Tanjong Rhu Wanton Noodle (丹戎禺云吞面), Yishun

Came across this stall (654 Yishun Avenue 4). I might have heard of Tanjong Rhu Wanton Noodle mentioned before but I know next to nothing about the franchise. I presume they're a local brand of small fame. Didn't have much expectations even though I was told that they were not bad. 

Noodle texture's okay but not exactly the type that'll make me raise an eyebrow.

水饺/sui gao was not bad. Well packed with marinated pork and shrimp. After one has had these and these or perhaps even these, most other dumplings would be just begrudgingly not bad.

The chilli was pretty good with the flavour of dried shrimp and they weren't very spicy in spite of appearances. Helped with those noodles.

Crystal Jade Hong Kong Kitchen, Great World

It's been a while since we were last at a regular Crystal Jade. The Golden Palace doesn't count because. Branding of the outlets have evolved through the years so this one was a Hong Kong Kitchen (1 Kim Seng Promenade, #03-127 Great World, tel : +65 6738 2911).

We were offered some sour plum marinated daikon. I think it's on the menu but we didn't order it. It was "otoshi"? Anyways we didn't refuse because it sounded good and it was. Loved that sour plum infusion in to the crisp and crunch. The Chinese term for it is 开胃. Haha...

To further 开 our 胃, a hot golden kumquat and lime juice. This stuff was concentrated and potent with the preserved citrus flavour and sweetness. Best drunk hot.

Fatty char siew is not bad. Delicious sweet glaze and pork with requisite fattiness. But I was hoping that since they're Crystal Jade, they would be above "not bad".

Sautéed French beans with Tai O shrimp paste. Those beans still had a nice crunch as compared to some renditions that are limper. Together with the salty bits of minced pork this was one good with white rice.

Menu mentioned organic homemade tofu with preserved vegetables and prawn. The preserved vegetable here is chai poh - specifically preserved radish. Not bad.

I've been eyeing this pork lardon rice. Disappointing. The fried lard wasn't crisp and warm so it wasn't freshly fried as far as the word fresh can be stretched. They're also not fragrant. Dark soya sauce wasn't aromatic. At all. Many non-restaurant eateries use better tasting ones. So this would be a first and a last.

I've had these stir fried egg noodles a few times. At the street level, I enjoyed the ones that Sai Kee Congee and the defunct Wai Kee. In my limited experience of Hong Kong styled 炒面, none of them I've had actually has ginger like this rendition at Crystal Jade.

Noodles were not as firm and were also much oiler. Not impressed.

 

Soba Kappo Reiwa (蕎麦割烹令和), Trengganu Street

Soba Kappo Reiwa (#01-12, 25 Trengganu Street, tel : +65 9355 1618) is by a Shinji Matsudaira and his wife Ayana Matsudaira that began their business with Reiwa Soba here - a hawker soba shop. This one is purportedly an izakaya-esque kappo soba joint. 

Their homemade honey ume soda is made on order - couldn't get enough of a glass.

Menu describes this as fried oyster with fermented butter. Oyster didn't taste fried but it was delicious in a buttery broth. Saved the broth for later.

The tempura batter at Soba Kappo Reiwa is made with buckwheat flour. Texture is more dense compared regular tempura and I didn't detect much crunch. But here's some pretty tasty wakasagi tempura. 

We ordered a seafood plate which had prawns, garfish and anago. Our first time eating garfish and they tasted like...*Nick Menza drumroll*...... regular white fish. 

Wanted to see if their sudachi soba was good. It wasn't as impressive as the bowl from Keria. While not a precise type comparison, it was also not as satisfying as the chilled lemon soba from Healthy Soba IKI. 

It's not a bad bowl at all. Just didn't think I'd rank it above the other two.

Was curious about their tai kake soba. The fish was thinner and lesser than I imagined and was half cooked by the time we ate them. They were also falling apart and looked like discarded cuts from sashimi. Soba was chopped up so a spoon worked as well as chopsticks. The texture felt right on the slurp but as we were chewing them they felt gummy. I had the impression that this was a soba rendition of local fish porridge.

Couldn't tell how the tai broth was different from regular ones but it became better after I poured in the oyster butter broth I saved earlier.  

Menya Kokoro in August

Woohoo! Those "muscular" tori karaage are still on the menu at Menya Kokoro. For a moment or two, I could have sworn that they had been swapped out of the menu for good. Pretty sure that these are my favourite tori kaarage at this point of time.

There's a uma kara laksa mazesoba on the menu - one of the limited time bowls they made for National Day. Got this bowl at 30% off the regular price during that period. I admit to being slightly skeptical when I was pondering over whether to order it. Available till the end of September.

Damn it's nice. While it cannot be compared to a good bowl of laksa out there, there's definitely enough of laksa flavour to qualify as a decent mazesoba rendition. Shredded cucumber and minced pork added appreciable texture. What pleasantly surprised me were the strips of sweet abura age that were supposed to represent tau pok. I thought the conspicuous sweetness fit right into the bowl of flavours.

Here's the mentai tsukesoba I've been eyeing for a while. Because mentaiko.

It's the smokey bonito-y dipping broth. With butter. And another dollop of mentaiko. The dipping broth was obviously not as solid as the better tsukemen bowls but it got by. There's a way to eat this without mixing the mentaiko into the broth since that would just take away most of the flavour from the roe. Not gonna be talking about it though.

Feng Food, Northpoint City

Taiwanese food apparently. One of the reasons that Feng Food (#B1-156/157 Northpoint City South Wing, 930 Yishun Ave 2, tel : +65 6481 8556) got my attention was because they didn't have branches. Bodes well. For now at least.

Was intrigued by the drink called Genki Black Fungus. I couldn't decide if it looked like a black sesame paste or a blended cream of mushroom soup.

The drink didn't look like the picture in the menu. If I were asked to describe it, it would be a lime juice with bits of black fungus in it. And if they menu hadn't mentioned, I wouldn't have recognized those bits of stuff in the drink as black fungus.

Here's a bowl of shrimp dumpling noodles in beef broth - opted for their crinkly guan miao noodles (关庙面) which I kinda liked for the chewy texture. Said broth was herbal without being excessively so and pretty savoury. 

Pro tip - these pickled vegetables are a great addition in the beef broth noodles.

Lu rou fan (卤肉饭) was not bad as far as I could tell. They're named Hakka styled braised meat rice on the menu for some reason.

Tried their kung pao cabbage (宮保高麗菜) - sauce was a little tangy and thinner than I prefer. Not bad tasting but it's not something I'd look forward to in retrospect.

This was fried glutinous rice balls (花好月圆) on menu. Wouldn't have known they were fried otherwise because they didn't taste so. Tasted like chewy mochi balls coated with sugared crushed peanuts. Nice!

Come Daily Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee (天天来), Toa Payoh

This came by the way of recommendation. Prior to that, I've also heard mentions of this Hokkien mee stall (#02-27, 127 Lor 1 Toa Payoh, tel : +65 9671 7071) numerous times. Their plate was not bad tasting but I hear that the standards sometimes differ. I seemed to have gotten this $10 plate (which I was told is just a little bigger than the $5 plate) on a day where it wasn't so flavourful and less sauce-y. But at least most of the mouthfuls were filled with the crisp of bits of pork lard strewn in the noodles.

I rank YouFu above this. For $10, it wasn't bad but I wasn't impressed.