Nanyang Fried Chicken Rice (南洋香脆雞), Hong Lim Food Centre

Came across Nanyang Fried Chicken Rice (#02-09 Hong Lim Food Center, 531A Upper Cross Street) at the unit where BurGrill used to be. Just right next door to Ah Fatt Handmade Fishball Noodle. Fried chicken's pretty decent with crunchy bits on the outside. Chicken rice was nicely flavoured but a little dry - would be awesome if they could improve on this taking cue from the veterans; those are not far from being good enough to eat on their own. Chilli's lime-y and bright. Ajitama with molten yolk's tender and infused with shoyu flavour. Not bad.

Sin Kian Heng Minced Meat Noodle (新建興肉脞面), Sin Ming

I've been wanting to try the bak chor mee at Sin Kian Heng (Gourmet Street Coffeeshop, 22 Sin Ming Road) since hearing about them. Took a while but it finally happened. They're a league of their own with a flavour profile that isn't unfamiliar but also distinctively different from most of not all of their competitors. That I know of at least.

This was a bowl of mee pok with added on pork trotters and sweet intestines/chitterlings/粉肠. The former's mostly skin, fat and gelatinous/collagen-y bits which you could slurp off the bone and the latter's stewed till tender. This bowl was saucy, heavy and intense. What they also do have that other bak chor mee doesn't are fried fish balls. Those tasted freshly fried and were delicious. 

Base flavour profile had a bit of heat, was mostly savoury, a little lard-y and I thought I detected vinegar. The chilli/soya sauce on the side's pretty potent. Lip burning potent with a hit of garlic. Nice.  

Revisiting Kalam Restaurant

Back at Kalam Restaurant. Couldn't resist getting a serving of their Mangalore buns for a start. These banana flavoured hum chim pang. I figured out a good combination here - with a generous pinch of the grated coconut/jaggery and a spoonful of the coconut chutney.

Paneer briyani - portion easily feeds two. Nice warm spices, including cumin and a bit of heat in there. Not heavy handed on the salt here. There's bits of stuff in the rice that looked suspiciously like coriander. Didn't expect fried onions but no complains. Just wished there was more paneer. Came with some delicious korma (refillable apparently) and raita on the side. The orange stuff's kesari - lightly sweet and buttery but a little dry.

Prawn tikka was kinda forgettable. Prawns were a little small and we've had more compelling tikkas.

Thanos juice. Just kidding. 😬 It's blueberry lassi. I couldn't tell if it's real blueberries or some concentrate/cordial inside but the flavour of those berries weren't shy and the lassi was sweeter than I normally prefer.

A McGriddling experience with McD

It's true. McGriddles are back. Ordered this via app and they gave me a McMuffin Stack. I went back to change with the order slip and the first thing the auntie told me was "对啊, Muffin Stack". 😳 Strike one for McD's quality control. Anyways I told her it states McGriddle. I can attribute the error to 老花. She then went to a supervisor who promptly looked at the order and the slip and said to me "Correct, this is the stack." 😳 I told her it's a McGriddle on the order and not a McMuffin. Strike two for McD's quality control. Two layers of verification in the morning have failed to correctly identify a single incorrect order. 😓

Anyways, what I really wanted to bring up was that they took the McMuffin and dumped into the bin and gave me my order. I think - the least they could have done was to ask me if I still wanted it before wasting food and shame on McD for not making an attempt not to waste food.

Authentic Chai Chee Bak Chor Mee, Potong Pasir

I don't really know much about this stall (120 Potong Pasir Ave 1) but the name was familiar and it was mediocre experience. Mostly because the mee pok was overcooked and too soft which pretty much ruined it. That and the lye flavour in the noodles as well. Decent sambal and soft, almost stale lard included. I left half of it unfinished.

Soup which was spruced with rendered lard, couple meatballs, a dumpling and some minced pork was drinkable. The ingredients weren't exactly generous. There's bits of 芹菜 in it which I didn't like. As I said, a mediocre experience.

One last plate from Twelve Hainanese Chicken Rice

From what I read,  Twelve Hainanese Chicken Rice will be closing for good at Jalan Kukoh due to rental issues they're facing. Which is a pity since they're decent. But not so much with how they chopped the chicken though. 😬 Quite a bit of bone fragments in there. Otherwise another decent stall bites the dust.