Revisiting Huang Da Fu (黄大福)

It's been some years since I had bak chor mee from Huang Da Fu. We ended up here today because (New) MacPherson Minced Meat Noodles decided to pack up and move to Jalan Besar. This was the $4.50 bowl, noticeably smaller than the large bowl from the last time. Felt pretty much the same way as before about them. Not the nicer of mee pok texture and their lard was...don't bother with those.

Mincheng Bibimbap, Tiong Bahru Plaza

Mincheng Bibimbap (#02-136 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road) replaced Paik's Noodle at Tiong Bahru Plaza. These guys are like...Chinese bibimbap?

I'm not feeling for their kimchi. I'm not sure why but I didn't like it.

I'm normally not a dolsot bibimbap person. But technically this wasn't a stone bowl...😂. I picked the one with pork and cheese and I needed the cheese to melt.

Wasn't bad tasting. I guess the main difference from Mincheng's bibimbap and the Korean ones we've had is the flavour of the sauce (I'm not sure what this was but it didn't taste like gochujang) and there's salted mustard greens (梅菜) in it. Still not a fan of these in hot bowls.

There's a seafood tofu soup. Seafood-y tasting with clams and some sus looking prawns.

In retrospect, one can definitely tell the difference between the bibimbap here and some of the nicer Korean variety which will have a price tag that commensurates with their quality and/or quantity.

Fatt Choy Eating House (發財餐館), Haji Lane

Not impressed as a whole with Fatt Choy Eating House (10 Haji Lane).

Pork lard fried rice was a little underwhelming.

There's lard and dark soy sauce flavouring in it for sure but the fried rice was bland and definitely not great fried rice by any stretch of imagination.

This helped.

This was their original Roxy laksa. I've never had the original and I didn't think that those would have tiger prawns. Those prawns were nice and unexpectedly sweet by the way. The broth even had a particularly prawny crustacean dimension to it.

Not a fan of their ngoh hiang. Didn't like the crispy fried bean curd skin. Much prefer the regular skin. One could taste pork and prawns in them but it wasn't enough to save it.

I've had my share of lamb skewers and I'd rank these at the bottom of the list. At $18, they were also the most we've ever paid for lamb skewers. The meat looked aburi-ed, not grilled. While it had the prerequisite cumin flavouring, it didn't pack the oomph and also would have benefit from having a bit more salt. Lamb was chunky, chewy and lacking of a good fat to meat ratio that would have brought out better flavours. Waste of money. 👎🏼

Revisiting Santi's

Mixed feelings about them like the last time. Didn't get what I wanted because the actual menu wasn't what they had on their website. They explained that the site wasn't updated but the current menu as been around for about a week now. Add four days more to that as I'm writing this because it's still the old menu online. 😬 Getting lackadaisical vibes from this place. 

Anyways, this was their smoked miso leek rigatoni. Both leek and miso were... subtle. Not getting any of the sharpness from the leek and I might not have known it was miso in the sauce if not for the menu.

This was the mortadella panuozzo - pizza sandwich thingy. Was looking forward to the one with Parma ham but that's from the old menu. This definitely could have been better. 

Too little slices of really thin mortadella inside which were overwhelmed by the other stuff. Stuff like some Lao Gan Ma-ish chilly thingy and stracciatella - which was a pretty good combo actually. I liked this as a sandwich. But I would love to taste mortadella when I order something with mortadella.

Teochew St. Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle (潮州街香菇肉脞面), Smith Street Food Centre

Been wanting to try the bak chor mee from this stall (Yellow Zone, #02-023 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) for a while. This was their $6.50 signature noodle. Pretty loaded with the works. I was initially scoffing at how soft the mee pok was but it for some reasons grew on me. Saucing is pretty wet here. I liked the quality of their toppings. Special mention goes to their stewed mushrooms and the fragrant combination of ti poh and lard. Verdict was I enjoyed it with the sliced chilli. Will come back.

Idli and eggs from Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd

Came by Sri Aachi Aappakadai Pte Ltd for idli and egg kalaki.

The chutney treatment was quite different from the last time.

Egg kalaki was loaded with onions. It's not bad an omelette but I'm not a fan of the overwhelming sharpness from so much onions. I like the one from Anjappar at Brickfields better.