Caffe Pralet, Eng Hoon Mansions

Have passed by Caffe Pralet (#01-04 Eng Hoon Mansions, 17 Eng Hoon Street, tel: +65 8318 0698) a number of times in the past and haven't noticed much about them until people started talking about their square donuts.

There're a bunch of flavours for those square donuts. This one was burnt butter honey glazed. What I discerned of the flavour, tasted somewhat like butterscotch. No fried bread taste to it as well. 

The pistachio and raspberry one looked good. Tasted nutty. That being said, it was also neither particularly aromatic nor distinctively pistachio.

Coffee was sad. Diluted, no body and not fragrant. Just sad.

玉光熟食物潮洲魚圓肉脞面, Kukoh 21 Food Centre

I've seen this stall (#01-05 Kukoh 21 Food Centre, 1 Jalan Kukoh) identified as Yu Guang Cooked Food Teochew Fishball Minced Meat Noodle or as Google does, Jade Light Noodles. They're next door to Twelve Hainanese Chicken Rice. What caught my attention was the tang hoon soup on their menu which seeded me the idea of getting a bak chor mee with tang hoon instead of the other noodles. Yes, it's my first bowl of bak chor tang hoon.

Chilli didn't pack much heat. Lots of vinegar in this bowl and otherwise, pretty run of the mill flavours and ingredients. It's not visible in the picture but there're slices of lean pork and a fish dumpling in there. Not a bad bowl with tang hoon.

Pig's organ noodle (猪什面) from Ri Tao Fu Teochew Pig's Organ Soup (日饕福潮洲猪什湯)

Just noticed that Ri Tao Fu Teochew Pig's Organ Soup has pig organ soup noodles which featured soft instant noodles - something I normally am not into. I didn't mind this one because the flavours of the broth were soaked into the noodles which kinda made up for the texture. Notice that even for the soup noodles, these guys were still generous with the cuts of meat/offal.

Note to self: Don't get the pork belly the next time. They aren't tender.

Sri Aachi Aappakadai, Chander Road

I knew that Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd has an other outlet and from what I could Google, there appeared to be more to the menu than what's available at the stall in Tekka Food Centre. So we came to Sri Aachi Aappakadai (45 Chander Road, tel : +65 8698 1317) for breakfast in hopes of getting some of those stuff that's not at Tekka Food Centre. Menu that can be found online and those at the shop (the pictures up on the walls are the menu) differs. Kinda.

The shop's right next door to Swaadhisht.  

There's podi idly. These were pre made and served out of a tupperware on order. Not bad tasting and also not the podi-est we've had but no complains here. Noticed that these had cumin. Love the sour in the rice cakes.

Pongal was a pretty big serving and not as flavourful as I was hoping for. Couldn't taste ghee in this. This rendition in terms of flavour was more akin to the one from M.M.H Tiffin Centre than say those from A2B Veg Restaurant or Komala Vilas.

Standards of their appam also differs compared to their stall at Tekka Food Centre. This one appeared more rustic and one couldn't help but also feel that food from latter location was handled with more finesse. I'm also not sure what happened with this cheese appam I got but most of it was room temperature except for the middle with melted cheese which was hot.

One of the menu pictures showed something called chicken masala dosa. We ordered it as such but noticed that it was billed as chicken kari dosa. Not much difference I would think between the two anyway. This was pretty good. Inside the rice floor pancakes were tender curried potatoes, egg and tender chunks of chicken. I thought I tasted ghee in this. Quite delicious with and without the chutneys.

Drips Bakery Café, Tiong Bahru

Have seen Drips (82 Tiong Poh Road, #01-05, tel : +65 6222 0400) around but never gotten anything from them until today after seeing their bakes.

I think this was a vodka mint hot chocolate. Surprisingly couldn't taste much of the vodka. Mint wasn't strong. Not very chocolate-y for a hot chocolate as well. 👎🏼

Their luncheon meat brioche was kinda nice.

Luncheon meat was thick and brioche was soft.

Noticed that Drips doesn't call their Black Forest a cake - which was kinda it because it doesn't have much actual cake in it. The description on their website "Indulgent French chocolate sponge soaked in cognac" was what I didn't understand. Did the copywriter even know what was being described?

Texturally, it differed from a traditional Black Forest cake because as I mentioned, not much of it was cake. The middle layer of white tasted of orange and was lightly gelatinous - I couldn't call it vanilla cream because it wasn't. Then there was a base of hazelnut chocolate with crispy bits. Not much of this Black Forest was actually like a regular Black Forest. Maybe the just the brandy soaked cherries.

I generally don't have anything against re-imaginations of classics but we couldn't finish it. This made me miss the ones at Corner Grill/Atout/Stuttgart.

The pears from the French Pear tart was not bad tasting. But I'm generally not big on tarts with such a high frangipane & pastry vs fruit ratio.

Paradise Dynasty, Vivocity

Its been a number of years since we last ate at Paradise Dynasty. Menu appears to have changed. We've been wanting to know for a while if they were anything like how we remembered them and ended up at the branch in VivoCity (1 HarbourFront Walk, #02-128 /130). Since some of the dishes we liked from the past were no longer on menu, we'd form our opinions based on what they have. 

Some fried rice with vegetables (鲜蔬炒饭). Better tasting than the eggless one from Din Tai Fung 😬. This had bits of something that might have been nai bai and spring onions. Lots of crunch. A little less oily and a bit more salt, it would have been awesome.

Mixed feelings over their mapo tofu. The flavour's nice - one could get the flavour from Sichuan peppercorn (花椒) and fermented black beans. Sauce was a little more watery than I was expecting and there seemed to be an underlying sweetness. Can't decide if I actually liked this or not.

I remember liking the foie gras xiao long bao (鹅肝小笼包) from them. Wanted to know if I still do while fully acknowledging that it's been at least a decade since the last time we had them. In retrospect, I did think that I remembered them tasting better in the past; and that these today don't taste the same. But I can never be sure. The ones we had today weren't bad though. Just not as impressive as what I thought I recalled of them. Confusing eh?

These layered cake (千层油糕) were definitely not in the same leagues as the ones from Nanjing Impressions. What we had here was nothing but a poor imitation of those. There was none of the flavour from the oil/lard as far as we could tell.