Charshu ramen with lemon from Marutama

Encouraged by the previous episode, we came back to Marutama. They charged a dollar for some lemon I asked for and gave me a whole half instead of a just wedge. Why the lemon? I wanted to see if I could somehow replicate the tori paitan bowl that I had at Uma Uma Ramen.

I'm don't think it tasted the same but I liked this anyways. There was quite a lot of juice from the lemon so the creamy broth got zested up much. I wouldn't mind doing this again. 

Yakiniku Like, VivoCity

Yakiniku Like (#02-60 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk, tel : +65 6974 9954) from Japan opened their first restaurant about a year before Yakiniku-GO which we've been to a couple of times. The former claimed to be Singapore's first restaurant to offer individual electric smokeless grills. And solo yaikiniku.

This was the main driver behind this trip. Suckered by a misleading ad on their social media. I should have been clued in by tsukimi but......

They have a bunch of sauces, something that didn't seem to be available in Yakiniku-GO. Tried the original, sea salt and garlic soy. Just salt and pepper were still the best for us.

The only truffle thing in their Truffle Tsukimi Wagyu & Karubi Set was the onsen tamago which had some sort of truffle sauce. Nada on the beef. We thought that there would be. 

It was clear that they wanted to give the impression that the truffle tamago was a separate item and I thought it was also outright misleading for the pictures not to include them as part of the set because they were. We didn't get the impression that it was, so we ordered them separately and ended up with two truffle tamagos per set.

A double whammy of misdirection.

Kimchi's nice with the rice. Wished the portions were bigger.

I'm more favourably inclined towards Yakiniku-GO at this point. They have lamb. But when I feel like yakiniku, whichever of them available is going to be as good.

Economy bee hoon (经济米粉) from Toa Payoh Vista Market

Don't know what the name of this stall (#01-10 Toa Payoh Vista Market, 74 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh) was but they have pretty decent bee hoon (经济米粉). Loved those molten yolked fried eggs. Their chilli sauce was a little too sweet for my liking though. Nobody does chilli like Ivan's Porridge for their bee hoon. 

Holy Crab, Capitol Piazza

Been wanting to try Holy Crab (#01-85 Arcade @ Capitol, 13 Stamford Road, tel : +65 8444 2722) for a while. Read that the chef used to operate a private kitchen at his home before the restaurant undertow swept him off his feet. The menu looked interesting and had enough variety that we were slightly overwhelmed by indecisiveness. 

Because it was Holy Crab, I wanted to get some crab on this first visit. There's a shelled option called naked green which features crab meat with their Green Mumba sauce that sounded good. Love the heat and loads of flavour from said sauce which involves green chilli, kaffir lime leaves and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't identify.

Was it good? I thought it was expensive for $90 and the meat was dried out. Sauce was fantastic when it was piping hot but the appeal kinda went downhill with the dissipated heat after some time. The lesson learnt here was to get whole crabs the next time. Those looked a lot better.

Stir fried kailan with onions, garlic and lard was delicious.

Chao tar bee hoon looked nice. Didn't taste as good as it looked. The toasty edges were kinda nice but the dish as whole needed salt and it was pretty greasy that even the small serving was a little too much grease for two persons. That was after we had squeezed in extra limes that they obliged. Some squid, pork belly, two prawns and some bits of egg. That was pretty much it besides the charred bee hoon. Wouldn't get it again.

We got ourselves steamed rice because of the green sauce and the kailan.

Kar Sou Hakka Yong Tau Fu (家嫂客家酿豆腐), Toa Payoh Vista Food Centre

Nice curry yong tau fu noodles from Kar Sou Hakka Yong Tau Fu (#01-04 Toa Payoh Vista Market, 74 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh). Curry's not the rich and lemak Peranakan rendition - this was thinner but still savoury, spicy and delicious. What I particularly enjoyed from this bowl were the hand made mince pork stuffings in the tau kwa, tofu, brinjal and bitter gourd which has salted fish flavour infused in them.  

Relish by Wild Rocket, Cluny Court

The last time we were here at Relish (#02-01 Cluny Court, 501 Bukit Timah Road, tel : +65 6763 1547) was many years back. For some reasons, the place has fallen under our radar in the past one an a half decade.

Iced lemongrass & ginger was outstanding. Why? We loved the heat from the ginger in the drink which reminded us of the one from the aged ginger powder from Spa Foods - something we noticed they were also selling. But great lemongrass and ginger on ice.

Guess what else they have here.

We ordered prawn paste frog legs (虾酱田鸡). A little greasy but they did a good job out of infusing the crispy prawn paste batter with prawn paste; not forgetting also the tender slurp off the bone meat on the frog legs.

That's the Roketto oyster omelette spaghettini - great umami from dried shrimp in the pasta thats infused with heat. Love those egg strips and fried oysters in there. Could definitely eat this again.

I've been wondering about their blue cheese & William pear burger since back in the day. Finally tried it. I liked it. The 'blue cheese-infused beef patty' always had me doubting the blue cheese part. In actuality, it's not so much a cheese infused patty than a cheese stuffed one like a Juicy Lucy. Cheese was wedged in the patty.

Enjoyed this. Could taste that walnut-peanut butter and poached pear so the balance of flavours in the ingredients were done well.

A double shot hazelnut latte to end.