Italian Osteria X, Crawford Lane

Read about Italian Osteria X (#01-09, 463 Crawford Lane) and the quality food they serve at good prices. Allegedly. We were curious and wanted to find out.

Eatery's a one man show.

Ordered some salumi. Prosciutto, salami and coppa I think.

Not bad cold cuts. Pretty good eating with their bread Don't know what the dry crumbly hard cheese was though. Did not taste exactly like Parmigiano Reggiano. Proprietor doesn't know what cheese it was as well.

I don't know exactly what bread it was they did. It was served piping hot with pretty soft chewy innards. Tasted half baked. I liked it. But there wasn't enough to go around. Even after we asked for more.

Risotto Milanese has a few main flavours from their ingredients that's prominent. Saffron is the most obvious. Secondary to that is cheese/butter which provides the richness and salt in the stock for the rice. Following that is diced onions. Kinda easy to tell if any of those are inadequate. 

This one tasted like a saffron porridge, not so much risotto. Stock lacked robustness and salt. Not enough cheese or cream so it was also a little thin. Thinking about how much more enjoyable places like La Nonna, No Menu or the defunct Ristorante da Valentino makes theirs when I'm eating this one is symptomatic of how unsatisfied I am with the current, no?

Spaghetti Bolognese looked good. Flavour was livery which made me wonder if there was actual minced liver. What it lacked was salt from cheese. We asked about having more cheese and the proprietor mentioned something about cutting cost. Which is fair and fine and his right to do so. I would have preferred that he charged more and made it delicious than to scrimp over his most effective flavour agent used in cooking.

Re-revisiting Anjappar @ Race Course Road

Dinner at Anjappar (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六).

Rose milk was pretty sweet. That's the pink one and if anyone's actually wondering, it does taste like bandung. Sweet lassi appears to be the lesser of the evils.

Starter of tandoori prawns. Pretty good smokiness in the meaty prawns. Not bad.

Ordered their keema dosa because...keema.

But it did not contain keema. It's just curried mutton. Anjappar lied. Now we know. Chutneys were still good though.

Tandoori sea bass was decent. Not as smoky as I imagined but reasonably good eating with crisp on the skin and moist meat.

We had egg briyani. Basmati, not seeraga samba rice today. According to the menu, the spices and other flavouring in the rice comes from their mutton dum briyani. Couldn't tell if there was any difference between the rices apart from texture but both were deliciously savoury with a blanket of heat.

Hard boiled eggs beneath.

This was palak chicken...their spinach had texture that felt more hand chopped than machine blended. Loads of cream and maybe ghee/butter infusing it with a heart clogging richness. This was the closest resemblance to creamed spinach for a palak dish we ever had. 😬

Pistachio kunafa tiramisu from Sugar Mama Lah

Heard about the pistachio kunafa tiramisu from Sugar Mama Lah (Curbside Crafter, 730 North Bridge Road) and was curious if they were good.

Tasted kinda hollow. Flavour reminded me of hazelnut chocolate and there doesn't appear to be enough or any mascarpone in it. Also a little dry-ish. Now I know.

The one with the peanut sauce from No Ordinary Chicken

This was the peanut sauce topping at No Ordinary Chicken. Tasted exactly like satay sauce. Mildly spicy, and I mean really mild, some sweetness and pretty nutty. If they could find a way to keep the both the bird and the rice moist, it could have been pretty good. I prefer the shallot one from the last time.

Tori Sanwa (鶏三和), Great World

This Tori Sanwa experience (B1-K117 Great World, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, tel : +65 6219 1271) was a better one than the previous one at Raffles City. I don't normally do this but, kudos to the Chinese lady working there who exemplified good service attitude in spite of being swarmed. 👍🏼 That's over and above the bespectacled middle aged looking Chinese dude who behaved like he doesn't deserve a job there. 👎🏼

Chicken yakitori's actually pretty tasty. Meat was well grilled with some burnt ends and moist. Nicer than the ones from the neighbour that mostly sells yakitori. 😂

Wanted to try this...the oyakodon with mentaiko. Love the flavour infusion from the mentaiko into the bowl.

The other thing I was curious about were their Scotch eggs. It's obviously not the English variety and is wrapped in minced chicken. The surface was browned with a bit of chewiness and glazed with a savoury sweet tare. Not bad.

Pudding's not fantastic. Custard's not eggy.

Mahmud's Tandoor, Kandahar Street

I've been wanting to try the tandoori chicken burger from Mahmud's Tandoor (20 Kandahar Street, tel : +65 8849 9182).

Their tandoori chicken doesn't come from a tandoor. Would have been awesome if they were. These were oven baked.

Buns were really soft. Flavour profile with the mint/coriander yoghurt and sliced onions made it pretty classic tasting. Fries were decent but I'm not big on the masala powder.

Chicken's tender. All thigh meat. Nice flavour though it doesn't have the smokiness that would have been inherent if it had been cooked in an actual clay oven. No qualms coming back again though.

Not a fan of their chai peng slush. There's an oddish vanilla flavour flavour to the tea that tasted extra artificial.