Tiong Bahru Fried Kway Teow, Tiong Bahru Market FC

We had previous tried the other char kuey teow stall nearby so we thought to give this a chance too. This particular stall has been around (#02-11, 30 Seng Poh Road) judging from the news clippings at their front so there's the possibility that I might have had it some time in the past...decades? Anyways, it looked very light. We were expecting it to be in a more luxuriant coat of dark soy sauce. It would not be untrue to say that were a little disappointed by the appearance.

But good news was, it tasted much better than it looked. Even though there was probably no lard in it. There was more flavour than the colours suggested and in the end, we liked it. Even those usually neglected lup cheong were well fried and flavoursome.

Tian Bao Szechuan Kitchen (天寶閣), Ngee Ann City

In the span of the past year or so, we've walked by this Szechuan styled restaurant (#05-06/07 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6734 4216) a few times and have always wondered if they were any good. They have quite a variety on menu and some of those items have been such a common find here that I wonder if this was truly Szechuan or localised Szechuan.  

In an attempt to get some greens and fibre into our diet, rolls of lettuce leaves bound with strips of cucumber with a sesame dip. The thick nutty dip was unexpectedly sweet. For some reasons, I had been expecting something savoury. Tasted better after it was mixed with some vinegar and chilli oil.

I forgot what this was called but it's marinated chicken in chilli oil. Kinda like the spicy version of Shaoxin marinated chicken with the aroma of Szechuan peppercorn.

Dan dan mian. Nutty, meaty and I suppose it was okay-ish.

That's spinach with three eggs. Albeit a slightly different rendition from what's usually available. This one had century and quail eggs. The salted egg component came in the form of the sauce. 

We tried their steamed dumplings with pork and spinach. Apart from the spinach component, these tasted like xiao long bao sans the "juice". I found them agreeable.

And then there was gong bao prawns that came with loads of cashews. Cashews that I wished had been toasted for their aroma before they were stir fried into the dish. Wasn't bad at all but I had been imagining a more luxuriant sweetness and heat that this one didn't quite live up to.

A lunch at Grand Copthorne Waterfront

We had originally wanted to check out Grissini which had replaced Pontini at Grand Copthorne (392 Havelock Road), but those guys didn't do weekend lunches. Why the hell would they not do weekend lunch? That makes poor economical sense there.

But - the lounge menu included pizza which comes from Grissini. No lunch service, but provides pizza to the hotel lounge. Here's the salami pizza featuring their truffle salami. Decent pizza, needs more salami.

The outstanding item was their Super Laksa. That's what they called it. Primed with nuggets of fried lobster, fried scallops, prawns, fish cake and tau pok. Not forgetting the heart clogging and smile inducing richness from their tasty rempah used for the gravy. But why no quail eggs?!

I'm not going pretend that this bowl was not expensive. Exorbitant even by some considerations. But we were happy with it. Till the last drop.

Nasi lemak from Swensen's

There are apparently a couple of outlets of Swensen's that have the Asian menu with nasi lemak. This was from ION Orchard (2 Orchard Turn). While it was not outstanding, it's argueably decent quality considering the dismal standards of most nasi lemak these days. Would have been much nicer if they had bothered to toast the peanuts and ikan bilis before using them.

Renga-ya, CHIJMES

Renga-Ya's a yakiniku joint (#01-11/12 Chijmes, 30 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6352 1966) that opened up a little over a year ago. These guys import wagyu from Kagoshima and Hokkaido in Japan along with some from Australia. There's pork from also Kagoshima and Iberian pigs from Spain along with lamb from New Zealand too. Basically the what's what of meats which you can put onto charcoal grill.

We had a ika yuzu jelly watercress salad to start. A clean slate of sweet citrus and vegetables to prime our palate for the meats to come. This was enjoyable actually. Possibly because of the yuzu jelly.

The first of the meats was cube cut wagyu of origins of non clear indication. Most of the bovine flesh and parts have their region of origin stated but this one just simply mentioned Japan. I'll go with Kagoshima. It was pretty good though. We fumbled a little due to the shape of the cut.

Pro tip against pro tips : don't believe in that "if you can easily remove the meat from the grill, that'll be the correct time to change sides/flip the meat" thing for this. By the time you can easily remove them from the grill, they'll be burnt. Check once in a while for these.

If you get the proper doneness, you'll be rewarded with a cube of meat clad in a nice grill aroma and a crusty exterior that will burst into an explosion of rendered fat once your teeth clamps down on them.

Their sliced gyutan was from Australian wagyu. Delicious stuff.

We ordered some Australian wagyu intestines just to see what they were like. Those intestines were covered in fat, sizzled and melted furiously before shrinking into little crumpled pieces. At that point, they tasted like deep fried intestines. Honestly, we were not sure if we got grilling these this right.

While we weren't actually surprised, we didn't see the lamb chops coming at us, expertly catching us unaware with how kickass delicious they were. Awesomely tender, properly grilled medium with respectable char and sufficiently flavourful with the requisite gaminess without being excessive. One of the better grilled lamb I've had for some time. 

The lamb came with some sesame buns that's served with some airy maple butter thingy. I could have mowed through more of those.

Seafood is definitely on their menu but it's not exactly what one should be shooting for at Renga-Ya. We had a go with the mentai king prawns which were succulent and crustacean-ily aromatic bolstered by torched mentai mayo.

And to end - a beef nininku chahan for carbs. I wouldn't recommend this. It was a regular garlic fried rice simply topped with some beef which was the worst of meats that were on our table tonight. A shocking departure in the form of chewy blandness compared to the wagyu and lamb earlier. 

There's a dessert called strawberry snow Hokkaido. That'll be ripe strawberries from Hokkaido, frozen and then thinly shaven, served with strawberry ice cream and condensed milk. Refreshing.

Man Man Japanese Unagi Restaurant, Duo Galleria

Man Man has a new shop down at Duo Galleria (#01-48, 7 Fraser Street) just an underground passage away from Bugis MRT. Those guys needed this since the queue for their original shop at Keong Saik shows no signs of abatement and that particular spot could really be a bitch to stand in line for when you don't make the first batch, especially when it starts to pour. It's either that or the scorching sun.

But this new shop didn't appear to be so crowded in the weekday. It was filled for sure but not to the brim. Maybe it's still new. I couldn't shake the feeling that the eels from their shira kaba hitsumabushi (that's a duo of their shirayaki and kabayaki eels, hitsumabushi styled) wasn't as tasty as the previous eats at their original shop which seemed to have more crisp on the surface of the eels and lighter flakier meat. I'm not sure if I'll be enthused with the idea of coming back.