Jones the Grocer, Mandarin Gallery

Geez, this was so disappointing. 

I've generally been someone who's more into what I eat rather than the service that I get unless there was something I thought would be mention worthy. I had waited for about 20 minutes after getting the orders done before I realised that they might have not processed those orders. With the bulk of the kitchen doing preparation for food that didn't look like breakfast, I inquired and I saw a chit re-printed and sent to the kitchen. The person who had taken the order did not bother to explain. 

It took another staff with sufficient initiative to come over and apologized over the screw up and tell us that the kitchen was trying to get our food done with the greatest alacrity. Another 20 minutes crawled by before a server sauntered into the dining area, dropped toast off the plates onto the floor and then made a U turn back into the kitchen again.

 

The bacon felt soggy and the poached eggs were simply deflated. The latter was probably sloshed over onto the plates resulting in the vinegared water being soaked by the mushrooms making them sour as well. It was a wet and sour breakfast.

 

It seemed that latte art was not their forte as well. Not that I could see any heart put into it. Pun fully intended. If you like your coffee, I would suggest Oriole instead. They do a much more robust and fragrant piccolo latte. I feel money can be much better spent elsewhere for breakfast where it costs less and tastes better. On my way out, I sampled a piece of blue cheese over at the cheese shelves. It was the best thing I tasted from Jones the Grocer today.

Beer from a paper cup at the Hokkaido Fair

Yes, that cup on the right was all that I spent money on in this Hokkaido Fair at Isetan. After a few years of visiting them, things seem to have gotten old for me. A cold refreshing Sapporo was all I needed today from the heat.

Curry chicken at Jass Cafe

This is a little place tucked in the corner of the 3rd floor of Fusionopolis and we found out that they were serving curry chicken from some guy that was distributing copies of their menu. For $4.50, one gets a bowl of curry chicken with rice which did the job of filling up and awakening the z monster afterward. The curry looked on the surface to be pretty good, but upon tucking it, was discovered to be one that was a little thin, as opposed to the thicker and richer variety that I was hoping for.

Mexican Taco Bar, Kopitiam @ Plaza by the Park

This sure was disappointing. I've been hearing about this Mexican Taco Bar which was originally from Changi Business Park run by a Angeles Herrero who was formerly the executive chef for the American Embassy in Mexico. This outlet (Plaza By The Park, 51 Bras Basah Rd) is apparently a branch out from the original. 

Food was prepared as you ordered them. What I didn't quite trust was the metal trough things beside the pan which contained the meats that looked like they had been left there for quite a while. I couldn't help but think of the overly marinated stir fried beef from the Korean stalls in food courts. 

The only difference between the tortas and the tacos were that the former had refried beans spread over the bread when it was toasted. I'm not sure if it would have made much of a difference since they could hardly be discerned from the spiciness of the limp looking sauteed jalapenos & onion along with the chipotle sauce. The latter tasted like a spicy thousand island dressing. The Mexican fries were merely frozen crinkle cuts that had some spicy chilli powder sprinkled over. Beside being freshly prepared, nothing tasted exactly fresh. I'm not too sure what to make out of this but I'm never coming back.

More from dandelions...

This was an unplanned visit to Tampopo. We were walking by and glancing at the picture menus at the entrance of the restaurant and suddenly, we found ourselves seated and preparing to make our orders.

Was pleasantly surprised by the freshness of the minced fatty tuna of their negitoro don. Not that I've had a lot of them prior to this. The meat looked like it had been hand chopped to order just before it was served. It was still a little chilled and very fresh tasting on top of the warm rice.

This be their wafu steak. Looked and tasted much better than what was depicted on the menu. Meat was quite fatty but a little chewy in some pieces. The natural flavour of the beef was robust. This one is good for returns.

This plate of stir fried liver, chives and bean sprouts was so good with rice.

That's a light cheese chiffon cake. Ventured off from the usual scoop cake we usually get. The name would lead one to believe that this was a light cheesecake of sorts but there was no cheese in the cake nor the cream. There was grated Parmesan cheese at the top though. A little dry but was actually not too bad.

Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar, Gallery Hotel

The very first time I was introduced to Satsuma (1 Nanson Road, #01-10 / #02-10, The Gallery Hotel, tel : +65 6235 3565) some years back, I was with a friend who was into the finer appreciation of alcohol and we spent some hours in their shochu bar drinking with me trying to figure out the subtleties of the various potato and sugar based drink. I had guessed that most of those finer qualities of the distilled drink were lost to me, but I did notice that there was a dining room on the second floor which I would be interesting in coming back to because it was an izakaya styled place. A few years later today, I've finally visited. Yes, I sure took my time about it.

In retrospect, I've to say that I like this place. Service was polite and not pushy when it came to recommendations and there were definitely wait staff that knew the menu. The overall impression with an inevitable comparison to Kazu Sumiyaki was that, Satsuma was in possession of more finesse while the former was the smoky and laid back joint that was a closer fit to the depiction of a traditional Japanese izakaya place. Not that any of them were traditionally cheap as both locations met their respective price points rather competitively. Note that Kazu does have a more extensive menu as well.

chicken liver sashimi

chilled pork belly salad of sorts

We started off with some chilled chicken liver sashimi and what was described as pork belly in special sauce. To digress onto the point of special sauces, it's a personal peeve see them described as such. Who knows that "special" ingredients go into them? And with this particular one tasting very nutty, I would guess that it's another sesame based blend which was actually not bad in a very appetizing manner. It was all good with the varied textures of shredded crunchy vegetables and the chew of the pork belly strips.

This is the first time I'm trying those chicken liver sashimi and I was really wondering how they would be raw. The taste was unexpectedly for me, very much like the cooked one. Albeit, being raw did come with less of that livery taste and that the texture was smoother than fish.

beef wrapped golden mushroom

some call this oysters in pig blanket

grilled chicken skins

quail eggs in sliced pork

grilled ox tongue

grilled chicken hearts

scallops, prawns, bacon and foie gras...all on sticks

grilled shishamo

Heading into the kushiyaki, it was definitely some nicely grilled stuff that was churned from the kitchen. Notably, the juicy oysters wrapped in thinly sliced pork, greasy yet crispy chicken skins, nicely cooked quail eggs which didn't have overly dried yolk wrapped in more thin sliced pork, chewy ox tongues and nicely salted chicken heart, foie gras and egg filled shishamo.

mentaiko supageti

I haven't had real success with making my own mentaiko pasta. This one, in it's roe-ful goodness was definitely much better than my own. It was noticeably less spicy but was also creamier than the one down at Ma Maison which was additionally flavoured by bacon and onions. In its simplicity, one could taste more of the roe. The chilli powder helps a bit if you're looking to take spiciness up a notch or two.