Dirty Buns, Sprout Hub

Read about these guys (Sprout Hub, 102 Henderson Road) online. They're located at the canteen area of Sprout Hub in the stall with the same signage as o-kome.

Pretty well lit and spacious canteen.

Dirty Buns has a tie guan ying kombucha on the menu (the drink by the way is from Pyroast next door). I have been convinced that it doesn't matter what tea is used for kombucha. You'll never be able to tell. It tasted like.....kombucha.

Here's a double burger from them. The cheese looked weak.

Patties are kinda small as you can see. Meat's okay tasting, not exceptional. Nothing that would get me coming back. Don't understand why they need to do so much sauce if not to hide the fact that there isn't much flavour coming from the beef. But at least it wasn't over marinated.

There's a spicy fried chicken burger. Not very spicy. That fried chicken has got nothing on McSpicy. Don't know what's that white goo in there. Didn't taste like yoghurt or mayo but there's way too much of it in that burger. An obvious sign of amateurs at work.

Bar Milano, Keong Saik Road

New bar/restaurant/place (#01-02, 55 Keong Saik Road) that does pizza fritta - a Neopolitan styled fried pizza. The look of the place almost reminded me of those Venetian bars that served cicheti. Almost.

Their Bloody Mary is served with a toothpick of cherry tomato and a small fold of prosciutto. It's okay. The standards of regular bar drinks here generally aren't much to write home about. Drinkable stuff.

Their bites were pretty good. These were fried olives stuffed with meat. Not sure what meat they were because between the crisp of the solid breading and the texture of the olives, I couldn't even tell there was meat. Couldn't taste that meat either. That being said, these breaded olives did make good munching.

Bar Milano has an awesome steak tartare. Awesome because they added anchovy cream which basically flavour bombed the entire tartare with an umami saltiness. I would come back just for these.

Peaches and burrata. Menu mentioned 25 yr old balsamic vinegar if I remembered correctly. I think they should have drizzled that vinegar instead of pan frying the peaches with them because I couldn't tell them from something that's been cheap and reduced over the pan with sugar. Speaking of peaches, I've always imagined them to be sweet and juicy. Like the Yamanashi kind. Usually I get disappointed. This was the same.

Some fizzy grapefruit and rosemary drink. Not very fizzy and it felt like the grape fruit flavour all came from that one slice in the drink. Had to squeeze that slice to get those flavours. Have had better.

They've a few toppings for their pizza fritta. This was their Pugliese - broccolini, anchovy, garlic cream, preserved lemon and chilli. Another flavour bomb which was kickass tasty though most of the flavour came from the centre of the pizza where the toppings were.

If I had to critique, the crust of the pizza fritta was a little greasy and bland. The texture was a soft crisp and no chewiness at all. I imagined that it might have been a little more like a bhatura or poori.

As unexciting as this looked, their fritto misto was nicely done. Bits of octopus, calamari, small shrimp and sticks of zucchini. Had a light and nicely flavoured batter which wasn't excessive. Good enough even without that saffron aioli on the side.

Breakfast at Ananda Bhavan

Came by for breakfast because we needed to be in the vicinity. Ananda Bhavan has breakfast sets which comprises of a few items that they put together on a platter. Wasn't successful in getting them the last time but we managed to order them today.

The one above is Set 1 ☝🏽. Below is Set 2 👇🏽. The items that were the same are the vadai, idly and the kesari along with the chutneys and sambar. The difference between the sets was that 1 has uppuma while 2 has pongal. The former a savoury semolina porridge/pudding. 

The pongal was a porridge of lentils, rice flavoured with ghee, cumin and peppercorns. At least these were what I could taste. Dangerously addictive if I might say so. Both of these sets were satisfying and filling and possibly not so good for the heart.

Alchemist, International Plaza

Got the white with an extra shot. That makes three espressos. Coffee's a little acidic. While the aroma from the shop (#01-34 International Plaza, 10 Anson Road) was nice, the coffee didn't taste as good or strong as the smell suggested.

Fishball noodles from Malaysia Chiak at Great World

This was from the Xi Dao Fishball Noodle stall at Malaysia Chiak. In retrospect, I was much more satisfied by their bowl than I thought I would be. Decent if not exceptional texture from the mee pok - but what made those noodles shine was their savoury piquant chilli sauce. Haven't had a flavour like that in a while.

As the stall name implies, the fishballs are made with xi dao fish (秋刀魚) - also known as wolf herring. Nice flavour coming from the fish while the texture of the ball was firm without being artificially bouncy. Ditto for the sliced fish cakes.

Added a fried fish cake on the side. These have been fried and left out for a while so they were a little cold. Still tasty though. Sweet even. I'm glad that the skin hadn't hardened or become too chewy. While I rank the fish cake at Khin Kee a little higher, I'd take the noodles here over theirs.  

Super Dario Lasagna, City Square Mall

I've seen this shop (#04-17 City Square Mall, 180 Kitchener Road, tel : +65 9151 2196) around for quite a while, never gotten really interested until I realized that they had a lasagna with Gorgonzola. Like phototaxis a moth to a flame, wings fluttered and we came by.

The Gorgonzola variety used in their lasagna is the younger dolce variety - less sharp and creamier. I could taste some of that but it's not as dominant as the cheese and tomato combination. What the lasagna also needed was more cheese on the top and a longer time in the oven for that nice crusty exterior.