Thoughts at Beef Sukiyaki Don Keisuke

We waited a while before getting our seats today. I realized the reason why after we had gotten in. A bunch of self important motherfuckers decided that their pretentious loud conversation was too important to take elsewhere and hence a bunch of seats were occupied even though the occupants had finished their food. Self important motherfuckers who didn't give a flying fuck about the queue that was building up. A queue that was waiting in the stifling heat while these insects debated over minute points of their worthless lives in the comfort of the restaurant.

Inconsideration and self entitlement appear genetic in this country. Unless the root is exterminated, change seem nigh impossible. Culture Rot propagates from the top.

Okay rant over. The wagyu sukiyaki don from Beef Sukiyaki Don Keisuke is still awesome.

Fish & chips from Lad & Dad

Got a portion of fish and chips from Lad & Dad based on a recommendation. Think it was haddock. It was a good call there. Loved their salted crispy batter which had a flavour that brought back memories of an old cafeteria from childhood. Fish was firm and flaky; I liked those mushy peas which were sweet and tasted of garlic. 

Yan Ji (炎记), Funan

This shop (#02-05 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road) I gather is an offshoot from the same Yan Ji that operated at Woodlands years ago. That stall in Woodlands is no longer around. They've branched out and some of those branches have even been pruned if you catch my drift. Something's abrew in their business and it ain't their seafood soup.

Anyways this was their fish maw lunch set which came with a bowl of rice and bottled water (8 SGD). There's fish maw, their meat patties (in cubes) and one lonely clam. While I thought that the soup was savoury and delicious, I'm pretty sure it didn't taste like how it was back in the original stall. Neither did those meat patties actually. It looks like the business going down the path of Hawker Chan. Make of that what you will.

Tolido's Espresso Nook, Crawford Lane

It's been more than a couple of years since I first noticed this cafe (#01-63, 462 Crawford Lane, tel : +65 66480178). I didn't give them much thought since coffee places were a dime a dozen these days. Happening by recently, I noticed that they were still around and apparently doing brisk business. So we got up earlier one weekend and dropped by for a more breakfast than brunch thingy.

Kicked that off with a Bailey's coffee I did.

We were intrigued by a smoked salmon lemon carbonara on the menu. It was more of a lemon Alfredo than carbonara with a cream sauce that had tanginess from lemon. Couldn't detect any real cheese, egg or even black pepper for a "carbonarization". There was a nice hint of dill in the creamy lemony sauce though. Wasn't bad at all. I enjoyed it.

Rosti's nice with a good crisp and real potato flavour. Kinda similar to those at Marché but these were less buttery. I need these with more eggs.

Couldn't resist something that was described with Guinness glazed bacon so we ordered the French toast. That Guinness glaze tasted like it had balsamic vinegar. Nothing stout-ish about the flavour but the tanginess did pair off with the sweetness from the maple syrup and custard stuffed in the toast. That toast was thoroughly soaked through with egg though so I liked it.

Picnic : other than Omakase Burger and pizzas...

We were here at Picnic to give the roasted chicken on the poster a go thinking that there ought to be something else worth eating apart from Omakase Burger and the pizza station.

This was the actual bird. It sucked. Not as nicely browned, the skin also had a very generic dried oregano flavour. Even the meat from the thigh was dry. It's a hundred leagues behind Poulét (which had seen better days). Even Cold Storage's pre roasted chickens tasted better than this one.

The only item on the plate that tasted good was the buttery mash on the side.

Tried a garlic prawn rosti from the stall next to the one with the mediocre roasted chicken. This rosti was made from pretty fine strips of potato. Buttery and a little cheesy tasting even. Garlic prawns didn't taste garlic-ky. At all. Salad looked like an afterthought so I didn't even touch a leaf.

More food from Sin Hoi Sai

We've heard varied opinions about Sin Hoi Sai. Some good, some not so good. We've been here a few times. It hasn't been bad so far. Here's another recent late dinner.

That's the salted fish and minced meat tofu. Sauce was a little sweet, mostly savoury and it tasted like it might have had some kind of cooking wine in it. I could be wrong. We though it was a straightforward comfort dish with rice. Gotta have rice with this. I liked this better than their hot plate tofu. Which wasn't bad. I just liked this better.

More of their har cheong gai. Brings out the masochist in me with their sambal belachan.

Their stir fried sambal kang kong was competent. While their sambal recipe wasn't my favourite rendition for this particular dish, it's not bad. Gotta do this with rice too.

This was sotong rojak. Fried squid with rojak. A rojak that consisted of just sliced turnips, cucumbers and pineapple with a sauce that didn't taste much like the regular rojak sauce. To be fair, the menu spelled it as 'roja sauce'. Hahaha. So maybe this mildly tangy and mostly sweet sauce was what roja tasted like. But if one were to disassociate the dish with regular rojak sauces and not compare, this was not bad. The vegetables/fruits were crisp and refreshing in the sauce and those squid were very competently fried. 

The crushed peanuts they used in the sauce had just started getting rancid. We fed back to to the wait staff and they were willing to whip up another serving sans crush peanuts for replacement.