Our Food Story, Chinatown Point

Wasn't much of a story to be told here (Chinatown Point, Block 133 New Bridge Road, #01-01A) in this little restaurant attached to the Korean grocery joint down in Chinatown Point. The food might have been home styled but it left us little interest in returning. Let's see - their spicy tuna jigae was made from shredded canned tuna instead of pieces of the fish.

Couldn't find much redemption from that small portioned kimchi fried rice which packed the barest of flavour of kimchi. It looked like it was microwaved with some sliced cheese. Not that I was expecting a dizzying spread out of the banchan but they were quite forgettable and there wasn't any refills to speak of. I've had much better kimchi from Koufu at Toa Payoh Central.

So there you go, my food story.

Specials from Da Mario

Well, these didn't exactly look that special, but they were picked from the Specials section of their menu. Basically, a starter of scamoza cheese wrapped in some prosciutto crudo di Parma with a sprinkle of pepper and some rockets followed by egg tagliatelle with Porcini and shaven black truffles in a light cream sauce.

The choice of starter turned out to be the most satisfying for me since I had pretty much had a Warrior's diet for the day and the onrush of the salt from the milky curd cheese and ham was exactly what my body was craving for. The chewy cheese weren't the smoked variety and were probably just lightly pan fried with very little browning. Still things came together very nicely with the nutty ham for a great savory finish.

So, what did I think of the pasta? It was timely cooked, still had the hint of egg even though it was doused in the cream sauce loaded with various fungi. I did think that the flavors tonight could have been one of those good instances of a well balanced robustness, redolent of mushrooms instead of being excessive at that. It lingered with my burps even after a bottle of wine and a pint. Overall, was an enjoyable choice for my late impromptu dinner.

Pu Tien Restaurant, Marina Square

I had been wanting to give this place (6 Raffles Boulevard, #02-205 Marina Square, tel : +65 6336 4068) a try for the longest time now. Now that I have, I ended up with pretty mixed feelings about the restaurant. I did honestly find the food enjoyable in spite of the small portions for each serving. The wait staff like troopers, put up with an admirable plasticity to the incessant queries from the maddening queue on the statuses of the tables. What threw off a possibly good impression for a start was that we still had to wait for over half an hour despite having made reservations already.

If I were to be asked what I had liked about the food, I guess it would be pretty much everything was enjoyable except for the desserts. The sweet and sour pork was decently done and their signature fried bee hoon was probably a little bit overrated in my opinion. Still liked it though. Their sweet chilled seaweed and springy textured braised pig intestines (that looked like it was stuffed with more intestines) flavored in some Chinese wine more than made up it. Not to mention too, a very plate of fresh tasting fried Chinese mustard and their interesting rendition of what tasted like a stir fried sweet and sour century egg.

A pity about that pumpkin cream which was really drowned out by the coconut flavors and sweet potatoes that were suspiciously soft to the point that I didn't quite enjoy them. It didn't quite help that the ginger tea that was served along with them was more sugary than gingery. Didn't enjoy the lukewarm fried potato balls that was a tad greasy and floury tasting with the fillings neither.

And oh yeah, I did say that the bee hoon was overrated. I didn't say it was bad. Au contraire.

seaweed

Putien styled century egg

braised stuffed pig intestines

sweet and sour pork with lychee

stir fried Chinese mustard

fried "Hing Wa" bee hoon

pumpkin cream with ice cream

Japanese sweet potato

Javier's Rotisserie & Salad Bar, Orchard Cineleisure

This place (8 Grange Road, Cathay Cineleisure Orchard, #B1-03/04/05/K4 S239695) sure kindles me the memories of Ponderosa back in the day when they still graced these shores and I was but a mere kid. A lot of that kindling probably came from the layout of their salad bar and the selections they had. Not to mention that Javier's Rotisserie is run by the people from our local chain of pretty respectable steakhouses, Aston's, whose owner was formerly from Ponderosa. I wouldn't dispute that these were also the guys that lengthened the yardstick for the general masses on the quality of grilled beef on this island in the recent years since they've established themselves.

Mnemonic embers and the current history of plated bovine aside, the food was pretty decent. To simply put, one chooses a meat of choice and helps themselves over a spread of warm and cold salads. Rotisserie and salad bar. I found the beef nicely done, enjoyable as what I could reasonably expect from such a joint. Although I did think it might have benefited from being served a little warmer than it was. Don't even think about getting that antiquated Kenny Roger's into comparison for their roasted birds. The latter's only salvation these days are the corn bread and their mac & cheese.

What did appeal to me was the salad bar though it wasn't quite that feeling that I had as a child, standing, spoilt for choice and wondering what was good. They even had that coleslaw which tasted exactly like the ones I liked at Aston's.

It was a little quiet down on a Saturday afternoon. I sure hope that business picks up for them so that they can stay around.

Gaia Korean Restaurant, Suntec City

This place (3 Temasek Boulevard, #03-10/12 Suntec City Mall, tel : +65 6339 3313) wasn't too bad. There were actually some real Koreans amongst their service staff and among their customers as well. Perhaps a healthy sign. Their Gaia kotsal featured nicely marbled short rib and we had intentionally selected them for their lack of marinade.

The kimchee jigae initially appeared to be disappointing as it totally lacked the sour punch I was looking for to go with the spiciness. It even tasted slightly thin until at some point when it had cooled down that the broth got a little more viscous and the flavours suddenly became pretty intense. Definitely something I could come back for. Not so impressive was the dogani tang which was described as ox bone soup which contained beef tendons instead. The milky hued broth was actually pretty bland (and not very beefy) without the additional salt and pepper. I should just stick to spicy Korean food.

Dim sum @ East Ocean

I don't think I'm much of a fan of the dim sum at East Ocean in comparison to say Crystal Jade Golden Palace or Imperial Treasure. That's not to say that the food that they do here is mediocre. Most of the items we had didn't quite push the right buttons. The char siew pau could have had a fluffier skin. Their pan fried radish cake didn't have a crispy skin was definitely not as creamy inside as we would have liked. Also had much better century egg porridge than the ones here.

On the bright side, their sizeable duo shrimp-ed har gao were not bad. Liked their rich tasting salted yolk custard bun. Thumbs up for the water chestnut dessert as well. I don't eat those very often, but this were pretty good with chunks of water chestnuts along with large flakes of egg in there. There were some amusing animal shaped dim sum items that I didn't get to order. Some of the portions of food here were just too big for two and real estate is always too limited

prawn ball crusted with sliced almonds

fried minced meat on lotus root slices

century egg porridge

siew mai

char siew pao

chilled pig fallopian tube

har gao

pan fried radish cake

salted yolk custard bun

water chestnut with egg dessert