B.R.O.T.H., Duxton Hill

Dinner with Junie and Lea. Nestled in the little urban jungle of Tanjong Pagar in the tree lined streets of Duxton Hill, sits a quaint little Australian restaurant within decades old colonial shophouses. Which many people probably doesn't even know exist. B.R.O.T.H. (21 Duxton Hill) is dressed in like a old English cottage. The place exudes a certain unique charm of the older world. Honestly, I like this place enough that I probably will want to come back again. It makes a very good place for a nice dinner date.

I was somewhat disappointed by the lackluster starters that this place offers. I should have listened to my inner voice and gone for the goose liver. Doh! Apart from this, the rest of dinner was enjoyable. The restaurant just needs to remember to get steak knives for steaks.

spinach & mushroom salad with raspberry dressing

crab cocktail with capsicum tomato relish & avocado

daily broth (clam chowder)

pork & anchovy fritters w/ apple, chilli & onion salad

The mains here actually looked more appealing to me than the starters. Running through, the only memorable item was the spinach & mushroom salad which I felt was a good light starter drizzled with a very nice raspberry dressing and topped with what I believe to be very fragrant fried shallots. The crab cocktail was quite disappointing as it wasn't really chilled nor warm. The meat lacked flavor and body and the accompanied dressing was boring. The clam chowder's decent with a generous amount of clams and carrots. The soup's flavor is a bit more on the milky side. The pork and anchovy fritters are just really normal fried balls of pork. I didn't taste anchovies and for $18, I really thought little of it.

lobster scallop, prawn and pork chop combo (off menu request)

Mr Dickson's macaroni baked w/ cauliflower and peas

fillet steak w/ blue cheese, crispy mushroom and shiraz

The macaroni's strange. It looks like a baked mash and it tasted more of potatoes and cheese than macaroni. I didn't detect any macaroni at all. Came with an nice crust with toasted cheese. The seafood and pork chops are pretty good too. There's not much to fault with the cooking. It's probably just the herb that didn't agree very well with me. The pork is otherwise exceptionally tender. The steak with blue cheese is, if you've guessed, good stuff. Pity that the photo doesn't bring that out. It arrived medium rare as I liked. The blue cheese was quite overwhelming in flavor and for me, it drowned out pretty much any other taste there. That includes any beefiness and the shiraz reduction.It was otherwise a very enjoyable tenderloin.

supernova pavlova with fruits and cream

sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce

The pavlova tastes better than it looks. It's a meringue with cream and fruits, however it's quite large. The sticky date pudding is recommended. This stuff is really fantastic. Maybe it's because it's been a while since I had warm butterscotch, but if you're thinking of desserts here, this is one warm cake to try.

Buckaroo, Andrews Avenue

If you're wondering where on earth is Andrews Avenue, it's one of the lanes off Sembawang Road.

The place (12B Andrews Avenue Singapore 759930) is BBQ and grill setup like Blooies with a much smaller menu and there wasn't any air conditioning. Floor was layered with rickety wooden floorboards and ventilation was by fan only. Food reminded me of Outback Steakhouse with their ribs and fried onions and steak and whathaveyous. I have mixed feelings about this place. The draw for me was that there's Hoegaarden on tab and there have Strongbow. It is secluded in a rather remote spot surrounded by private residences. Their food which came in pretty large portions here weren't what I would consider competitively priced. The ribs and fish & chips were passable in taste. Nothing exceptional.


Hefty's a good word to describe the fish & chips ($22.90). Was the largest single brick of fried fish in batter I've come across. Yes, brick. Not only was it clad with a thick batter, the fish on the inside was substantial too. For obvious reasons, it made one feel greasy at the end. I thought it was quite pricey.

Not likely to come back for various reasons. Inaccessibility would be one. The other being $93.30 for the above and 2 Hoegaardens. The experience just didn't justify what they charged. And I know of better/cheaper places for beer.

From the creators of Heartstoppers, comes a not so heart stopping entry...

I'm not a cook. In fact, I barely qualify as a regular person who has some cooking skills. The same can be said for my brother, so when there's things in the fridge and we want to eat something, we just make do with what we have at disposal. This time round, it's an omelette of sorts with ham and feta cheese. Yep, feta cheese. 2 eggs, a few cubes of feta cheese and bits of ham. We use a mini frying pan (pre-heated) because they're easier to clean. You can also pre-fry the bits of ham on the pan to oil the base.

It starts to cook from here. The eggs can be or not beaten. It's really your call.

Do note that if you're using a tiny pan, 2 eggs pretty much fill it up. Because of the volume of the contents, the insides tend to cook slower so what you can do is lift up the edges of the cooked egg and let the runny parts spill over and get their turn on the hot pan. Doesn't take a lot of skill to do that.

Of course there reaches a point, where you have to flip the omelette to cook the topside. With a small pan like that, you would need acrobatic precision. Otherwise, I prefer to use a plate to transfer, then flip it back onto the pan from the plate. It's really a non-dexterous solution that non cooking people think of. Not rocket science.

This is where I say "Tada!!!"

Feta cheese melted in the omelette tastes like a strong cream cheese, so there's nothing weird or unpleasant about it. It adds quite a bit of cheesy flavor to the omelette which if you have noticed, does not come prescribed with salt from my instructions. The cheese and ham is really enough sodium. It'll probably do better with some pepper, sliced mushrooms and diced tomatos, but I didn't have those and it would have been much more trouble.

Another monster burger...

It had a real bacon in it, armoured in cheese.


The first few blows of the fray already drew blood....plenty of it.


12 ounces of solid dense beefy patty took time to whittle down...


I was almost drained in mid battle...

The Texas burger from Seah Street Deli. Sans the smoked hickory bbq sauce. Why? Because I generally don't like bbq sauce. That's why.

All the time, I couldn't think of another word but compact & dense to describe it. The feeling was like eating a solid piece of steak between the bread. And no, I didn't finish the fries. I slaughtered myself a grand victory of two fries and that's it. Probably due to the nachos and peanut shake I had while waiting. Talking about shakes, Seah Street Deli has pretty pricey ones. I don't know why they think a couple of scoops of ice cream and milk is worth $10, but it sure as hell ain't special in any sense. For a dollar top up, you get the extra thick option which isn't even as good as those at Billy Bombers. Lacks viscosity for something that is described as extra thick. For a $11 shake, I honestly expected better. Shame on them. But now I don't have to imagine what a peanut shake taste like.

Ma Maison, Central

Clark Quay Central, located just above Clark Quay MRT station is peppered with Japanese eateries. I noticed a couple of Waraku outlets in the mall, the interesting looking Tom Ton and the recently hype laden Marutama Ramen with their ridiculous queue. It's been some time since I last ate at Ma Maison and despite being packed, it looked like there was space for a couple of more seatings. I've had some good memories from this restaurant that serves Japanese styled western food enclosed in country furnishing with accompanying English tablecloth and tarnished crockery.

Ma Mason has a pretty good Plate Lunch set for $23.50++. There is soup, salad, bread (with butter and jam), a hamburg steak with omu rice and spaghetti (very well done), a drink and ice cream. I don't know if there's a better description for the works because it is pretty damn heavy for lunch.


The lunch is obviously carb heavy and if you should ever need to keep your eyelids up, you have been warned. What was great was that they did excellent spaghetti if you like them al dente. I've lost count of numerous instances of soggy noodles in restaruants. The omu rice was simply comfort food. Mouth watering "feel good" meal without fuss.  The hamburg was cooked well done. It was good anyway with the sauce and egg.

Peri Peri Prawns from Fish & Co

It looked pretty on the plate and did not taste too bad. The prawns have always been a tad dry in Fish & Co. The rice used to be better. The peri peri part of the name here refers to the sauce that accompanies the prawn which didn't turn out to be as invigoratingly spicy as I had imagined. They could do with more generosity with their lemon butter which I much prefer over the peri peri sauce. I got hungry a couple of hours after this. It's safer at Fish & Co for me at least, to just stick to fish and chips and the seafood platter for 2.