Masala Canteen, Beo Crescent Food Centre

Noticed this stall (#01-81 Beo Cresecent Food Centre, 38A Beo Crescent) recently and was intrigued by their masala beef with briyani. Was surprised that the guy who came out to take the order was a Chinese dude. Anyways, it wasn't bad at all. Very edible. While it sounds superficial, my take was that it's definitely not the tastiest masala or briyani I've had. Beef was reasonably tender. Many a masala/rendang beef don't even get to reasonably tender.   

Aka ebi don (and grilled oysters) from Chirashizushi Shou

I can't believe I missed this aka ebi don the last time we were here at Chirashizushi Shou.

I like this. Not the sweetest of aka ebi we've had but it was still sweet. Coupled that with the tangy umami from the ikura and some shoyu plus a blanket of richness from the egg yolk. Note to self : it was worth it to top up with another egg yolk.

Grilled oysters are on their seasonal menu currently. They're pretty small but not bad tasting. Spring onions, chilli and something else I don't remember. Flavour tasted local.

Bamas Kitchen, Sam Leong Road

Trying to figure out what to make of Bamas Kitchen (#04-01 Trio, 11 Sam Leong Road, tel : +65 9857 0023). Read about them and I had the impression that they were a regular Indian restaurant hidden in the building called Trio. Did not get the restaurant vibe when we were there. Noticed metal troughs which suggested that catering or buffet might be involved in their business.

There's also a retro-ish looking bar which implied that the place also functioned as a watering hole. Nothing's on tap in spite of what's displayed and most of the beers are bottled. There's even soju - did not expect those. Screen near the bar was playing pop MVs from the 90s. The guy who attended to us was Nepalese.

Moving on from the mixed signals, we came to try their duck briyani. Something I'm pretty sure isn't available anywhere else. We were given papadums minus the usual mint dip.

That duck briyani was pretty tasty. The meat was mostly slurp off the bone tender covered in curry that was described as a 'green chilli based masala'. The mound of basmati rice wasn't exactly flavoured with much besides that masala. Those being said, I also couldn't necessarily tell that the meat was duck. Hmmm...

There's achar for a bit of crunch and acid to cut through the richness of the masala on the duck. 

We ordered a mutton chukka, which was similar to pepper mutton fry. That was delicious.

At this point, the proprietress came out with little glasses of cream topped rose milk. She said it was complementary for the Hari Raya period. Nice.

Some hot noodle-y payasam before we left. These were a lot less creamy than what we've had before but they were no less milky and was served piping hot. Lots of cashews and raisins in it.

88 Pocha, Lorong Mambong

There's been some disturbance in the force about 88 Pocha (26A Lorong Mambong) lately. Likely it's because they've struck gold in their social media game. Food's not bad. A bit expensive for the quality that they are serving because it's pocha styled food which is kinda similar to what zhi char (煮炒) is locally or what dai pai dong (大牌档) is to Hong Kong for context. They're meant to be affordable, fuss free and basic. But we're paying restaurant prices here.

Sausage and cheese gimbap was good munching. Like the toasted sesame seeds which outshone the sesame oil in the rolls. Sausage was smokey.

Their mentaiko udon was a passable rendition. It's mostly creamy and garlicky and on those accounts, pretty tasty. Not that much mentaiko flavour. 

We were curious about their mackerel and kimchi stew because we've never had a mackerel and kimchi stew before. The actual thing looked nothing like the picture in the menu.

I was intensely curious about how they could get mackerels so tiny. You know...batang/saba/godeungeo (고등어). Then I realized that what was described as mackerel were sardines. Canned ones. Sardine kimchi stew was undeniably more-ish from the tangy spicy umami. 👍🏼 Also kinda pricey considering the small portion and the cheap ingredients it was made with.

Chikin's not bad. Crispy and not excessively greasy at all with tender moist meat underneath.

Pastaria Abate, Neil Road

This was our first visit to Pastaria Abate at their current location (86 Neil Road). It's been a while since we've eaten in the restaurant. What has noticeably changed was that there's table service now and that prices sure have gone up. This was us reacquainting ourselves with their food again by ordering a bunch of stuff off their specials board.

Polpette con uova - literally meatball with eggs. I don't remember being impressed by their meatballs previously but this one was nice. Savoury meatiness and a nice bite without being drowned in cheap dried herbs. Even the tomato sauce it came with was meaty tasting. Loved those eggs x 3 draped over those meatballs. Speaking of which, said eggs were described as Japanese golden eggs. 

Had a spaghetti seppia nero - this one had large chunks of cephalopods in a delicious lightweight sauce of cuttlefish ink con pomodoro. Very satisfying served piping hot. Why did I say cephalopod? Because I didn't actually know if it was squid and I suspected it was cuttlefish. Tender ones at that which kinda reminded us of Ink-Redible Calamari.

These were ravioli stuffed with prawns and mascarpone in a brown butter sauce. Could taste what I thought to be blue cheese in it as well. There's a whole prawn inside each of those ravioli. Not bad. 

Limited serving osso bucco with a buttery mash. Sauce was rich and also a bit spicy. I even got a piece of chilli that had a bit of burn in it. Parts of the meat around the bone was filled with tender bits of gooey broken down connective tissue. 👍🏼 Too bad the bone was tiny. 👎🏼

We had no more room for desserts at this point so it's a Himalayan salt latte. Coffee's flavour wasn't what I'll call robust but there was a pleasant aroma and the latte with the light saltiness was pretty smooth. Went down easily and we enjoyed it.

Nusa Indonesian Grill, Collyer Quay

Doesn't the person in the mural look like she's luxuriating in the pleasure of plunging a lightsaber into......whatever might have been that she was intending to impale? Look at that smirk.

Nusa (#01-03 Customs House, 70 Collyer Quay, tel : +65 8711 2181) is by Tambuah Mas. Indonesian, refined and a bit more contemporary than what one might encounter say "in the streets". In local colloquialism, it's a more atas version of Tambuah Mas.

Food's pretty good though. Like this rojak Jawa (Jawa as in Java, not the stunted cowled folks with glowing eyes in a galaxy far far away) which was sliced fruits with palm sugar syrup and finely crushed peanuts. It's sweet, a little spicy and definitely nutty with the citrus from said fruits.

We ordered their urap because the menu mentioned 'boiled vegetables'. Just needed to know that it's all cooked because I don't particularly enjoy the renditions with raw vegetables. Especially bean sprouts. Come and think of it, this looked the almost the same as the one served at Tambuah Mas. 

Paru goreng on skewers drizzled with kecap manis.

Their sayur lodeh tasted a little thin. Something we thought made better drinking than gravy on rice. We never needed that much gravy on rice here. Why?

Because their nasi kuning was good enough to eat on its own.

The sambal helps with most of the things we ordered. Except the kambing bakar.

Because the lamb was also good enough on its own. These were a little more done than what we normally go for and were glazed with something that might have been made with kecap manis. Meat had a good bite, prerequisite fat for flavour and pretty decent charring. Our first lamb in an Indonesian restaurant.

I was initially a little skeptical about their es krim kopi - that's an affogato with coconut ice cream. And something that they call Indonesian coffee. The balance hung heavy on both ingredients because there were only those two. Turned out that the coconut ice cream was sufficiently creamy that it worked and the strength of the espresso was...👍🏼.

More coconut ice cream, this time on avocado milkshake drizzled with palm sugar. It was less sweet than the ingredients suggested. Nice.