Home made ham and crispy cheddar sandwich with black truffle paste

Pan toasted with some butter of course.

Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice, Katong Shopping Centre

I got to hear about this particular chicken rice stall at Katong Shopping Centre (865 Mountbatten Road, #B1-85/87 Katong Shopping Centre) from some friends, but hadn't had the opportunity to come by until today.

Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice was memorable for me because of a few things. The chickens that they served were pretty meaty and weren't boneless at all in spite of their name. The meat was tender and reminded me more than a little of the ones at Ming Kee. Their chicken was also topped with crispy deep fried bits of garlic which was something one doesn't get from other chicken rice stalls. They also had the saltiest sesame/soy sauce that I've come across.

Their yellow looking rice more subtle in the aroma than the colour let on. It was also a little too dry from what I normally prefer. Fortunately, their chilli was up to the job as accompaniment. 

What I found myself liking were their creamy chicken livers and their tasty soups. One loaded with soft cabbages and the other, pig stomach. Most delicious cabbage soup from chicken rice stall. There's achar (lightly pickled here) on unlimited refills - achar with chunky pieces of pineapple which were actually good with the chicken rice.

One can even order sides of char siew, roasted pork belly and lup cheong (with large chunks of lard) from them. I didn't have room to try them all in a seating

I wouldn't mind eating here even though it felt like sodium overload with loads of garlic. Definitely not regularly. Different from the revisitabilty of Sin Kee which is still the top of my list to date.

Bakmie Jakarta by Jiak Bak Mee, Killiney Road

This was interestingly. An Indonesian and halal rendition of ba chor mee that uses minced chicken instead of pork. The place (117a Killiney Road) also claims that their noodles are hand made daily. Hmmm......

I ordered one of their bakmie ayam specials which had a little bit of everything with their curly noodles in ketchup manis. First impression was that noodles were ok. I would love a little more bite in them. After finishing the noodles, I realised that I had totally forgotten about their home made chilli sauce that they had on every table.

Noodles aside, the only item that I really thought was good were their beef balls. The crispy wanton was simply just that. Didn't care for it. The fried chicken was puny and little to write home about. Portions as a whole was small for a hungry person and extra noodles costed a princely $1.50.

What I found myself liking that I had seconds of was their soda susu. Which was soda with condensed milk. Never had them before. It was the condensed milk that got me.

Would I eat here again? I suppose I wouldn't mind if I'm in the vicinity. The small portions here were still larger than the Kolo mee stall down the road which costed more and came in even smaller portions.

Indulging in some festive burgers from &Made

In other related news, I got suckered in by the promise of foie gras and lobster down in &Made. :p

How was it you ask? It was the same dry aged beef patty (still as good as I remember) from their B Burger that was retrofitted into their toasted sesame buns with options of either a surf and turf styled chopped lobster in mayo or a pan fried foie gras and some celeriac slaw. The former was poorly thought out since the flavors of the delicious beef masked all presence of the rather small portions of lobster. Honestly I was imagining a quarter or even half a roasted tail. That would have worked. Worked well!

On the brighter side, the foie gras topped burger was mouthwatering. I guess it had worked because there was enough of the liver to go around that their flavors oozed into the beef patty as you held them up between the buns and squeezed until the sandwich was short enough not to unhinge jaws. Decadent? Sure. The celeriac really was just texture.

And there was a hot caramel lava cake. Not bad, the supposed molten caramel heart didn't quite melt completely. Timing needs work. The crispy coated ice cream on the side was salted caramel.

Re-revisiting Eastern Chicken Rice

It's been a while since my last visit to Eastern Chicken Rice. Thanks to the declining standards of the food from Uncle Sim, I've manage to break out of the cycle of getting snagged before I hit the end of the food centre to get to this corner.

It was reassuring that this little stall still tasted like how I remembered it. There are no superlatives to be used here. Just the plain old competently done local favourite where I've pretty much said all there is to say. A trusty stall to get my fixes without frills.

Soya sauce chicken with barbequed pork rib noodle in Chinatown

Yes, this was from the ever esteemed Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle stall down in the food centre at Chinatown market. They had run out of char siew for the day so it was the bbq ribs on top of their tender and flavorful soya sauce chicken.

Comparing the noodles with the masters will only set one up for disappointment so I'm not going to be heading that way. What those were in fact, was pretty well done (not over or underdone), rather wiry and had some of that bite which I was looking forward to. Their chilli sauce was aromatic as well and the nicely caramelized sweet ribs were meaty to boot. If I had to gripe, it would be because they had ladled much to much liquids into a plate of dry noodles.

The queue at this stall was still healthy right in the middle of the day between lunch and dinner. Don't the people running the stall get to even rest?