Revisiting Ikkousha @ Chijmes

Back at Ikkousha. Here's the bonito tonkotsu bowl I mentioned previously.

Their Gold Fried Rice didn't look particularly golden. 😂 It's not bad tasting though. With some pepper and spicy takana/pickled mustard greens (which you can help yourself to), it noticeably improved in my opinion.

Sushi Zushi, Funan

Been wanting to come down to try Sushi Zushi (#02-01 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road) for a while. They're a casual sushi-ya and from what we've heard, decent quality made to order sushi and affordable prices. Which in retrospect is true. But truth like a gem has facets.

Tried a few temaki. A little disappointed that the one with aburi-ed engawa didn't have enough engawa flavour in spite of the melting fat because there wasn't enough engawa. The one with uni was not bad and I kinda also liked their tuna and cream cheese roll. The latter was rich with fatty tuna, cream cheese and avocado.

All in all, pretty happy with their sushi. The aburi-ed ones were delicious. Special mention goes to the engawa nigiri which was smoky and oily.

The reason why their prices are more affordable are partially because of the portion. In a "nice" sushi restaurant, the toppings are definitely more generous. Quality of the ingredients in those places will also be held to higher standards.

But this was much more affordable and less stuffy. Like I've said earlier, pretty happy with what we've had.

Will not mind coming back.

Back at Ming Kee Chicken Rice (明记鸡饭)

Been a long time since I last had chicken rice at Ming Kee (Kim San Leng Coffee Shop, #01-522, 511 Bishan Steet 13). Taste was like I remembered it. Great flavouring in the rice, tender chilled chicken, a nice burn from their chilli and fragrant dark soy sauce. But otherwise I'm getting the distinct impression that the single serving portion was noticeably smaller than in the past. Pretty sure of it. Seems like they've also done away with the plastic utensils.

Dishonesty and wastages at McDonald's

This was a random McGriddle I got because it's back on the menu. I've posted enough about them and wasn't intending to until the order mistake happened again and that kinda triggered me to just say something here about the prevalence of dishonesty and wastage at McDonald's. 

I'm pretty sure that whatever it is I wanted to talk about, doesn't just happen to me and it happens often.

In short, my McGriddle was processed incorrectly and I got a McMuffin. I wasn't paying attention at the unwrap and never realised until I took a bite of the McMuffin. After the exchange was done, I insisted that I'll keep the McMuffin with the bite and they insisted it was company policy and dumped it. Sounds familiar? I'm imagining that there'd be loads incorrect orders and wasted food by McDonalds every month.

Oh, the dishonesty part. The queue numbers for preparation and serving are time coded to meet KPIs. A large part of their KPIs for service are never met. They're just recorded as met for reporting purposes and that's why you sometimes never get your orders even though it shows that it's ready. It's ready as a record, just not for you.

Back at 928 Yishun Laksa after years...

It's been years since I had this. Tasted the same as I remembered. But I realised something which hasn't occured to me in the past even though I must have noticed it. The amount of crab stick in each bowl isn't even enough to make one crab stick.

Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar, Tras Street

We've been wanting to try Torasho Ramen & Charcoal Bar (32 Tras Street, tel : +65 6970 5055) for quite a while.

Finally got to do so recently. Food can be pretty pricey. Decent tasting but I wouldn't say it's great value for money.

These were their uni pillow. Sea urchin on seaweed topped with shiso flower. Each piece is...a little smaller than a one biter. Maybe 66-75% of a bite for me. Decent quality but wayyyy too small for $18 a pop.

Mapo ramen spiciness level 3. Heat packed much more punch than I imagined and I was glad we didn't shoot for a higher level. This was presumably the Japanese Chinese mapo gravy and didn't have much of the fermented bean flavour compared to the Chinese renditions. Not bad tasting as a whole but I'm not big on the texture of the noodles.

Tried their cold stupid ramen. In retrospect, I felt stupid paying $69 paying for this bowl which has a pretty predictable flavour profile of truffle oil and ikura that's kinda pervasive these days. Was the quality of this bowl exceptional? I did not think so. Seafood quality's decent and that's about all the good I could think of from it. Will never happen again.