Loo's Hainanese Curry Rice without curry

No curry or gravy this time round. This dredged memories of how I had pork chop rice at Loo's in my distant past. I was never much into their curry since then. The clean taste of just their five spice flavoured pork chop and rice sure took me back and fuelled nostalgia. Even though I'm pretty sure that pork chop today tasted a little different from before. I think this is going to be the way from now. Also trying their meatball (狮子头) for the first time. Tender and lots of chopped onions in it.

First breakfast of 2025

First meal of 2025. Familiar looking setup of fish soup and radish cake.

Sliced fish bee hoon from Wen Xin Fish Soup.

White radish cake from Unforgettable Carrot Cake.

Kopi from Modern Old School.

Sushiro from last Halloween until......

Another compilation of Sushiro (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九,十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五) eats.

Recently we've encountered added cheese to their sweet tamagoyaki nigiri. Adding cheese made it nicer...I'm almost reminded of cheesecake.

Lobster croquette - could get those crustacean-y flavour in the creamy centre. Okay tasting but was pretty greasy. Looked at the soak in the background.

I wonder why the sardine tempura nigiri aren't a regular item. I think they're not bad tasting.

The quality of their aburi engawa nigiri appears to have gone up somewhat. It's not longer that measly strip of fin these days. I hope they preserve this quality in quantity same moving forward. 

Pretty good shrimp tempura nigiri which had fresh tasting prawns. These were well fried to the point that the crispy tails could be eaten with ease.

Some cheesy fried mushroom wrap. Not bad tasting. Was freshly fried with a whole cap of mushroom inside. Tasted meaty.

Don't recall having had gindara nigiri before. This one was aburi shoyu gindara. Fish was chewier than the cooked variety and didn't particularly remind me of the flavour when it's cooked.

Not passing on the ankimo gunkan.

Yes we have gotten fries here. They aren't bad. Heh heh......

With winter comes shirako. Tempura-ed with ankake. Not bad but I don't know why they had to do this with so much grated ginger.

We were somewhat conned, once, with an order of shishamo tempura. The first fish was filled with plenty of roe. The rest of the fishes from the same plate had none. While I generally like them for their roe, I was actually ok with these without.

Amusingly named 'boss level scallop stack'...

Hokkaido squid tororo konbu. Squid was unexpectedly gummy which we didn't like. Couldn't make out anything distinctive with that tororo konbu. 

While this fried aji was suppose to be a nigiri, one could tell that not much care or follow up with its processing and presentation aligned with the intent. We ordered this for fried aji, not so much because we wanted a nigiri version as well so I guess we might all be looking at it the same way.

Their warabi mochi parfait has upgraded the waffle. It's now a sandwich with a thin layer of cream in the middle. Nice.

Ramen Keisuke Singapore, Changi Airport Terminal 2

I've been curious about this outpost of Keisuke (#03-15 Changi Airport Terminal 2, 60 Airport Boulevard, tel : +65 6225 2235) for a while now because their menu featured a bunch of non-regular items that aren't available in the rest of the chain - local flavoured noodles/ramen. Presumably these are included in this outlet because it is the airport and they're showcase of local flavours.

This was the bak kut teh ramen. Pork ribs were slide off the bone tender and I love those roasted garlic cloves they included. That was all I liked. The broth while identifiable as bak kut teh was thin, lacking complexity from the herb/spices and felt oily. It clearly identifies itself as an interpretation and not the actual. So for the record, the actual is better than the interpretation. Noodles were too soft for my liking.

Revisiting Anjappar @ Race Course Road

Back at Anjappar. Tried their mutton kothu parotta. Quite nice but pretty heavy with all the grease.

That's fish 65. First time getting one of these I believe. I don't know what fish was it. Texture was almost identical to Spanish mackerel but it did not taste like them.

Mixed fried noodles. Mixed because there's chicken, mutton and prawns in it. Not a bad one actually. The only thing I didn't like were the capsicum/bell peppers. Otherwise it's a straightforward, possibly soy based, savoury stir fried noodles with bits of egg and vegetables. We've just started venturing into these Chinese styled Indian fried noodles recently. Last ones were at Semolina and Tangra Chinese. So far it's been promising.

Couldn't resist finding out what their special ghee podi idly was about. While it's kinda self explanatory from the name, it wasn't exactly like I imagined it. I was thinking just idly soaked with ghee and covered with podi. While those were there, I didn't expect them to be cut up and tossed (stir fried?) with bits of sweet onion. Nice.

This ginger tea didn't have much of ginger flavour. Seems like this outlet isn't good with their teas.

亞忠燒臘 (Ah Zhong Roasted Delights), Maxwell Food Centre

We've noticed 亞忠燒臘 (#01-93 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street) over the past times we were eating at Maxwell. The one thing that had always been consistent was the queue in front of the stall. We decided to try a triple roast today with char siew, roast pork and duck. I requested 半肥瘦 for the char siew. When the proprietor brought my plate of roasts out, he remarked that 这个叉燒很够力. 😂

Which was true. I'd put this char siew in the same league as the one from Mei Mei Roast. Bitter sweet with a gummy surface and melty fats. Roast pork was tender with a crunchy crackling and the duck breast was pretty tender. I can understand this queue.

Pretty decent chicken claw noodles. One could taste their house recipe of spices in the braising sauce in those claws. Pretty easy to slurp off the bone and if you hadn't noticed, those claws were huge. This was just the $4 portion.