Chicken rice from Siam Paragon's Food Hall

This may look like an ordinary plate of chicken rice and one may question, what am I doing eating chicken rice in Bangkok where we supposedly have the best ones back at home. What's worse, a food court chicken rice at that.

I was initially attracted to the stall because I saw cakes of chicken blood. On closer inspection, there's some of those hidden with the pieces of liver on the side. The stall had options to have half the chicken meat deep fried and the other other half boiled.

This was actually pretty damn good! Aside that the boiled chook came nude (no drizzled sauces, nada!), the fried version was crispy and savory, the chicken blood added incentive for me and the rice was on par or even a little bit better than the ones from Pow Sing. Flavorful grainy rice with sufficient and not excessive grease. Good enough to eat on their own. Not a fan of their sauce though.

Still I was pretty impressed. Did I mention that the soup was a robust chicken broth as well that tasted like what one makes at home rather than one gets on the side of a chicken rice order?  All these for 65 baht!

Silom Restaurant, Silom Soi 15, Bangkok

Much like how Colbar is, Silom Restaurant is a Hainanese institution that hails from the colonial era just after World War II (68 years old now it seems) serving Western influenced Asian and Thai Chinese food from another time. With spacious seatings, high ceilings fans and no air conditioning to be found. 

That also meant that some food was done in ways which I didn't quite recognize from the renditions today as well. In any case, this was an interesting breakfast trip

It was the first time I've had breakfast with chrysanthemum tea. What the Thai speaking old proprietress also know as kiat huay.

Then came our oxtail soup which looked and tasted a lot like a peppery clear chicken broth with macaroni. I would never have known it was oxtail until we got to the bits of collagen and fatty chunks of tender meat at the bottom.  I was initially quite apprehensive from the appearance, but it turned out pretty good. I still think it tastes like chicken broth though.

The carbohydrates of choice was sliced bread and butter. This establishment makes a good old school sweet loaf. Sadly these can either not be found or are difficult to find back at home these days. Imagine all that light and airy texture that made you think that you were actually breathing in all the bread rather than eating them. The butter was salted and tasty. Very good with the bread. Or by itself. We had seconds.

 

Their grilled beef steak was way off from what I had imagined. I couldn't tell where the meat came from and it was rather salty and overcooked. The meat was hard and chewy soaked in a onion infused tomato sauce.

What fared a lot better was the ox tongue that was both tender and beefy in a beefy tomato sauce. Enjoyed the soft grainy tongue. Wished that the portions were larger. Those green beans on the side were surprisingly tasty too. Odd that I was actually able to tell the differences between the 2 tomato sauces that were used today. In the past, it would have been just the same to me.

Revisiting Scala Shark's Fin Restaurant

This was a re-visit in particular which I had been looking forward to and it was largely because of the stir fried fish maw which I had previously.

This time round, we ordered the steamed crab claws and kale. There was just the natural sweetness of the meat from the claws and a bit of oyster sauce to flavour the kale. The taste was light, sweet and clean.  It seems that the number of crab claws that was served was dependent on how many of them you wanted and the dish was charged accordingly. Serving crab claws by themselves are an awesome idea.

And of course, the stir fried fish maw with bits of chopped up river prawns. The flavours of the maw was a bit more complex this time round as there was river prawns compared with the last visit where it was just fish maw. Soaked into the maw this time was a deep crustacean flavour similar to crab roe. The robust flavors and the airy textures resulted in a light tasting dish that one wouldn't get tired of. But then again, your mileage may vary.

Following up, was a claypot tang hoon with river prawns. Hidden in the bottom of the claypot beneath the vermicelli, were peppercorn, bits of baby garlic, spring onions and thinly sliced pork belly which help add flavour to the noodles which would have soaked in the richness from all the combined ingredients.

We wrapped up with some chilled bird's nest. What worked for me was the soothing sweet pandan flavors in the dessert in tandem with the chill and gelatinous stripy textures. Otherwise, I have never been a proponent of these things as I find them overly costly.

A return to Pow Sing

The inevitable comparison for me came about again with the chicken rice from Pow Sing and my still favourite from Mei Ling Food Centre. In retrospect, this could come in as a serious contender if not for the tenderness of the meat and the rice which paled in terms of fluffiness.

Their light and savoury fish maw soup was exactly what I was looking for while the slightly crunchy Nonya cabbage rolls came stuffed with competently whipped up salty and spicy otah in the middle. A genuine tribute to home styled cooking.

Ristorante da Valentino, Turf City

This return to Valentino's (200 Turf Club Road, #01-19, tel : + 65 6462 0555) was way overdue. We've been wanting to come back for ages since the last visit, but somehow it never materialized until today. I was actually pretty excited. We drove and got lost on the other end of Turf City before finding the new location.

This was an order of fresh figs, Parmigiano Reggiano and what tasted like very fresh salami. Perhaps they were made here. Nothing surprising about the flavour of the porky salami, salty and milky chunks of Parmesan nor piquant olives, but the figs were excellent. Soft, sweet and pretty juicy. These are so difficult to come by.

The other starter which the server recommended was the grilled octopus leg which was really amazing. The leg was sliced upon serving and the fragrant aromas of the grilled meat were the first to hit us. Some parts of the octopus were unexpectedly tender while the other parts were a tad chewy, but all of it had that very fragrant exterior from the grill which made mouth water. The circumferences of the suckers and the thin end of the tendril were roasted to an aromatic crisp. Very impressed.

Here's a half portion of their squid ink fettuccine in tomato cream sauce and crab meat. As it was from the first visit, we were still quite blown away by it. This time round, we detected another layer to the flavour of the sauce. It was spiciness from red chilli which worked in an almost subtle role in the backdrop. The crab meat were chunky and freshly sweet.

Yes, we also fell back into another item which we liked from them - tenderloin in Gorgonzola sauce. It was as good as we remembered and the meat was also as small as I recalled. Haha....not complaining here. The flavour from the sauce had the same intensity from the blue cheese as we had remembered. This time round, we noticed that the accompanying vegetables and new potatoes were scented with rosemary.

Dessert was a chocolate crumble. Chewy innards with crumbly exterior topped with vanilla ice cream. I think I'll stick to the profiteroles the next time.

Here's where I say we'll be back again.

National Day dinner at Hup Choon Eating House

Yes, the array of dishes were pretty much the same as the ones from the previous visit. As far as cze char goes, the standards for some of the items cooked here in the context of these days are gold for me. So it becomes challenging to deviate from certain favourites. Like the firm and chewy sweet and sour pork and their crispy and subtler prawn paste mid wings.

Today, we tried a Nonya styled curry fish head which was from response gauged at the table, a very well done dish. The rich curry was robustly flavoured with dried shrimp (hae bi) and in spite of its cholesterol spiking bad boy looks, it encouraged spoonful after spoonfuls of the nutty spicy concoction. A killer, if you would - bedfellows with white rice. The accompanying vegetables were well timed in their cooking that they were all tender but not mushy.  The fish head was of fairly generous portions and fresh tasting too.