Kamala Restaurant, Buffalo Road

Kamala Restaurant (662 Buffalo Road, #01-16, tel : +65 6299 1144) used to be known as Sri Kamala Vilas. They rebranded years ago and I never realized that until the past couple of years. It's been that long since we last ate here. I'm venturing a guess that the shop had changed hands to its current owner which had decided to rebrand from Sri Kamala Vilas - a name which has been in this location for easily three decades. Just speculating.

Anywaysss, that's their rava thosai with ghee and egg. Latter's folded in the thosai. There's also curry leaves, peppercorn, bits of onion and shreds of carrot. The last of which was not something I expected to find. This was pretty peppery. Reminded me some of the pepper thosai from Al Mubin. Here I was just expecting literally just rava thosai with ghee and egg.

Tried their new garlic butter thosai because it sounded like it might be good. We were thinking just chopped garlic and butter toasted in the pastry. I mean...garlic and butter, what could go wrong?

Couldn't taste any butter. There appeared to some sort of garlicky sweet sambal in the thosai so it was also sweet and spicy on top of being garlicky. Did not expect this at all. Wouldn't say that I disliked it but wouldn't get it again because the sweetness had derailed an expectation looking forward to just garlic and butter.

Masala tea's milky, not creamy. A little more sweet than I prefer and the masala's a little thin. Note to self : Gotta siew dai it the next time.

Tampoi Ah B Wanton Noodles (淡杯阿B全蛋云吞面), Upper Boon Keng Road

Been hearing about Ah B Wanton Noodles (#01-22, 5 Upper Boon Keng Road) lately so decided to check them out. They're located in the same coffeeshop as Huong Pho. I was thinking that what I had looked different from pictures I've seen online. It was only when I was 2/3 though that I realized that I didn't get any fried lard in my bowl!

Anyways, this was the medium sized white bowl mee kia with chilli. Decent tasting overall with some lardiness and a nice bit of heat from their chilli sauce. Pretty obvious that their noodles were of a higher quality than the run of the mill. Had a nice bite and wasn't starchy or clumped together. Didn't think it was outright impressive as texture went. I'm gonna go with a not bad for this one.

Ordered a bowl of mala wanton on the side. Gotta say I enjoyed the mala sauce. Wanton stuffings were...pretty ordinary. The wrapping was soft and loose. The skins were tearing and sloughing off even when I tried to pick them up with a spoon. Char siew tasted just like how it looked.

Braised pork set from Tonkatsu by Ma Maison

I was lured into Tonkatsu by Ma Maison at Tiong Bahru Plaza by the picture on their menu ☝🏼.

The actual braised pork didn't look quite like the one on their ad. I was imagining sometime like kakuni or the rafute from Nirai Kanai.

Meat's relatively tender. Some cuts more than the others though as a whole, they weren't as much as I hoped they would be. Broth wasn't the sweet dark soy sauce/sake/mirin type. There's something in the flavour that was familiar which I couldn't put a finger to and that bugged me. I suspect it's ginger but I'm not sure. 🤔

Pork's pretty good with some mustard. 

Revisiting Kimukatsu

Back at Kimukatsu. Check out those radioactive green pickled daikon. ☢️

Tried the cheese one today. Couldn't tell what cheese it was but it was cheesy tasting. 😬 Wasn't bad but I'd rank the garlic flavoured one above this.

Had some kaki fry on the side. Oyster was delicious. Clean oyster flavour, meaty and moist under the crispy panko.

Not into their menchi katsu - they're made with a mixture of minced beef and pork and ended up tasting like neither. Will not get these again.

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! 👍🏼