Finalmente Gastronomia, Goldhill Plaza

All thing considered, I didn't find Finalmente Gastronomia (1 Goldhill Plaza, #01-47, tel : 6256 2149) impressive beyond the friendly service. While I couldn't fault the preparation of the food, they left me with little incentive to return. I wouldn't say that I'll be avoiding this place for good but for the prices that these guys were charging, I found the quality lacking.


The starter of their pork lion turned out to be just four slices of pork ham with spinach. Must have been a typo there. Also somewhat pricey for four slices of pork with dressing. We requested for additional toppings of ham and mushrooms for the 5 cheese pizza which only contained a slightest hint of the Gorgonzola cheese that was suppose to be in it. For a pizza with 5 cheeses, it really didn't taste that cheesy and was a letdown. The topping looked thin considering that it's suppose to be filled with cheeses and there was suppose to be more ham and mushrooms.

Adding on to the disappointment was the tricolore pizza which featureed porcini mushroom, rockets, truffle oil and an egg. Wasn't worth the $25 for something that didn't even had the slightest flavour of the truffle oil.


All the pizzas were made to order and took very little time to prepare. I'm wondering if that's a good thing. The speed of their service was commendable. Be prepared to pay restaurant prices for the food that's prepared - not by Italians chefs. Dessert was lacklustre as well for a ubiquitous flambé-d molten chocolate cake that costed more than what Borgo charged and didn't taste anywhere as good. I would not have minded paying a little more at Al Forno Trattoria just a short walk away. Those guys serve a very good quattro formaggi gnocchi that I discovered last month. The food there was definitely better.

Chicken House, Upper Thomson Road

This was an ad hoc decision to come down to Chicken House (255 Upper Thomson Road, tel : 6456 0698) which serves kampong chicken for lunch based on a recommendation by a friend who had eaten it before and felt that it was pretty good. I've been curious about the sallow-ish yellow hue on the skins of these birds. 

Well, the kampong chicken meat was pretty tender and that I couldn't see any fat beneath the skin. Beside that leanness, there wasn't that much of a difference from any other regular chickens. The health issues over the birds raised in supposedly traditional methods wasn't really an issue for me since I think it's probably just a marketing gimmick.

More circular sumptuousness...

I suppose it was inevitable that I returned to Circular Sumptuous Square for more of their mouthwatering greasy duck. To put things into some perspective, the duck here was delicious in the greasy fatty way which wasn't matched by places like Sin Sian Yuen down at Chong Pang or Jin Xing. Those were dry and more thickly sliced. That's not to say at all that the mentioned places weren't good. They were just different and tasty in their own ways especially if you liked your duck free of sauces and in chunky portions.

This time round, I passed on the rice and decided to give their noodles a shot. That had turned out to be a good call as those noodles here were springy with bite and delicious. No more rice for me here. The accompanying noodle sauce was just okay. It was the chilli on the side that really elevated things. Personally, the texture of those noodles did it more than anything else.


We had some preserved mustard greens (mui choi or mei chai) which was pretty tasty. Served as a nice dish on the side to compliment to the main orders. Note to myself : This is something I could consider again the next time.

Ya Kwang revisited

Man, this sure was a good one down at Ya Kwang Dai Pai Dong (Ya Kwang Eating House, 709 Geylang Road, Lorong 37, tel : 6747 663). I was surprised that on a Saturday night, there wasn't anything resembling insane queues or crowds outside this stall. This trip was a specific one to eat their seafood based noodles which the stall known for. And rightly so. That being said, there's also a bunch of other items made the consideration list as they looked inviting over the neighbouring tables.

Moving on to the lobster tang hoon. Price aside, this was seriously great stuff. The stock that infused those glass noodles was both sweet and savoury. The lobster was also fresh with their natural sweetness and had firm meat. There were some similarities with the crab tang hoon that I tried previously. The only difference between that this was probably just the shellfish.

The clam noodles, or also known as the la la mian from Ya Kwang was what most vongole pasta should've been. Locally. Where many have failed pathetically living up to. This one was loaded with meaty clams and garlic flavour. This plate was nicely accented by the bits of sliced chilli padi with noodles that soaked up the seriously drool inducing stock. So good that I was sure that I could easily take on a large portion by myself.

On the side we had an order of the Penang char kuey teow which looked like a phad thai and even tasted like one. Minus the crushed peanuts. Pretty decent and they were generous with the eggs. We had ordered this as a filler since the previous dishes didn't have the volume. There were a also some deep fried pig intestines call Da Chang Jing which were served like Peking ducks where one would wrap the fried intestines in some egg crepe along with a strip of cucumber and/or sprig of spring onion and then coat with a sweet brown sauce before eating. This wasn't bad at all. 

Biryani from a coffeeshop at Ang Mo Kio

This Indian food stall was located at Ik Wah coffee shop (Blk 252, Ang Mo Kio St 21). Not 10 minutes away from Hong Heng. Was quite good. Their biryani had sufficient fragrance from the spices in the rice that one could eat them on their own while the curried bone-in mutton was surprisingly tender. Would have been great if the meat portions were larger. I wouldn't mind having them again.

Kashmir, Race Course Road

The web page of Kashmir (52 Race Course Road, tel : 6293 6003) made a very confident claim that once one has visited the restaurant, said person will add them to their personal list of best restaurants in this country and will subsequently come back for more. I thought that was a rather bold statement. In retrospect I wouldn't dispute it. This was one of those restaurants where I left happy and telling myself that I would love to come back. Definitely not the first time that I've gotten such a feel about a restaurant. But I suppose that doesn't happen in many occasions.

We started off promisingly with some really good kabargah. This were lamb ribs that were boiled in milk and spices before getting the deep fried treatment. There wasn't a lot of meat for a $12 portion, but what was available was very nicely done. The dish retained the natural aroma the lamb and was quite tender to boot. I could have finished two portions of these easily by myself.

I was very impressed with this Afghani murg. Basically chicken that was marinated in almond paste, cream, ginger and garlic before being charcoal grilled on skewers. It was marked with very nice char on the surface and was surprisingly juicy inside. That robust char could almost be described as....beautiful. The portions felt a little too small though, but I would give two thumbs up to the chef.

We ordered their chilly cheese naan for novelty's sake. Turned out to be pretty good. The crumbly cheese that they used was unexpectedly light and each mouthful of the naan was accompanied by a burst of flavours of the bits of sliced green chillis.

The malai kofta was a mixed bag. Nice sweet creamy sauce of saffron and cashew that had something described as cheese dumplings. It was a mixed bag feeling because the gravy didn't taste very nutty or had much of the saffron flavour. But it was still good in its own ways especially as a dip for their naan. Those cheese dumplings didn't taste much like cheese. This one took the cake of being the weirdest tasting one with a texture that reminded me of sweet potatoes.

Known as 'Honeymoon' on the menu, this dessert was basically a gulab jamun served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Gulab jamuns were my first introductions to Indian desserts. I have thus become little wary of them since they were mostly too sweet. Adding vanilla ice cream seems to have oddly detracted from much of the sweetness. While it was still so, this was pretty good.

This would be the phirni, which was a steamed semolina dessert. The sliced almonds didn't so much enhance the flavour than the texture. Delicious as well. Pretty happy with the desserts.