The Coconut Club, New Bahru

We ate at Coconut Club years ago back when they were at Ann Siang Hill. Never thought much of them and the status quo for that impression has never changed but constantly been challenged by the amount of good press they get. So we decided a second chance was in order. I recalled reading about the fried quail nasi lemak at this New Bahru (#01-14, 46 Kim Yam Road, tel : +65 9030 0634) outlet but apparently it's a limited time item which no one bothered to elaborate. Or maybe I just overlooked the memo.

Similar vibes to Ann Siang though I find the name tag Danny condescending and curt. Not an attitude I'd closely associate with words like 'hospitable' or 'friendly'. Reeks of pretence. To be fair, the rest of the crew wasn't that way. They were friendly, earnest even. Now that that's out of the way......

Teh halia's not bad. Milky, sweet and gingery. What could have been easily done better though, was the temperature the tea was served. This was unusually lukewarm instead of hot. And it wasn't at the higher end of the lukewarm spectrum even.

Moment of truth - it's not bad. It's much better than what we had at Ann Siang and we were quite sure it did not taste the same from that time because I pay attention to how much nasi lemak gets salted and they weren't great with that there. This one was adequately salted so the flavour came through pretty well. Actually, the first place that popped in my head after getting a couple of spoons was Lee Wee & Brothers. 😂 Fish was exceptional. Fresh and freshly fried. Love their thick kecap manis.

What's odd here was that we didn't get sambal and had to ask for it. No biggie. Their sambal was nice. On top of the heat, it had a pleasant natural tasting sweetness.

I'm making an inevitable comparison of their seafood laksa to the one at Wild Coco because we had that not long back. Coconut Club's rendition appeared to be smoother and maybe even sweeter. Not as gao. That being said, it wasn't bad. We cleaned the bowl. But in the simple exercise of presenting myself with a choice of either, I'd pick Wild Coco.

Prawns were meaty and tasty. Half the clams in this bowl weren't even open. 🤔  

Queic by Olivia, Scotts Square

A new outpost of Queic by Olivia has opened in town (#B1-25, 6 Scotts Road, tel : +65 8068 5545). I remember getting their smaller sized signature Basque cheese cake from the original stall at Kreta Ayer previously and learnt that the cheese to crust ratio weren't ideal. So we wanted to get a slice here at the original size we had first experienced at Olivia.

Hell yeah it was as good as we remembered it. Though I noticed that the menu now states the ingredient to include goat's cheese rather than blue cheese. Not that it mattered. 😬

Their Stilton cheese cake beckoned with its blurry blue lattices.

Love it. Notice that it was a slice of Stilton over the interior of whipped Stilton creameux that's layered with a brown hazelnut...I don't know what to call that. Skin? Those and some sable cookies with their home made jam. Nice! 👍🏼

Mui Kee (妹記) at their new spot in Shaw Centre

Mui Kee has relocated from their original location facing Pacific Plaza to the inside of the building (#03-09/10/11 Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road,  tel : +65 8940 3924). In the spot where Koal/Lemak Boys used to be.

Never noticed this before but there is a snow chrysanthemum red date tea which was pretty good.

Got ourselves a couple of things we liked from the previous visits like their kanpachi yu sheng.

And delicious pan fried bean curd skin.

Tried the dry threadfin belly noodle. One can choose the sauce so I got the beef brisket gravy - which disappointingly didn't flavour the bowl much. Fish was tender, crumbly and filled with a number of sharp bones I wasn't expecting. Liked that the texture of their noodles were thin and pretty wiry; unfortunately it also had the lye water flavour. I didn't dislike as a whole. It just wasn't as enjoyable as I was imagining.

Pig's trotter noodles from (New) MacPherson Minced Meat Noodles (麦波申肉脞麵)

Back to try the pig's trotter noodles from (New) MacPherson Minced Meat Noodles we noticed from the last times. Those trotters were pretty decent with relatively tender slip off the bone meat. Tenderness varied on different parts but I thought in general, more tender would have made them more impressive. It's too bad the braising flavour didn't permeate the meat as much or otherwise this would have been awesome.

A dinner at Ananda Bhavan

Getting dinner at Ananda Bhavan. Snacks, chaat and thosai.

I've been wanting to try banana baji for a while and haven't been successful. For one, I don't know much places to get them and the other reason would be that they don't seem to be available all the time. Finally got some here. These weren't so much bananas than they were plantains coated in gram flour and deep fried. There's no sweetness and the texture was like potato or yam. So not something like goreng pisang like I imagined.

Got a serving of podi idly. These rice cakes were freshly steamed. Piping hot and you could taste that they had just gotten off the steamer just recently. The podi wasn't as aromatic nor as exciting in flavour as those we've had in Podi & Poriyal, Komala Vilas, Murugan Idli Shop or MTR. Probably not the fairest of comparisons but it was what it was. 

Rava ghee masala thosai - yummy this one. Thanks to the ghee, the pancake was both crisp and buttery. Not to mention also the delicious array of chutneys on the side. Left one has mint and I think ginger. Love the orange one.

The dahi puri made it to our table last because of a couple of screw ups. They gave us a samosa chaat the first time which we had returned. The follow up was a dahi puri that had coriander which I had been explicit on their omission. Third time was fortunately a charm for them. Anyways, I love these things.

The avocado cream and the cheese donuts from J.Co

These couple of donuts caught our attention at the J.Co in City Square (Level 1, Lot J1-07 & 08 Johor Bahru City Square, 106 - 108 Jalan Wong Ah Fook, 80000 Johor Bahru). Never seen these ones before so we got them

The one with cheese was savoury. Even the cream inside was so. Not bad this one.

Avocado Dicaprio was sadly not avocado-y in any way. I wouldn't have been able to identify anything about it apart from the chocolate. It didn't taste bad though.