Uni hitsumabushi from Man Man Unagi

I came across this item from Man Man's social media. For some reasons, I was unable to find that particular post after visiting anymore. *cues random conspiratorial tune* Yup, suckered down to try their uni hitsumabushi thingy. The staff were unable/unwilling to tell me how much uni there was until after the order had been made. Then suddenly information which they claimed not to know became forthcoming. 20g.

Not worth it for what they were charging. This order had half the amount of unagi compared to the regular hitsumabushi. Though edible, the uni wasn't of good quality or quantity. I'm disappointed because if they wanted to do it, they should have done a good job out of the option. But today, I've confirmed my assessment again that this Keong Saik branch grills better eels than the one in Duo Galleria.

Their caramelized and charred bittersweet kimoyaki were still delicious.

Suntory's kuro on the tap these days too, available in half pints. That's an improvement in the establishment there.

Ka-Soh, College Road

After having seen the Ka-Soh signage along Outram countless times, we finally paid the restaurant (Alumni Medical Centre, 2 College Road, tel : +65 6473 6686) a visit. 

Har cheong gai was in order because this was one the things to get when you eat here. The deep fried chicken parts were nicely done with sufficient prawn paste flavouring like their other restaurant at Amoy Street.

Menu described this dish as 'egg tofu fried with pickled vegetables & minced chicken'. It looked like mapo tofu. Gravy was a little sweet, a little savoury and spicy. The mentioned pickled vegetables were cai por (pickled turnip). Certainly didn't looked like what we imagined it to be when we ordered it but it didn't taste too bad.

Their sum lou hor fun has always been a favourite. I don't know if they're the better ones around these days but their rendition is still pretty tasty.

The dish we've never seen/heard of before from Ka-Soh was their beef and crab meat hor fun in black bean sauce and egg. Beef was tasteless and almost textureless and hence, we knew that their cooking had never improved with the times. There wasn't much crab meat in the black bean sauce which was of amateur quality flavour. I'm sure there're better black bean sauce dishes around that are much better than this one. 

Three Buns, Robertson Quay

I've had an impression formed of the Potato Head Folk and their Three Buns. Not my style. Proven once and again. So why did I end up here in this shop (60 Robertson Quay)? I got suckered by their Impossible™burger. But I think this third time will be the charm that finally takes hold.  

We tried a couple of burgers. The Rambo on top which featured Dorper lamb patties with feta, pickled aubergine and some nice cumin flavouring. In the pickled aubergine laid the essence of Three Buns. The thing/things that kill the burger. For me that is. The domineeringly sour pickle that detracted from the flavours of the lamb. This could have been pretty good if not for that.

Their Impossible™Chedda was similarly profiled by their pickle. My opinion was that the cheese, ketchup and pureed onion would probably have sufficed but these guys obviously saw the value in going their extra mile in overloading their burgers with more sourness. It seemed as though they were ashamed of the ingredients that they were using. This was the lousiest out of the three Impossible burgers I've had so far.   

And here they serve fries with truffle cheese sauce, shaved truffles and truffle aioli. Can anyone see any shaven truffles anywhere? I sure didn't. Those fries did not taste very truffle-y at all if you asked me.

Monkey Shoulder infused Madagascan vanilla milkshake? Didn't like this. Not so much the whiskey. It was the shake that I didn't like.

Foo of Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice, International Plaza

Interesting name this stall (#01-06 International Plaza, 10 Anson Road) has. Should one Google the name of the stall, there would be only one other relevant result from a particular website that's either shamefully incompetent and/or didn't care the least about their generic writeup since it technically imparted no information to anyone who knew chicken rice and even had to pilfer an image of Thai chicken rice for that writeup.  

Back to Foo of Taste. Rice was flavoured and lightweight. Chilli was of the slightly more gingery variety without lime. I suppose that and the rice together wasn't particularly outstanding but I liked the rice with the achar which they also sold. That's the $1 portion below.  

Their boiled chicken wasn't those of the tender slurp off the bone variety. Meat's a little grainier and more bite with a bit more pronounced chicken-y flavour from both the meat and the skin. That was also because the serving wasn't doused with as much sesame oil and soy sauce as most. What I didn't expect were the bits of gelatin underneath the skin. Flavourful bits of gelatin.

Scrambled, Icon Village

I've heard about how the owners of Scrambled (#01-33/34 Icon Village, 12 Gopeng Street, tel : +65 6221 0289) came from pedigreed culinary backgrounds. Scrambled reminded me of Eggslut. But something didn't quite click here. All that cooking background had somehow reduced themselves a signature sandwich of eggs that were a little too scrambled than most scrambled eggs; using cheese that wasn't very salty in conjunction with sweetness from both the buns and caramelized onions that were performing the roles of a foil over an almost non-existent saltiness. 

I like my breakfast sandwiches savoury. This wasn't it. No hot sauce to make up for it neither. For more than double the price of a McD breakfast minus the satisfaction, I didn't think it was worth what they charged.

Re-revisiting Tian Tian Seafood Restaurant

Came by for a late dinner at Tian Tian Seafood. Pretty grateful that there are places like this in the vicinity that take their business well past 10pm in times like this. So - we ordered their luncheon meat fried rice to see if they were as good compared to the neighbouring Lao You Ji. Can't decide which one I liked better. Both were nice. Properly fried without residual grease.

Couldn't resist getting their delicious sambal petai since we didn't get them the last time. 

That's above is a dish of kang kong stir fried with sliced beef in prawn paste. Pretty good. The prawn paste sauce from the dish would have been awesome with white rice. While the meat didn't taste particularly beefy, it wasn't one of those that had been mutated into some unidentifiable meat substance by tenderizer. Gotta remember to tell them to exclude those ginger shreds the next time.

I guess not all things were so tasty. Like this dish which was described as braised fish brisket and eggplant. It's fish belly I think - cuts of it with many dangerous bits of bone that made it a chore to eat. I had thought that these would be without any bone. The braising did nada in imparting flavour of that braising liquid to the fried fish; which by itself had a muddy flavour. Eggplant was sweet though. Will not get this again.