Shami Banana Leaf Delights, Sembawang Road

Shami (349 Sembawang Road, tel : +65 6754 3898) is a local Indian eatery of a small fame up in the northern parts of this country that makes a mean fiery red chicken masala with a spicy nutty paste. They used to be just a stall in the food court at Northpoint with a history for long queues. The food in recent times has become somewhat inconsistent. The same might be said for their queues. Not too long back, they set up shop along Sembawang somewhere across the road from Khatib Camp.

The quality of the food I was told, is better here these days compared to the stall in the food court. It's something that I cannot deny or confirm. If this is an up in quality, does that mean that the one from the food court stall has truly fallen?

fish cutlet 

These balls of minced fish and potato were pretty tasty. As much as I'm avoiding comparison here, Samy's uglier looking ones were much better than these.

butter chicken 

No complains about the butter chicken, but this will like never beat Jaggi's.

Chennai cabbage?

 lentils and beans

 briyani

Orders of rice came with two choices of vegetables. The rice didn't seem to be as good as I remember them. Those vegetables were apparently nothing much to write home about neither.

mutton masala 

Kashmiri and cheese naan 

Naans were rather small serving and lacked fluffiness. Felt somewhat run of the mill. I suppose that's how they do these here.

 deep fried fish roe

We loved those freshly fried fish roe. So much that after dinner, we did a portion for take away as after dinner snacks! Sadly, these seem to come by uncommonly these days.

gobi manchurian

These stir fried cauliflowers were not the most memorable.

the washdown

Trattoria Gallo d' Oro, Central Mall

It was a quiet Wednesday evening down at Trattoria Gallo D' Oro (Blk 7 Magazine Road, #01-03 Central Mall, tel : +65 6438 8131) within the compounds of Central Mall. Luca of Bontá, perched on a chair near the entrance was in conversation, half watching any guest that might have appeared with his hawkish Stellan Skarsgård-like gaze.

Right till the point when the head chef Carlo Marengoni stood up and warm smiles broke out with 'hello's off the lips. They had probably meant 'benvenuto' as well. I hoped.

The website of the restaurant mentioned northern Italian home style food. Not sure what was northern Italian about it but home style hit the mark. If you're still reading at this point, the portions of the food before the first plates were quite generous.

sliced pork loin with tuna mayo

This was basically vitello tonnato. Except that pork was used instead of veal and underneath, a salad. The sauce was rich and smooth, but remember, must share. Easily feeds three.

a misto fritto of sardines and calamari

We opted to leave out the prawns from their fried seafood plate so that we could have more of the calamari and sardines, the latter which was something they were known for. The fish was fresh tasting, had a crispy batter nicely salted and was in simple terms - very delicious. The best part of the fry was the lack of excessive grease. I need to eat this again.

pappardelle with goose liver

Off menu was a goose liver pasta. We swapped the fettucine for pappardelle. Creamy and balanced off with spinach, it was served hot and a lot lighter than it looked. Good stuff.

sliced beef tenderloin sauteed with rosemary and spinach

I don't think beef is their forte here. Perhaps, I'm prejudiced with the treatment of bovine protein matter. And bias when it comes to the application of rosemary. I like my meat beefy and this was oiled with too much other flavours. It was in truth, a decently done up piece of meat, but I think this might be the last time I'm ordering sliced steaks that doesn't come with a Gorgonzola sauce in Italian restaurants.

strawberry panna cotta with cream pudding?

We pushed for a dessert in spite of being rather stuffed at this point. Strawberry panna cotta? It was a regular panna cotta with a sliced strawberry and sauce. What got me was the spice that I tasted in the pudding. I think it might have been aniseed or liquorice; faint and just enough presence to be tasted without being overbearing. I liked it. I just couldn't tell what it was.

mystery diner "A"

Tsuru-Koshi Udon, IMM

Another udon specialist joint (2 Jurong East Street 21, #01-19 IMM). I like their kamatama udon which really trumps the one at Tamoya with a single ingredient. The one secret ingredient that the French use for their cooking. Butter. Uncomplicated and delicious.

Atsu atsu tan tan udon is not too bad as well with that moderated hit of spice and minced meat, but I'll skip the tempura the next time.

A durian Guinness milkshake from Udders

As odd as this combination sounded, it actually worked. This was a combination of Guinness and the mao shan wang ice cream from Udders. The bitter accents and creaminess from the durian got along with that of the stout. The taste was unusual for sure but it worked. I enjoyed it.

A run in with white asparagus at Marché

Seems that the white asparagus season is upon us again. Marché has the asparagus offerings in almost all their stalls. Even a cream of white asparagus soup in their normally unchanging soup stand. It was actually pretty good with sliced pieces of the shoot. The flavour was rich from the cream and quite full of the sweet asparagus in spite of a very mundane look. A little Parmesan cheese and some spring onions were all that was needed to complete the bowl.

These guys also under tremendous order load, grill up one of the nicer budget steaks in town. The only problem with their rib eye usually is the quality of the meat which lacks the beautiful marbling of fat that is found in the more expensive steak places. Otherwise, we almost always get a medium rare spot on and sauces are always on the side.

From the pizza counter, one with white asparagus, egg and Black Forest ham. The sweet crunchy pieces of asparagus were paired nicely with the light salt from the cheese and ham. This topping profile was designed to allow the flavors of the white asparagus to shine.

Unfortunately, they didn't have white asparagus for desserts or we would have swiped one too......

Menya Musashi, Raffles City

This (252 North Bridge Road, #01-16 Raffles City Shopping Centre, tel : +65 6336 6500) was another one of numerous ramen-ya that has been making headlines in the past year that I haven't yet had a chance to visit until today. A ramen-ya that originates from the Shinjuku ward in Tokyo. This shop came with a odd story where the shop was named after a certain samurai with a double sword style. Much like a certain Drizzt Do'Urden I guess. Maybe not. I'll explain below.

So here's their black thunder and a Tokyo Akiba curry ramen.

The former was advertised in a poster with a large head of the oni on the back of what seemed to be a potent bowl of spicy ramen. An oni that perhaps Miyamoto Musashi was not skilled enough to defeat in the breath of his mortal existence and now permanently torments his spirit by appearing in bowls of his ramen. Lol! It wasn't as potent as it had looked. If I could break it down, I'm guessing that it's the regular tonkotsu broth that they have in the shop plus a little alchemy with what makes their reds and blacks and a small sprinkle of sliced chilli padi. Am I close? Not such a challenge for us locals. I've had more potent ba chor mee. Not delicious enough to have again too. 

Drizzt would have kicked oni butt. Easily. If not, there's always help from Wulfgar and Aegis-fang.

The latter was probably a little more interesting. I'm thinking the regular broth with Japanese curry. The regular broth being salty takes the sweetness off the curry - resulting in a broth that was still both savoury and flavoured with the curry. Nice portions of those shabu thin slices of pork in there and a half boiled egg to up the ante.

The noodles here are a class of their own aren't they? Needs more bite to gain my nod of approval.