Etna, first quarter 2025

It's been a couple of years since we were last here at Etna (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一).

Their Angus beef carpaccio was moreish - salted umami and earthiness coming from thin slices of brown mushroom and shaven Parmigiano Reggiano. Layered on, were some shaven black truffle. The majority of the truffle flavour came from the oil though. There's something crunchy in there...maybe salt flakes. One of the more memorable carpaccio we've had in a while.

Pizza umbricella - topped with mozzarella, stracciatella, prosciutto cotto and shaven black truffle.

The pie was loaded with ingredients. Plenty of ham and milky richness from the cheeses. Crust couldn't hold up with the weight of toppings. Cornicione was a bit dense. But otherwise, not bad.

Special of the week was a blueberry risotto; with a light Gorgonzola sauce, marinated shallots and breadcrumbs. Love how much blueberry was infused into the rice with just a mild sweetness and a bit of berry tanginess while keeping it savoury as well. 👍🏼

Pistachio tiramisu to end.

Kheng Nam Lee Teochew Porridge, Havelock Road

Just for posterity I suppose, a post on Kheng Nam Lee Teochew Porridge (715 Havelock Road). By the time this is published, the would have had wounded up their business for at least a couple of weeks.

Will not be going into specifics of the food except for a couple of dishes. Like this fermented bean minced pork, which was memorably creamy and salty and awesome pairing with white rice. I guess I will miss this from them.

We have only eaten here maybe 3-4 times in the past decade. The food's been enjoyable. Never blogged it. What didn't sit well were the prices. There's no visibility to how the dishes were charged and it appeared to be pretty random.

It's usually pretty pricey for Teochew porridge and it's not difficult to get something similar with decent to good quality around the vicinity that is less expensive.

But since they've ended the business, this post would be a record that we once ate here, did not think badly of the food but balked at their prices.

The other thing we liked and found exceptional was their cai por (pickled radish) omelette.

Today was $19. Cheaper than how much we normally pay for a meal here. Don't know why was that so. Don't really care.

Mee Kia from No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle

We were second in line today about five minutes before the opening time at No. 25 Minced Meat Noodle.

Got the mee kia. Noodle texture was okay. Something about the bowl of noodles wasn't the same.

What's different was the saucing. Tasted different from the previous times. There appeared to be a caramel-y flavour of dark soy sauce (黑酱油) which I've never detected previously in the noodles.

NKS Indian Muslim Food, Circuit Road

Random find at an area I'm normally never at (18B Circuit Road). NKS is apparently a chain of Indian Muslim food that has a number of locations scattered across the island. This was a fried chicken briyani at $7 which came with a pretty tender re-fried chicken thigh, a hard boiled egg, some cabbage poriyal and some lightly pickled achar underneath that papadum. Decent eat in hearty portions at a reasonable price without comparisons made.

More food from Umar Ali Cafe

Another compilation of eats from Umar Ali Cafe.

There's ghee prata on menu. They obliged with my request to add banana after a baffled look from the guy taking the order. Not bad tasting. Wished there was a bit more of that ghee flavour but I couldn't complain.

Loaded up on some Indian rojak. Definitely not the standards that one can find at Tekka Food Centre. 

A couple of weeks later......

Came over for some appam which are available only in the morning. These appams were surprisingly light.

The one with banana was delicious. Largely because of the type of banana they were using which softened from the heat into something tangy sweet nicely, just like goreng pisang.

The other appam was had ghee drizzled over. With some sprinkles of sugar, it was deliciously sweet and buttery.

Sausage and egg prata uses the same fried cheap hot dog as their Indian rojak as I suspected. The sausage was sliced and scattered over the prata with the egg before hopping on the griddle. Came with a mutton-y dalcha and fish curry. I asked them for a dollop of coconut chutney. Never noticed that the dalcha has daikon before.

Some time later......

Roti banjir special. A couple of prata kosong in doused in a mixture of dalcha and fish curry and topped with a couple of sunny side ups. Nice! Better tasting rendition than the one previously from the defunct ABC Food Corner.

There and back again......

Here's their kuey teow combo. Combo in mamak refers to the addition of cheese fries and red sauce mutton on top of the goreng-ed carb of choice. This one was a decent tasting combo plate. Those crinkle cut fries were not over-fried and dried out. Too bad about the dry hard mutton.

We wanted to do better than their usual menu nasi goreng so we got a nasi goreng ikan bilis with keema. The fried rice was light - fluffy even with loose grains and no excessive oil. With the keema, there was an infusion of flavour from mutton. Nice.

Cheese prata has that square of cheese right in the middle. The edges without are a showcase of their kosong which in my opinion is old school bready and nice. Otherwise surpassed by the double cheese version from Prata Saga Sambal Berlada.

Double egg prata is more satisfying than the single egg ones.

威胜碳烤烧腊, Ubi

Pretty good roast meats from 威胜碳烤烧腊 (Wong Poh Kopitiam, 3004 Ubi Ave 3). Both meats were adequately moist and arguably tender. Roast pork was layered with a crunchy crackling while the duck had a thin layer of fat beneath for flavour. Nice. This was just next door to Wan Li Xiang Chicken Rice.