A local signature

What’s in a local signature?

Let's just say that I came up with this label to tag anything that could be construed as a local flavour, uniquely so or not. This was of course ambiguous at times due to the fact that we’re essentially a migrant state with more people joining the party annually. Don’t worry, I’ll not be going into a political discourse at this stage. Back to my original topic, many of what we have taken for granted to be local came from elsewhere, exists elsewhere. The point is, it’s just a tag for something that one could attribute to this sunny island.

Like the McSpicy. I think it’s local in the sense that it probably doesn’t quite exist in any of the Golden Arches elsewhere. I kinda like it because it does have some heat. That goes for the garlic chilli sauce which is what I understand to be a local thing too. Goes great with the McSpicy.

And then durians. I know they’re available in other parts of the world and is rather well received up north as well. But it is something attributably local. Perhaps I had also meant incontestably as well. And with it breeds the familiarity with abbreviations such as d24, msw and wzw. The former two are featured in the picture above by the way.

And as a wrapper, these above were actually dinner. Of a local signature. Little where else in this world would it be a Double McSpicy washed down with durians.

Ikura don from Teppei Syokudo

I happened to be in the vicinity today. Teppei Syokudo does have a sort of presence that got my attention - and I thought to myself, why not? Yeah, their ikura don was kinda fun to eat in a briny bursty way. It's not so different from enjoying chee cheong fun without the chilli and sweet sauce. Something salty with aroma over starch. Complex in its own simplicity, not complicated. If you catch my drift.

Roast meat rice at Geylang Lor 28

A friend introduced me to this coffeeshop located at the entrance of Lorong 28. The address says 514A Geylang Road on the business card while the block number on the building states 512, so it's a little confusing. But nestled inside is a roast meat stall that was pretty good. I couldn't find a name for the stall. The duck breast was tender and moist; char siew was fatty, nicely caramelized and sweet while the rice was fluffy. Of which the latter paired well with their chicken rice chilli. It was certainly the makings of a competent roast meat stall and this plate went down in short minutes.

Update on 18/10/2015

Here's an update on their roasts. Still as good as the last round and the crackling from the roast pork were crispy.

Bai Nian (百年) Yong Tau Foo, Albert Centre Market & Food Centre

Wow, this (Albert Centre Market & Food Centre, 270 Queen St #01-58) was seriously good. And was definitely worth the time I spent in the queue. The ingredients were "pre fixe" if you would; with only the option to upsize in portions. But those toppings were of pretty good quality, different from most and tasted better than the mass produced items that are used in the run of the mill stalls. I especially liked those boiled prawn cakes. Will definitely be back. 

RedRing Treasures, Food Republic @ Wisma Atria

Remember those guys that cooked their wanton noodles by machine automation? Well, it seems that they have a stall (Stall 6, Food Republic, Wisma Atria) now at the Food Republic with an expanded menu that includes stuff like pan fried dumpling and even fried onion blossoms.

They are still cooking those egg noodles by machine. Here's a plate of them with fried pork and chicken cutlet. In retrospect, they could have had the best tasting cutlets in this branch of Food Republic if not for the existence of Udon Goen. Right now, these are simply outclassed. Hands down. Still pretty decent egg noodles in a spicy sauce that attempts to taste like the wanton noodle mixture of old though.

Ippudo, Shaw Centre

Ippudo (1 Scotts Road, #04-22/23 Shaw Centre, tel : +65 6235 2547) requires little introduction. They've been opening up a few branches of their ramen shops over the past few years. We headed down to this latest one at Shaw because I wanted to try their tan tan tonkotsu which is only available in this particular outlet.

While waiting for the ramen, we snacked. Here's a spicy potato salad topped with a fried egg. Yes the yolk was molten. The spice element tasted like some sort of curry. Probably concocted in house. Mild by local standards.

And then some garlic toast with honey dip. No surprises here. I kinda liked the crisp and airy toast.

Here's the tan tan tonkotsu. My request for the noodles was 'very hard', which I presume is their harigane. The bite from those noodles wasn't so impressive.

At first glance, the bowl reminded me a little bit of laksa. The tan tan element was a lot milder than I thought. It's more of a balanced blend between the nutty flavours and that of the original tonkotsu broth with a nice warm heat. Yes, the charshu was thin and tender. I think I prefer the basic shiromaru and if I want tan tan noodles, there's a pretty decent one nearby.