Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant, Syed Alwi Road

Seems that Murugan Idli Shop has rebranded into Murugan Idli Veg. Restaurant (76 Syed Alwi Road). Their facade has become distinctively minimalist compared to the look of the shophouses along the stretch of the road. The restaurant was pretty much the same except for some minor changes in the menu. I think.

This curry leaves podi idli was new to me. Presumably, the green stuff coating the rice cake was powdered curry leaves if we're going by what they were calling it. Presumably also because I couldn't taste anything that reminded me of curry leaves. I'm getting the ghee and the podi but I'm not sure what else. It's delicious though.

Sweet sweet pongal. Glistening with ghee and tasted saffrony. I like this as much as the savoury one.

Today's ghee onion uttapam looked especially toasty and seemed to taste so compared to the previous time. Nice.

Couldn't resist the ghee podi idli.

And a freshly fried meduvadai that had a light crisp exterior and hot tender insides.

Nothing much has changed with the food at Murugan Idli. It's all still good. 

Mei Mei Roast (妹妹李记烧腊), Ubi

Wow, the roast meats from Mei Mei Roast (1st Stop Food Junction coffeeshop, Blk 3014 Ubi Road 1) was pretty darn good if a bit pricy for those portions. The dark char siew was properly caramelized with a honeyed sweetness, flavour from the charring and dissolve in your mouth fat. Duck breast was tender under that flavourful roasted skin. It was only after that I realized that the owner was the sister of the former owner of Kay Lee.

This was located at the same coffeeshop as one of the branches of Da Sheng Minced Pork Noodle.

Bakery 1946, Suntec

Bakery 1946 (#01-604/605, Suntec City Tower 3, 8 Temasek Boulevard) is from Korea. They opened up earlier in the middle of the year and seemed to have gotten attention for their vegetable/fruit shaped breads. These were from a couple of visits.

Got a bunch of stuff. The most memorable one being the garlic and cream cheese bread which was apart from being garlicky and filled with cream cheese, was also slightly sweet. Nice.

The corn shaped one which was mochi-like had cream cheese and corn inside. Not bad tasting.

 

Chestnut shaped one also had the same chewy mochi skin and was filled with sweet bean paste and bits of chestnut. Not bad tasting too.

Mugwort bread, also a mochi skin variety which was stuffed with red bean paste. Also pretty decent.

There's one shaped like an apple with little chunks of apple and also cream cheese. Apparently a signature of theirs. Those apples were way too sweet and the bread had an odd waxy texture. Didn't like it. Will not get this again.

Mango bingsu's not bad. The mango tasted...different. There was an aroma I wasn't familiar with in mangoes and they were pretty sour. The latter made them good pairing with the milk in the shaven ice and condensed milk though.

Found it odd that the mugwort latte's flavour reminded me of some Chinese herbal tea. That being said, I liked it.

The second time we were here, we noticed how icky things could get in the crowd. Some auntie let her kid run around, oblivious possibly but I rather believed turned a blind eye to the fact that he was touching various breads on display with his grubby bare hands. 😓

Breads brought out to cool can be stacked pretty low and close to the floor - those bakes a resting for all the dust billowing around whenever one of their staff was sweeping the floor. I'm now inclined to imagine that invisible patina whenever I look at them. 😓 

Carrot's another mochi skin bread. I'm not sure what the fillings were but I think it's some sort of cheese or custard with bits of carrot. Couldn't taste any carrot.

Twisted donut tasted like the old school fried ones.

Tried their K ginseng shake out of curiosity. Wasn't so much a shake than a ice blended sweet milk with ginseng flavour. Flavour unexpectedly grew on me. 😬

63 Laksa, Ghim Moh Food Centre

Had 63 Laksa (#01-20 Ghim Moh Food Centre, 20 Ghim Moh Road) for breakfast. Judging from the consistency of queue, they are a pretty popular stall. From what I read, the recipe is a "grandfather" edition and said grandfather used to operate along Sungei Road. 

I had a Sungei Road laksa many years back. First thoughts from then were the same as now; the broth doesn't have the thicker consistency of the more popular Katong styled laksa. What it has a lot of was dried shrimp flavour in a thinner broth. I like it.

Otah's decent, not very lemak tasting. Will pass on this the next time.

Back at Kai Duck

Been a while since we last ate at Kai Duck.

Chilled tomatoes with passionfruit. Previously, this dish was done with sesame sauce. We've also finally figured out the flavour of those jellied bits below the tomatoes - it's as far as we can tell, sour plum (酸梅). This change to passionfruit as topping definitely improved the dish. The words that came to mind to describe them were 'freshingly invigorating' from the sweet citrus tanginess.

Finally tried their roast duck. This was a half. Breast meat was pretty tender, much more so than the bony parts including the thighs which weren't as meaty. Crisp skin, thin layer of fat beneath and in a herbal marinate/sauce.

This was stir fried Chinese yam with sugar snap peas and stuffed morel. I got this because morels. Not a lot of them and their flavours weren't much in this dish. The stuffing was a pretty delicious prawn paste. Those Chinese yam had varied texture - some were slightly crunchy while others were like boiled potato.

Seafood fried rice tasted old school and smoky. Seafood actually consisted of just tobiko and pretty generous portions of prawn chunks. Even though it was a little more greasy than I usually prefer, we found ourselves shovelling spoonfuls after another. Not bad.

Bullseye thosai and putu mayam from Heaven's

Been a while since we've gotten something from Heaven's (#01-26 Ghim Moh Food Centre, 20 Ghim Moh Road). Breakfast crowd was bustling. Got a bullseye thosai which was basically their regular thosai plastered with a couple of sunny side ups. The pancake felt a little thin and less tangy than the stuff from Little India though.

Here's a serving of putu mayam for nostalgia. I don't know if I remembered it right but the noodles seemed a little more fine than those I had as a kid. Still tasted pretty much like how we remembered it.