Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant, Keppel Road

Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant (201 Keppel Road, tel : +65 6272 8822) has been around. I remember the place from the time I was a kid. A whiff of nostalgia for people like me and also a lens that reaches a few decades back into the past of Chinese restaurants in this country. 

For the younger folks, it's probably just a relic from another era. Albeit one with a beating heart.

It's located in this old building. The top right is the revolving platform where the restaurant is located. There's a view to be had. Used to be fascinating when I was a kid because it rotates. Now it's just a view. 

We had chee cheong fun. These were the ones without stuffings. Sometimes, it's nice to just have them without.

Char siew bao were competent. Skin was light and fluffy around the sweet char siew fillings.

Their steamed ma lai ko/Malay cake/马来糕 was not bad too. There's sliced almonds in them. While it didn't have the almost ethereal quality of the ones at Imperial Treasure or was it One Dim Sum good, it was enough to me happy. 

Har gow was okay. Really okay.

Their siew mai has the tail of the prawns they used sticking out. Tasted old school and decently made.

I liked the stewed tripe. They were tender. The broth had a good flavour going on. I don't know where else to get something like this.

This was one of their signature dishes. Made with fish, egg white and dried scallops. It's one of those dishes I look forward to here. Not cheap though.

You could eat them on their own or with added pepper and vinegar. Both ways work for me.

There's Peking duck to be had there. It's decent. Not top duck if you catch my drift. With the sweet sauce and the wrap, it's all good. I didn't like that they charged extra if you asked for more cucumber.

There's a $5 surcharge for having the meat sliced up. I've always felt that this was the better way to have the meat instead of some stir fry they tend to recommend you to do.

These are deep fried egg white soufflé balls filled with red bean paste. Sprinkle sugar and eat. Another flavour of nostalgia that only old school Chinese restaurants make.

Bedok Chwee Kueh, Chinatown Food Centre

This was not bad. The taste of the chwee kueh and the chilli from this outpost of Bedok Chwee Kueh reminded me of the ones from Tangs Market. What was different was the texture and the size. These were noticeably larger and more tender. The latter made them really easy to eat. Liked the generosity of the cai por.

Hakata Yakitori Batten Yokatoh, Tanjong Pagar Road

This kushiyaki place (84/86 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 6970 7810) looked to be newish.

They've a bunch of stuff which were recommended as their specialties. The huge assed lettuce and pork roll looked interesting.

Cabbage with ponzu comes bottomless. We were asked if we wanted to top up whenever they were running low.

We were intrigued by what they menu described as brewed cod stomach with cream cheese. The orange paste in there tasted like gochujang. Minus the heat. I assumed the crunchy stuff in there was what they called cod stomach. I wasn't sure if it was but the dish was pretty tasty.

We had grilled pork belly. Pretty competent.

Reba was not bad as well. The livers were mostly tender and not overcooked.

This was their tomato basil roll. Cherry tomato and basil wrapped in pork. Tasted like how it sounded.

Chicken hearts were also not bad.

Couldn't taste much of the shochu from their green tea chuhai.

Not so impressed by their hamu katsu. The texture of the ham was more akin to luncheon meat and there wasn't much flavour going on for ham. It did look impressively thick but that was where impressive ended.

Quail eggs. Don't expect Otowa standards here for these.

So here we get to those huge assed lettuce and pork rolls we were introduced to earlier. They came in three options. Shio, cheese or a special sauce of theirs which looked like the condiments for takoyaki. These were obviously shio - so that we could taste the pork and cabbage. I liked it. Lots of crunch from the lettuce under the nicely browned pork which was well salted.

Tebasaki was okay. Not particularly outstanding in any way.

I suppose these guys were just okay. There're a bunch of kushiyaki/izakaya options around that generally do better which I won't bother to list here. I didn't think there was anything special about their food beyond the large lettuce and pork roll that would entice me to come back.

Monan, Chinatown Food Centre

I came across the mention of this stall (#02-137 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) online and was intrigued. We visited. What they were essentially doing was daikon base pork soup with various ingredients of choice. Apparently this dish was the result of scraps of recollection from the proprietor and skills from his wife, a Vietnamese. A quintessential representative if one thought of it, of migrant food that found it's place into the heart of local flavour just like everything else we've been used to treating as Singaporean food. 

But I've digressed.

We got a bowl of pork organs bowl which was the offal option. Liver, stomach, heart, skin, small intestines (小肠) and we topped that up with some tongue and their unique looking egg sausage which tasted like how it sounded. I liked the combination of flavour from the porcine quality in the broth, which wasn't too heavy, that was also rounded up with the sweetness of the radish. It's a different enough flavour profile from the regular pig's organ soup and yet not so far apart to be unrecognizable. Portions were pretty generous. Will come back. 

Salt Shoreditch with runny egg in cheddar bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Yet another breakfast from the bagel shop that definitely has more than two men. That's the one with brisket, sauerkraut, mustard and pickles. Lots of tang to cut through whatever it was there to cut through. I added runny eggs because it was breakfast and I thought it was nice to have eggs for breakfast. Brisket was very tender - thought I tasted cinnamon in it.

Revisiting Wicked Garlic and maybe this is it

Here's a second go at The Wicked Garlic. The aglio olio has very little garlic flavour. The bacon they used didn't taste so much like bacon as it did crumpled strips of pork belly. Where's all the salt and smoke? I recall (albeit from a long while ago) that even Pasta Mania made much better aglio olio. At this price point, pasta from Saizeriya blows this out of the water. 

Their penne al granchio tasted better than it looked. The tomato cream sauce isn't Valentino's or Da Paolo and neither are the portions of crab but I suppose there's a good reason why this place costs less.

That's a quattro formaggi and it would be understandable if no one recognized it for what it was. It looked uniform. Taleggio the menu said. Gorgonzola the menu said. Mozzarella the menu said. Goat cheese the menu said. I tasted none of those. The flavour was just generic cheese and I couldn't tell what type it was from taste. For a four cheese, this was just sad.