Mr. Bucket Chocolaterie, Dempsey Road

They're (#01-03/04, 13 Dempsey Road) apparently a chocolatier that has started incorporating chocolate into their food so we were here to try them.

That's the Chocolate BLT. What intrigued me was the 45% milk chocolate mascarpone which turned out to be really good. Sadly, the beef bacon was no good at all - it was tough, chewy and sinewy. Some parts weren't edible. Pretty sure it would have been much better with regular bacon but the food's Muslim friendly so that's never happening.

There's steak frites with 72% dark chocolate peppercorn sauce. Kitchen has obviously little experience with plating. Sauce appeared to be watery because of the juices from the meat. Meat's edible, not great quality and also had some chewy unswallowable parts. Adequately salted though. The fries were the best tasting things on the plate.

Was nice of them to oblige when we asked for more sauce because there was barely enough to taste. It's creamy, not bad tasting but also neither memorable nor dark chocolate-y. Felt more like milk chocolate without much discernible pepper.

Pan seared duck breast with chilli cocoa powder was mediocre. I'm not sure what's their definitely of sear because I wasn't tasting any of it on the duck.

Meat was lean and had a powdery feel to them. There's little to no fat under the skin and that skin was very chewy. There were bits of silver skin in them. Apricot gastrique on the side didn't taste bad. Reminded me more than a little of tamarind but I didn't think it worked with the chilli cocoa powder.

Quite a bit of stuff we couldn't chew and/or swallow.

Chocolate's not bad though. We were offered samples and ended buying some.

Another dessert idea at HaiDiLao (海底捞)

White fungus and their tau huay from their dessert station. The former's hot and latter is cold so you kinda are still going get that hot and cold with a fresh bowl.

An egg briyani and a disappointing gobi 65 from Junior Kuppanna

Came back to Junior Kuppanna for an egg briyani and a gobi 65 on the side. Briyani's delicious. But the cauliflowers were subpar - not much like those crispy ones we had here the last time. The flavour did not change but the texture was mostly spongy. These tasted like they had been fried much earlier and all the crunch has gone. I'm guessing they were microwaved for serving. 👎🏼

Sushi Dorobo, Bugis Cube

Got wind of Sushi Dorobo (#03-17 Bugis Cube, 470 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 8344 2811) and was intrigued by their aburi engawa don which was a lunch only item on their menu.

It looked a lot more impressive as a picture on the menu.

The first thing that came to mind was that it wasn't as aburi-ed as I imagined. I was hoping that it would be smokier. But it's savoury and unctuous with melty fat. That egg layered a smooth richness while spikes of brininess from the ikura cut through with some character to the flavours.

The engawa was not quite as exquisite as Sakari Sushi but way better than the one from Tsukiji Sushi at Avenue K.

Revisiting Paradise Classic

Back at Paradise Classic for more of their "classic" zi char. Started with a pretty smoky braised bee hoon with assorted seafood. One could see those scorch marks in the noodles and also the gossamer of eggs from the decently done up 滑蛋 in the gravy. 

Egg with sliced bitter gourd. Competent, a little greasy.

Kung bao chicken was sadly disappointing. The flavour leaned towards tangy and was missing body - not so much sweet, dark and assertive with heat like how I like kung bao sauce. 

Rising heat and another single serving bowl from Gong Yuan Ma La Tang (宫源麻辣烫)

We upgraded the heat from 小辣 to 中辣 previously at Gong Yuan Ma La Tang because we enjoy a bit of heat and I mean...this was mala tang. Recently, the heat has been seriously cranked up. This was apparent even at Zhang Liang. Is there a 麻辣 association that I didn't know about cracking the whip on what's acceptable heat standards in the local shops. We're now settling for 小小辣 because it's already packing as much heat if not spicier than what the 中辣 used to. 🥵