Some loot from the Japanese Food Festival

You didn't think that I had visited the Japanese Food Festival without buying anything did you?

sabazushi roll

sabazushi roll with konbu kelp

mixed fried seafood (scallops, smelt and squid)

squid in sauce filled with eggs

smoked squid

fish soup bags

Ah Chew's Desserts, Liang Seah Street

So far, I have been here twice in the span of a few days. I noticed that this shop (1 Liang Seah Street, 01-11) stays crowded well past 10pm. There's a bunch of Cantonese desserts including some variants which I have not seen elsewhere like green bean soup with seaweeds and steamed milk egg with hashima. Those options, no doubt piqued my interest at Ah Chew's.

I've also found a new favourite. It's papaya boiled in fresh milk and these things tasted pretty awesome served hot. The fruit was boiled in the milk to the point that they are soft and basically breaks apart easily in the mouth, allwith the nice aroma of hot milk. I had expected their steamed milk egg to with red beans to contain the beans within the steamed egg itself, but apparently, the beans are just heaped on top of the eggs. It wasn't too bad, but the red beans didn't taste as good as azuki beans. The coffee flavored steamed milk eggs was a first for me too and surprising the coffee flavour weren't as weak as I had expected. There was enough of it to mask the egginess in the pudding. I've a feeling that I'll be back again.

Hawaiian papaya boiled in fresh milk

steamed milk egg with red bean

coffee flavored steamed milk egg

Lai Lai Family Restaurant, 20 Liang Seah Street

Though it says Lai Lai Family Restaurant, the Chinese name of this Taiwanese eatery actually reads 'Lai Lai braised beef noodles'. And a pretty good braised beef noodles this place did. The specialty of this shop is apparently Taiwanese beef noodles and the service staff here were real Taiwanese. Having never been to Taiwan, I had no idea how it stacked against the original beef noodles from the country but I found myself liking the ones served here. Then again, localisation improves on the original in some instances for me. I'm referring to their lu rou fan, a Taiwanese dish which by name describes 'braised meat rice'. That name is a little misleading because the original dish usually contains just rice drenched in a fragrant braised meat gravy with no meat at all.

The ones here are served with braised pork belly.

Lai Lai has various options for noodle type in their noodles. One gets to choose between Taiwanese noodles, glass noodles, kuey teow and potato noodles. I haven't a clue what are potato noodles,but I would presume that they are made with potato flour. One can opt to top up with beef tendons and additional meat. There's a choice for portion size and whether one prefers the dry or the soup variety.

This was a first visit. We grabbed the small bowl of soup Taiwanese noodles; which were thick noodles with a chewy consistency similar udon. Came in a broth that was spicy and savoury. Which was coincidentally what we were looking for in the recent cool weather. The braised egg in the bowl had mild herbal aroma like the tea eggs. As a whole, the flavours were spicy and clean. I thought it was pretty good.


And this would be the abovementioned lu rou fan. Rice with braised pork belly and its gravy. Would have been one step from close to perfect if there weren't those sprigs of coriander in them but they were easily removed. What I liked about the braised pork belly were the flavour from the stewing and the soft fat. There's the use of the starchier short grain rice which by its own was sweeter. Served hot with these braised pork toppings, it was a "lethal" combination of comfort food.


This was braised intestines. Pretty similar to what one can find from kuey chap stalls. They were served piping hot with texture that was tender and chewy. I'm thinking that these here were way better than what we've had from kuey chap places. Worth a try if you're one for offal. Will get them them again the next time.


Another side dish from the menu was the braised pork ribs. I'm not normally into Chinese herbal stuff but I have to admit that these ribs with easily slurped off the bone meat were pretty tasty. The starchy sauce was unremarkable, I was just glad the herbal part wasn't overpowering.

Have a 'rock melon' break!

It's been quite some time since I had one of these things. They are actually some limited edition flavour of Kit Kat from Hokkaido. And yes, it is rock melon flavoured as illustrated on the box. Upon unwrapping the foil, one can actually catch a whiff of the light drifty aroma of rock melon. The taste of the wafers were lightly accented with the said rock melon flavour. Noticeable but wasn't overwhelming. Pretty interesting. I wonder if it is just coincidence that I'm getting these rock melon flavoured stuff at this time of the year or is it because the season has brought forth a tide of such items. I had received some rock melon jellies about this time last year.

Half time at the Japanese Food Festival with the sabazushi

The Japanese Food Festival at Isetan Scotts this time round seems to be smaller in scale in terms of what is available but it still is attracting its usual crowd. I grabbed a box of sabazushi for a snack before bracing myself to head back into the crowd to check out the other offerings. The sabazushi is apparently a salted and vinegar marinated slab of mackerel fillet over a roll of vinegared rice. Both the mackerel and the rice are pressed into a bar shaped roll of sorts and then sliced. The slices were pretty thick and this stuff is very enjoyable. The taste of the fish is fatty, atypical of mackerel and each slice of the fish is accompanied by a thick wad of sticky comforting rice. What makes it appetizing is obviously the vinegar which really helps and makes you want to wolf more of them down. If you're considering this, the fair ends on Monday, 17th December. I'm probably going to be down to pick up more of this before it ends.


I also decided to pick up a white bean wafer which they called Yoshifuku Monaka for $3.30 a piece which turned out to be quite unimpressive. My decision to try the wafers was due to the fact that it was a white bean rather than the usual red bean variety. In the end, the taste of the custard-like bean filling was merely sweet without much of an aroma. I wonder if it's because of the sabazushi that I ate before.

There is no marrow in the walnut

If you're seeking the bottom line without having to negotiate the mire of my convoluted grammar, I was disappointed by the dinner at La Noce (3 Chu Lin Road). Disappointments happen because expectations surpass reality. And little things add up. No offence intended to the good chef Salvatore Catalano and his crew - the service was good and well appreciated. But for what they were charging, the food here definitely has ways to go. Good service doesn't quite make up for everything. It wasn't that we came in expecting flawless culinary execution of the highest level. In fact, I thought we had very grounded expectations.


The menu was pretty straightforward. Mostly "run of the mill" range of antipasti, pasta, meats and dessert. There was also pizza which wasn't listed in the menu and small list of weekly specials. One of which was a ravioli with white truffle stuffing which didn't quite turn out as it sounded.

prosciutto e melone ($18)

The 18 month Parma ham with melon was atypical. The ham had a velvet-like in texture (which I liked) but otherwise, not much noteworthy. The melon didn't taste sweet to me and wasn't juicy.

ravioli with white truffle stuffing ($24)

The waiter had, when asked, insisted that the ravioli was stuffed only with white truffles and we were knew that it could not be true because it cost $24. After the first ravioli, we were beyond certain. While I did not reasonably expect the waiter's claim to be true, it was the insistence on their part that unsettled me. If you wanted to know, there was a bit of shaven white truffles on the top of the ravioli and there was a hint of the flavour from the them. Otherwise, it was a creamy cheese sauce and I was quite sure that the stuffings, if it included any white truffle at all, was mostly cheese.

grilled lamb rack

This grilled lamb rack was pretty good. Found it rather enjoyable and it was probably the best thing served tonight. Despite the meat being a little dry, the doneness was good and there was natural flavour of lamb with a nice rosemary aroma on the surface. I still think that the charcoal grilled ones from Kazu are superior, but these here were definitely more meaty. If there was anything I would recommend from what we had, it would be this.

grilled tenderloin ($36)

This beef tenderloin was actually a replacement dish after the restaurant failed a total of three attempts to do an ossobuco for two persons. That beef tenderloin was competent if unexceptional. A proper medium rare but the meat wasn't juicy like we had hoped for. Back to the failed ossobuco which I wanted get off my system - it was redone twice. When it first arrived, I was shocked (yes, 'aghast' would be a an appropriate word too) at how hard the meat was when I first tried to prod it with my fork thinking that the fork was all I needed to eat it. I made  mention to the waiter and the dish was brought it back to the kitchen for a replacement. I wasn't sure if it was changed or merely redone but in the second round, the results were similar. The third attempt at the dish resulted in something that was rubbery and dry. Yeap, I said rubbery. The sauces look dried out from having being redone and the meat on the shank looked blistered. Definitely not something that one would expect of braised meat. And through it all, the waiter looked like he was totally ignorant of the fact that the meat was supposed to be tender and should be fork tender. The chef did personally apologise regarding the quality of the meat which we had graciously accepted, but a disappointment's a disappointment.

dessert platter ($30)

For $30, I didn't quite find this dessert platter enjoyable. We've had better tiramisu and our home made version was more enjoyable. I shit you not. The panna cotta was very ordinary and actually tasted better without the berry compote. Profiterole was ordinary and the pie which was supposedly a pine tart tasted like it only has custard filling.

I'm not sure if I'm ever coming back given the remote location and food.