Ballsy?

So apparently, the local fast food joints of McD and Burger King are suddenly embroiled in some form of competition in an attempt to measure which has the larger e-peen in the form of their quad stacked patties in their burgers. Damn, didn't anyone notice how many 'in's I had used in the previous sentence? I was (being me) nonetheless intrigued despite somewhat knowing what to expect out of them and here's the supposedly ballsy option from BK which features 4 patties and their crappy turkey bacon slices. It didn't quite pack the satisfaction as the triple whopper did and it's probably because there wasn't any onions. Then again, the triple whopper didn't have so much cheese. They probably would have won McD hands down if they had used real bacon, but that aside, really, it's cheaper to just eat this. Doesn't take a lot of balls really.

Ristorante de Parma, Kensington Park Road

This post took a while to be completed due to other "pressing engagements" which I've had over the past fortnight. Heh. Anyways, this was a long overdue commentary on my visit to Ristorante de Parma (14B Kensington Park Road, Serangoon Garden Estate, tel : 6281 3380 / 6280 1096) at Serangoon Gardens. One of numerous outposts of Italian restaurants secluded amidst private housing estate which I've been hearing about and haven't had the chance to visit until now.


We started off with some pomodori al forno and a mixed mushroom soup with pine nuts. Despite being described as just tomato baked in the oven, it contained bits of minced crab meat inside and was topped with a bit of mozzarella cheese. The portions of the crab would have benefitted with more generosity. Mushroom soup was creamy, comforting and passed muster. I liked that those pine nuts added fragrance to the soup. Wouldn't have minded more of them.


Didn't personally find the selection for the mains very interesting (in the realm of my humble opinion at least) but we managed to try their 4 cheese tagliatelle and pizza di menzo. Not enough Gorgonzola in the sauce for the pasta. Your mileage may vary of course. Not much to say about the pizza except that it was decent, fairly meaty and was better than those back in Finalmente Gastronomia.


Their tiramisu was not bad despite the lack of alcohol in taste. This was possibly one of the better done I remember having. The dessert was creamy and moist, yet not overly so. It would have been great if I could taste the marsala wine. Was there masala wine even?

Screening Room, Ann Siang Road

I suppose I can say that I've found another place for pretty good steak down at the Screening Room (12 Ann Siang Road, tel : 6221 169) along Ann Siang Hill and it happens to be at a rather unsuspecting looking location that does proper restaurant food along with gastrobar snacks along with movie screening options to go with your food. It must be coincidence that a place like this is located within proximity to Les Bouchons and L'Angelus which serves very decent steaks as well.

What I'm talking about here were their wagyu new york strip and boneless ribeye (both at a decent 340g) from Australia. Admittedly, I had expected a little more flavor out of the cattle type that the meat is gleaned from and the servers weren't even informed of the meat marbling grade. Since it was suppose to be wagyu, I would presume the grading to be much lower than they had claimed, but it still didn't stop them from being the properly medium rare done hunks of juicy pieces of cow, professionally browned on the exterior without char while the insides remained prerequisitely pink and moist. Not that I mind a little bit of char at all for the fragrance.

Clean and straightforward with a little salad on the side with extra options for side orders which we then decided to go for the duck fat potato cake which was basically a hefty potato lump patty deep fried in duck fat and seemed to be infused with a very distinct flavor of rosemary. I'll say all these warrants a return in the future.

Natural cut fries from Carls Jr

Wow, Carls Jr now has these natural cut fries with skin on and they're actually not too bad. If you are wondering, it does taste different from the regular fries that other fast food places offer and that's in a good way. There seems to be more flavor in the mealy strips of potatoes compared to the flatter tasting regular shoestrings. It seems like I've found my favourite fast food french fries for now.

Some dinner stuff from Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐)

assorted vegetables and tau kwa strips

It's been quite a while. Possibly two years or more since I've last visited Din Tai Fung (290 Orchard Road, #B1-03 The Paragon, tel : 6836 8336) and the previous times were not at this particular outlet.

Most of the food were pretty much as I remembered them. I liked their vegetable and meat buns. More delicious when they're hot. I've discovered that the portions of meat to vegetables in those are 1 to 9. One of the things that I hadn't seen on menu before are the assorted vegetables with strips of those hard tau kwa which I liked. Their xiao long baos are still one of the better around.

the 90/10 vegetable and pork buns

xiao long bao

chilled drunken chicken

fried rice with pork chops

noodles....neat....kind of

braised beef noodles

Japanese sweet potato soup from Ah Chew

While down at Ah Chew for their papaya double boiled in milk we came across this dessert. It tasted just like most sweet potato soups with ginger. Except that it's Japanese sweet potatoes and they were less fibrous than the local variety. Unless I get a very specific craving for these, I don't think I'll be having them again.