their rice wasn't the short grained variety. Not impressive.

Shirinashi Tantan Men from Keisuke Plus

Trying the tantanmen (Japanese 担担面 if anyone's still wondering) at Keisuke Plus. Not much surprises here with the sesame/nutty flavour profile with a bit of heat that hummed in the sauce. A bit of extra chilli oil and discreet splashes of vinegar gives it dimension.

While there aren't surprises, I did not expect that the crushed nuts that was used in the noodles included almonds. That's the first time I'm seeing them in these noodles. Could actually taste the nut through all the flavours.

Aneka Ulam, C&L Cafe @ UB. One

This stall was just next door to the Soon Soon (顺顺古早味) chicken rice stall at C&L Cafe (81 Ubi Avenue 4). I was told that their nasi lemak was good and it turned out to be true. Sambal tasted of ikan bilis and it had some nice heat with a sweetness that I didn't dislike. Serunding was nicely spiced. The only thing that I didn't think much of were the fried chicken wings which weren't freshly done and pretty ordinary tasting.

In retrospect, the stuff in there was more suitable for nasi padang because of all the clamouring flavours which kinda distracted from the rice. I'll choose more wisely the next time.

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.