Nong Geng Ji (农耕记), Great World

Nong Geng Ji is one of a few Hunan based restaurant that's mushroomed around the island in recent years. Like Xiang Xiang which we've had a few times before. This was from the branch at Great World (#01-115/116 Great World, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, tel : +65 6908 0347).

Metallic.

This bothered me. The block of solid fuel they used for their heaters was wrapped in plastic and they left the plastic wrapper and lit them up together. That's gotta be some level of residual toxicity if they keep doing that right?

Tried their big shrimp and vermicelli with garlic (蒜蓉大虾仁) which was steamed on serving. The server put a timer to return but that dude returned several times because he wasn't satisfied with the doneness. They need work on the SOP for the timing...hahaha.

A tad greasy and most of the flavour came from the garlic. Edible but not impressed. 

Their stir fried cauliflower (大碗有机花菜) was pretty good though. Those fragrant chunks of fried lard, sweet cloves of garlic and bits of chilli helped with that. Good with rice.

That's the stir fried beef with tea oil (茶油鲜炒牛肉). The dish had a flavour that we weren't familiar with and I'm guessing it's the tea oil. Dish packed a bit of heat and those green stuff tasted like celery. Meat wasn't fatty and was a little sinewy. Not impressed at all.

Bean curd skin & eggs (鲜腐皮焖鸡蛋) - not bad. Realized that we've had something similar at Xiang Xiang at Westgate so I'm kinda getting predictable with my choices.

Rice was much more enjoyable with the dishes than the vermicelli.

116 烧腊•麵, People's Park Food Centre

Chanced upon 116 烧腊•麵 (#01-1092 People’s Park Food Centre, 32 New Market Road) one evening and got a plate of triple roast rice. We were sure we've seen them almost every time we've been in this food centre and have never afforded them nothing more than a cursory glance.

Pretty decent plate of roast duck, roast pork and char siew. $10 for this one. Meats were arguably tender yet with a good bite to them with no melt in your mouth BS. I liked that the rice was moist and tender - unexpectedly great pairing with the garlicky chicken rice chilli which served as a counter to the richness of the proteins.

Double cheeseburgers, burritos and country fried steak from Muchachos

I read that Muchachos is closing sometime towards the end of July. Which is a pity because I kinda dug their California burrito and breakfast burrito - a couple of things they have on menu that didn't have coriander/cilantro. But we didn't head down today because they were closing. I wanted to try their cheeseburger which I've been meaning to for ages. Now that we have, I've shifted from that sense of pity to something akin to sadness that they're closing.

Because what they did was nice. Cheese, nice coarse beef patties, pickles and lettuce without excessive saucing.

They didn't do fancy which was kinda what I've been looking for. Was it coincidental that this reminded me of the burger at the defunct One Night Only and Muchachos was part of them? Maybe I'm over reading this.

Also tried their country fried steak which I've also been curious about for some time.

Meat's tender, well done and has a bit of beefiness underneath a crust that reminded me of fried chicken. Quite peppery. The one thing I thought could have been improved was their gravy. Would have liked it richer and less starchy.

A couple of weeks later......

I knew I would be missing these so we came back for them. In the event that Muchachos never re-emerges somewhere else in the future, we'd have these last memories of them.

The breakfast burrito with maple syrup no less.

And the California burrito with hot sauce.

Nasi lemak from Aziz Jaffar Muslim Food

Decent quality nasi lemak from Aziz Jaffar Muslim Food. Sweet and spicy sambal as per usual and savoury coconut rice which was adequately salted for flavour. Didn't find anything else particularly outstanding but I'd say they're an viable option for Malay styled nasi lemak at Chinatown's food centre if one has a hankering for a plate.

A recent bowl of mee pok from Liang Seng Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (樑成香菇肉脞麵)

So the auntie at the stall confirmed that they don't do Sundays anymore.

The Ceylonese Affair, Mei Ling Food Centre

Came across The Ceylonese Affair (#02-17 Mei Lin Food Centre, 159 Mei Chin Road) recently. The stall does only briyani and appam. 

It's actually not bad tasting. That being said, it was different from the more flavourful briyani that most of us might be used to. The rice was spiced but I'd call the flavour infusion gentle. 

This was their butter chicken briyani which featured their fried chicken with butter chicken sauce. Understandably, most of the flavour came from the sauce. Came with achar on the side. Those brown bits scattered on top were fried onions. Nice.