Ah Lim (阿林), Soy Eu Tua Coffee Shop

Ah Lim is located in the same coffeeshop (Soy Eu Tua Coffee Shop, 15 Upper East Coast Road) as Chendol Melaka - stall's literally a coin's flick away. This was their $8 bowl. There's plenty of minced pork in this one. Okay-ish tasting bak chor mee as a whole but I also thought it was a little pricey. And not particularly memorable.

Chendol Melaka, Soy Eu Tua Coffee Shop

I read about Chendol Melaka (Soy Eu Tua Coffee Shop, 15 Upper East Coast Road) quite a while back and have been wanting to try their nasi ulam. It's finally happened.

 

I like it. I'm getting kaffir lime and lemongrass amidst the umami of dried shrimps, shallots and numerous things I couldn't quickly tell apart within the melange of flavours. Their sambal packed respectable heat and was delicious with the rice. 👍🏼 If I had to compare with the ones I've had previously, I like this better than the one from Little Red Hen. 

Sadly their durian chendol wasn't good. The flavour of the puree reminded me of those tubed durian kueh which I never liked because they don't taste like actual durian. Nonya Chendol beats this hands down.

Old Master Hong Kong Grill (炭烧香港烧腊), Smith Street Food Centre

Noticed Old Master Hong Kong Grill (Yellow Zone, #02-006 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) which I had initially thought was the Old Master Roasted Grill stall that disappeared some years ago.

Decent roasts here. Roast pork (烧肉) had a good bite and the duck breast slices were relatively tender. Love the sweet char siew sauce. What didn't work for me were the char siew. We ordered 半肥瘦 and this was probably 85% 瘦. Those looked a lot better hanging in the stall than they tasted.

Shiikuwasha Fair at Nirai-Kanai

We were at Nirai-Kanai quite recently getting some stuff we liked.

Stuff like their mustard leaf fried rice, the meaty gyozas and the chanpuru. Speaking of which, their chanpuru has improved considerably. The bits of pork were no longer hard and dry. These today were pretty tender.

And we chanced on their Shiikuwasha Fair which featured the citrus fruit. Got a shiikuwasha beer and juice. These were deliciously refreshing.

French onion soup inspired burgers from Shake Shack

Current limited time flavour from Shake Shack.

In retrospect, doubling the meat kinda detracted from the flavour of those onions. Without the usual American cheese, I also realised that there's actually not much salt on those patties. 😮

The "French onion" flavour was more apparent in their shroom burger. 

Garlic parmesan fries has the cheese sprinkled on and some garlic aioli thingy on the side. These were pretty forgettable if you asked me.

Hoe Nam Vintage, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Hoe Nam Vintage opened up at the lot vacated by Lee Lai Jiak. The last time I've had prawn noodles from Hoe Nam was ages ago. Have a vague recollection of finding them okay-ish. I have mixed feelings about these guys here (#02-105/106 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

The impression I had gotten was that the crew were taught how to prepare the food they were serving and might not have much real exposure to how some these dishes were actually like.

And the kitchen was apparently dealing with some order issues that resulted in long waiting time.

This bowl featured small prawns and thin sliced pork belly. The latter was pretty good by the way. Saucing was...I don't know. Not bad but not what I expected from dry pork noodles. Then again, I haven't had Hoe Nam's prawn noodles for ages so maybe it's always been this way. The soup was pretty good, refillable and left an aftertaste like monosodium glutamate does.

What happened was we wanted to try their claypot dry bak kut teh. It never arrived and after about an hour, they informed us that we'd have to wait quite some time if we still wanted it. At this point, we didn't.

Tau kee's nice. The pickled mustard greens were the first sign that maybe, these guys weren't acquainted with what they were doing. There weren't very salted and were also fibrous and crunchy. 😮‍💨

One week later......

Prawn kuey teow soup's pretty decent. Portions were kinda small for a large bowl. These featured their "regular" prawns which were larger than the tiny shrimps from last week.

Okay-ish pig's stomach soup. Didn't taste exactly like what I imagined of it because the flavour was just a little different. Why is there 芹菜 in it?!

At $3.10, the pork liver rolls looked sad. Not nice. Not very livery. A knee jerk reached out to the memories of those superior ones from China Street Fritters and He Ji Wu Xiang Guan Chang. These ones here weren't close. Wouldn't get them again.

Their fried pork lard were freshly prepared but was oddly lacking in flavour. Hmmm......🤔

Managed to get the claypot dry bak kut teh this time round. I don't remember if I've ever had these so I have no frame of reference. This rendition was pretty good. I had expected the flavour to be more akin to dark soya sauce but these didn't quite taste like that. Still enjoyed it though. Pork ribs were tender with meat easily pulled off the bone. Love the thin sliced lady's finger. Would have been great if they sliced the chilli into smaller bits.