Pithiviers and Wellingtons @ Gaston

Recent weekend lunch at Gaston.

Those above were Croquettes Bourguignonnes. The insides were smoked ham and Epoisse cheese. So what we had was a crunchy breading on the exterior and piping hot creaminess with stinky cheesiness inside. Nice!

Guinea fowl pithivier with foie gras, shaven black truffle & morels in vin jaune sauce. Nice, creamy and no kidding about the rich part. There were strips of bacon in the sauce as well and the puff pastry was buttery.

The venison wellington was an on board special. Like the pithivier, there was foie gras, shaven black truffle and also bacon with the sauce. Not forgetting buttery pastry as well. Sauce was a velvety richness...likely a reduction of sorts but fruity.

Re-visiting Surry Hills Grocer @ Raffles City

Getting some food at Surrey Hills Grocer at Raffles City.

Farm styled mushroom soup's not great. We've had more mushroomy ones at this price point. The sweet potato foam felt gimmicky because it's there, we're not sure how they work together and the flavour wasn't sufficiently intense that it left an impression. It felt like it was there because they wanted to be different.

Their Lao Gan Ma chee cheong fun did not look like much.

Turned out to be awesome. Those Lao Gan Ma roasted chilli added plenty of flavour, not to mention a measure of umami heat, into the creaminess of the sauce. 👍🏼

Mussels were okay. Garlicky broth was pretty decent too. Fell short of memorable and that's what we were looking/hoping for.

Dim Sum Club, Wheelock Place

Came across Dim Sum Club (B1-01 Wheelock Place, 501 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6263 9164) by chance. The spot they're at used to be a coffee place if I recall correctly.

Tea's nice. Smooth and creamy local rendition that's sweet but not excessively so.  

Pan fried yam cake (芋头糕). There's chunks of yam, lup cheong and mushrooms in it.

Curious pan fried kaya bao. They're okay I guess. The kaya fillings inside were not memorable and the skin wasn't the fresh and fluffy kind.

Truffle noodle with sunny side up. The one thing that bothered me some about it was the kee flavour in the noodles. While the saucing and the egg yolk help mask that, some still came through. Otherwise, pretty decent.

Steamed pork and salted egg yolk patty on rice. Nice. Rice was tender and moist. Kailan was tender and not fibrous.

Har gow had thick skin. Not the delicate wrapper we gravitate to. Wouldn't say that it's bad but also wouldn't be getting them if we ever came back.

Their red bean soup with tangerine peel had consistency like porridge and that tangerine peel flavour was adequate. There's some sago in it too. I like this.

'Kevin' in plain bagel from Two Men Bagel House

December special 'Kevin' from Two Men Bagel House ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十, 二十一, 二十二, 二十三, 二十四, 二十五, 二十六, 二十七, 二十八, 二十九). I know I mentioned MYOB the last time but the monthly special gave me a pass on that.

Their product shot looked a lot better though. Tasted the ham, roast beef, rockets, cranberry jelly, pistachio sage crumble. Pretty Christmas-y. I know the cheddar is buried in the melange of flavours and I'm not getting any of the whipped truffle butter at all.

Pretty sure I didn't get any truffle butter in there.

Recently at Tsui Wah (翠華)

From a recent visit to Tsui Wah.....

I've been curious about their scallion oil pork chop with triple egg rice for a while, telling myself that I'll never get it because...ginger. Tried it recently. Ginger flavour's not as strong as I thought. Still not into it but at least now I know. Definitely not bad tasting. It's just me.

There was a limited time chicken cordon bleu for December. Crunchy fried outsides and moist chicken with cheese. A little greasier than I imagined but not bad tasting as a whole. Those buns that came on the side were nicely buttered. I've mentioned before that I like their borscht and that little bowl that came with the set was a bonus!

Mashi no Mashi, Pickering Street

Mashi no Mashi (#01-42 Nankin Row, 3 Pickering Street, tel : +65 8957 8620) relocated from their previous location at Guoco Midtown to China Square. Place downsized physically from what looked to be a full restaurant to a ramen bar. The menu kinda went the same route and streamlined. I guess a few hard lessons were learnt there.

Some refreshing lemon soda water.

A la carte orders get a complimentary serving of of their charcoal grilled edamame. Wagyu fat is apparently involved. Most of the flavour is on the pods.

Something(s) has changed with their ultra wagyu bowl. I remember the broth being better. Beefier. I'm getting mushroom elements in the broth today. Like those from the gyukotsu bowl at Ramen Makotoya. Except that Ramen Makotoya did it better. Visually, one can already tell it has changed from their previous bowl.

The hard noodles weren't that hard as well. 😮‍💨 

There's a summer truffle bowl.

It's oddly a little sweet. Maybe it's the snow peas.

I decided not to continue putting up with the sweetness. One's made with Habanero and the other, Carolina Reaper. I recommend the latter if you enjoy heat. Instant scalp prickles. But it dragged the summer truffle bowl out of the annoying in the sweetness.

Their wagyu horumon featured offal in some sweet sauce that reminded me of those from bulgogi. I recognised tripe. There was another thing in there that was super chewy. I mean, super chewy.

This was Mr Mashi. Banana sherbet according to the menu with pecans and maple that tasted like ice cream rather than sherbet.