The Lawry's Cut and Crepe Suzette

Here at Lawry's tonight to say farewell to an old friend, we both grabbed the eponymous Lawry's Cut rather than the English Cut or the "DJB." I think I actually liked this the best out of the three, being as tender and tasty as it is, although I don't think there is anything to complain about at Lawry's (aside from those beet slivers that they put in their salad - yuck). It sure was light years ahead of Black Angus!

They were also taking a bit of pride in some Crepe Suzette kind of thing for dessert, which they flambeed for you in front of your table with Grand Marnier and Cointreau. It seemed a bit odd at first as they squeezed fresh orange juice into a pan and threw some frail looking pre-made crepes into it before flambeing, but after adding on the ice cream and and garnishings on top, it looked a bit more respectable. Admittedly, I couldn't quite get used to the orange taste, but it still went down pretty quickly.

Cafe Banh Mi Contemporary Vietnamese Cuisine

Not long after discussing the arrival of a banh mi shop in Singapore, we noticed this place (#01-15 China Court, 6538-9985) at China Square Central. I stopped by here today to grab a quick sandwich before my next meeting.

It wasn't that quick. To my surprise, they took a very long time, which is rather uncommon for banh mi that is usually assembled with Subway-like efficiency. Only when they brought it out did I realize that the reason for the delay was because they were actually grilling the meat on the spot, and bringing it to me hot. And to their credit, the meat did turn out very tasty.

It wasn't quite the banh mi that I was used to though. Instead, this thing had lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers in there, presumably an after-effect of being "contemporary Vietnamese." The pretty plates here further helped to reinforce that, although fortunately the prices weren't too snotty. Well, the taste of the meat was good enough on its own right to make me like it, but I still have yet to find a more traditional banh mi place in Singapore.

Ming Kee Chicken Rice in Bishan

This place (Kim San Leng coffeeshop at 511 Bishan St 13) came as a suggestion last week, and since we were in the neighborhood tonight, we went to go take a look. It wasn't hard to miss; as early as 6 PM, the line was already getting ridiculously long. So long, in fact, that I got a beer to help keep my interest while waiting it out, and by the time I finished it, I still had two thirds more of the line to go!

Anyway, I could see why this place was so popular: the meat was very juicy and cut into generous pieces, and the rice was nice and fluffy. Other than that, there wasn't much to excite me though. The hot sauce was rather boring to me, the soup was so bland that I barely took two sips, and the porridge was very disappointingly made from tasteless plain rice. Overall, the taste here was just a bit too much on the mild side for me.

Well, thanks for the suggestion nonetheless. Maybe if I'm up in this neck of the woods again, I'll try duking out those lines another time, but my first choice is by far still Tian Tian Chicken Rice.

Jin Huang Sze Chuan Restaurant

This was a completely random find and a nice surprise. We spotted the restaurant's big green signboard from the street that suggested that it was serving Sichuan food. With the recent demise of Chuan (what a shame - I guess my prediction unfortunately came true), the thought of finding another Sichuan place sounded pretty good. When we finally arrived (100 Jalan Sultan Road #01-09, 6299-1228), we were a bit discouraged to find that it was actually a hotpot place (yet another one!) instead of actual served dishes (and the hotpot spread wasn't looking like anything great either). But we still went ahead and sat down, grabbing a bowl with the spiciest broth as well as the milder pork rib soup on the other side.

What emerged from all of this was much better than we expected. The red broth was spicy enough that it really got the adrenaline going, no doubt assisted tremendously by a very mainland-ish peppercorn accent...but not so heavy so as to be annoying. The quality of the ingredients, while certainly not spectacular (hey - it was only S$13 or US$7.70 after all), were good enough. And the service was energetic and prompt (the gas-fuelled burner also helped to get the broth boiling quickly). No, they didn't have any sa cha sauce, but the concoction that I made with sesame oil, cilantro, and egg still worked for me.

Now, my preference is still for the Whispering Man here, in part because of his better ingredients, but more importantly because his broth uses fewer Chinese herbs (the pork rib broth here was very, very herbal...apparently the chicken broth would have been the preferred choice for me). But I can understand why people would prefer this place instead, particularly since it is probably more true to form (then again, the presence of a tom yum broth on the menu here would fuel a debate on that assertation). The place has only been open for two months, and is open late too, so I am earmarking this one for the future (noting of course too that eating all of this oil is not the healthiest thing either). Either way, this was a pleasant find, and totally unexpected.

Corduroy & Finch, Bukit Timah Road

Here's a burger from Corduroy & Finch (779 Bukit Timah Road, 6762-0131), the posh market/cafe from the parents of Uberburger. As you can see, the lineage is very apparent, and it pretty much tasted the same too. It wasn't a knockout for me due to how lean the meat was (it got a bit boring to eat towards the end without more of a fatty kick helping to fuel it), but by and large, it was still a decent quality burger. And hey - they provided real mustard here upon request.

We did get a number of other items, such as the "linguini with assorted mushrooms and noilly prat," whose sauce was surprisingly a bit on the thick side, but fortunately also very rich in the process. They also brought out some onion-based foccacia for us, which turned out decently well, especially for a guy like me who doesn't really like bread.

The snootiness of such an upscale place was layered on here though, as seen in things like their Mediterranean platter, which cost a whopping S$19 (US$11) for a selection of cold items from their deli, all placed across a very big square plate. The c&f hot sundae also came in a rather unique glass mug with a screw-top bottle of sauce on the side, but fortunately the taste was still fine. Anyway, the point here is that while the food here isn't bad, it's unfortunately not such a runaway winner that I would rush to come back either, especially when such high prices largely help to subsidize a decor that is too upscale for me. At least the food here is far better than that Whitebait & Kale place. Maybe it's worth coming back here for breakfast one of these days, although that would mean having to fight those weekend crowds. Eh...probably not then.

The Convenience of Nasi Kandar

Yes, this is the third time this week that I'm eating this stuff. I don't think I like it so much that it is an addiction like Pepper Lunch was. It is probably more so just that all this ready-cooked food is so convenient that I can literally be in and out of there with a full belly in less than ten minutes with little disruption to the busy working day.

Of course, having half-decent tasting food helps to make it easy to eat quickly. And the selections of this stuff change every day, thus keeping things a bit more interesting. For instance, today I tried his minced mutton, which was a tad salty, but in a good way, as it paired up well with the rice. The soup today was also one of the most sour that I've ever had, but again, in a good way. Oddly, it also had a bit of an artichoke taste to it, although I really don't think there was any artichoke in it. I wonder what it was that generated that taste then. Anyway, moving on...

Kopi Tiam Singapore Restaurant

A comment about Nasi Kandar was posted this afternoon at a very fortunate time: right when we were thinking of getting something fast, cheap, and yet still unique, so we hopped on down to Swissotel the Stamford to take a look. I didn't even realize until we got there that the suggestion was in reference to an actual restaurant named Kopi Tiam (I thought it was about the food court chain called Kopitiam...until I realized that the food court here was run by the competing Food Junction people instead). After finally sorting it all out, this place (2 Stamford Road Level 2, 6431-6221) turned out to be a hotel restaurant serving local food...a bit like the infamous Chatterbox at the Meritus Mandarin, or maybe even the StraitsKitchen at the Hyatt. And while they were indeed running some Penang promotion, it was split into three phases, with the final Nasi Kandar phase not arriving until the 16th. Today, they were still on the first phase, or Penang Hawker Fare. We still went in anyway.

Each of the three phases featured about six menu items from each guest chef, so we went ahead and picked the quintessential Penang Kway Teow, as well as an item from their "normal" menu: the Nasi Goreng Istimewa. We added a couple soups as well to round it all out. It proved to be a mixed bag, with a general inclination toward the worse. The Penang Kway Teow, while featuring some very fresh shrimp, was a bit of a bore compared to the salty/grimey plate that I remember from Penang (and oddly, they threw in things like crab meat and Chinese sausages here, perhaps to partially help justify that relatively high S$14, or US$8.25, price tag?).

The Nasi Goreng Istimewa arrived a bit cold (especially the egg, which was a bit of a turn off), and just reminded me of that nasi campur stuff I once had in Indonesia, with nothing to get me going either. And while the fish maw soup came came out pleasantly hot and savory, the tom yum soup was just a disaster, being too salty and hardly even sour or spicy (clearly this was not the right place to order tom yum soup though).

The worst part about this experience was what hit us in the end: the prices. Each of those single-serving soups was S$9 (US$5.30), so add in a couple drinks and those main courses and this became a very expensive meal compared to the much much cheaper stuff that one could get at a hawker center. Then again, that's the hallmark of this genre: cater to hotel guests from out of town that want to try local food but prefer air conditioned comfort instead, and can conveniently charge the higher prices to their expense accounts. At least at Chatterbox, I like the chicken rice enough that I'd be willing to pay for it (despite having much cheaper options out there). But here, there was simply nothing to get me excited, and we left with the remorse of having overpaid for something that wasn't really that remarkable to begin with. Oh well...please keep the suggestions coming though; disappointments are just as much a part of the adventure as good finds are, and at least now I know about Kopi Tiam versus Kopitiam. :)

More from that Nasi Kandar stall

Here's just a repeat visit to that Nasi Kandar stall from yesterday. He had a different selection today, including a dry (and lukewarm) mutton this time, but with what seemed to be more Chinese-like spices, as well as a very sour soup that made my lips pucker (in a very good way). Sure, the rice was a bit crummy today, but for only S$3.50 (US$2.05), who's complaining? I guess this is kinda like a Penang-based Indian version of Economic Rice.

Raku Japanese Restaurant + Bar

I've gotta admit that I was rather disappointed in this place (273 Holland Avenue #01-02, 6469-6646, with other locations at Greenwood Avenue and Citylink Mall, apparently). I'd seen it at Holland Village for years now and wanted to stop by, but I always seemed to be distracted by other places like Al Hamra or those two Mexican joints. Tonight, we finally came over, and unfortunately it was a bit of a letdown.

The main gripe I had was the (lack of) freshness of the ingredients, especially at the rather exorbitant prices that they charged: they had an all-you-can-eat package for something like S$59, or US$34, and that price point was pretty easy to come close to even if you ordered a la carte like we did (and that was actually the cheaper of the two all-you-can-eat packages that excluded more expensive things like otoro). Maybe it was because today was an ill-advised Monday, but the fish simply wasn't the quality that I was expecting. Don't get me wrong; it was still very edible (and certainly much better than that egregious monstrosity and neighbor Sushi Tei); but it seemed to me as if the high prices were more to justify the dimly lit ambiance and fancy porcelainware rather than the food.

There were some items that did pique my curiosity when I read the menu though, such as the yaki mentaiko, as I wasn't sure how one could actually grill mentaiko on a flame. When it came out, it looked like it was compacted into sausage-like shapes or something before being thrown on the fire and then cut up into slices and separated by cucumber. Yes, it was odd, and it really didn't really do anything to change the taste too much (it reminded me of a similarly intriguing but ultimately pointless yaki edamame that I once had at that nasty Ichiban Boshi place). Actually, I wasn't a big fan of how they prepared some other items either, like the yaki onigiri, which seemed to be slathered with a strong sweet/spicy sauce reminscient of that stuff that is used on those barbequed corn things from street stalls in Taiwan.

Well, there was certainly nothing wrong with the service or anything, as they were very warm and engaging (in fact, they tossed us a number of freebies tonight in exchange for being a bit understaffed). And maybe if their prices were about half of what they currently charge, then I'd consider coming back. But if I really wanted to pay their current prices, then there are plenty of other places that I'd rather go to where I'm not paying for any ambience, but rather simply the quality of the ingredients.

Nasi Kandar from Penang...really?

A new stall at 8 Lim Teck Kim Road here in Singapore opened up recently with a big sign advertising "Penang Famous Nasi Kandar." Not knowing exactly what Nasi Kandar was, I went to go check it out. Upon arrival, I was actually a bit disappointed to see that it looked like any other standard issue Indian food stall so common around here (i.e., with rice, curry, and veggies served from troughs), but that also makes sense, as apparently this is supposed to be food served by Indian Muslim immigrants in Penang (I guess that makes it the fourth must-eat item up there that my colleague failed to tell me about?).

Well, I really don't know enough to be able to tell the difference between this and traditional Indian food (as well as whether or not this tastes any different from what one would actually get in Penang), but I did rather enjoy this plate. It seemed to pack a little more heat on the spicy scale than food that I've had from more traditional Indian stalls, thus facilitating the inhalation process today. Maybe next time I'll bring some of my Indian and Malaysian colleagues to help better explain to me the finer nuances of this dish (and I've gotta remember to try the stuff myself next time I'm up in Penang).

The Magic of Chongqing Hot Pot

I went to this place once a very long time ago (Tanglin Shopping Centre #04-06, 6734-8135), but never went back since I was a bit bummed that it wasn't the Taiwanese version that I was hoping for. We went over there out of convenience tonight though, and fortunately it wasn't as bad as I remembered it. Sure, the condiment selection was still more or less limited to the peanut sauce (which made me incredibly thirsty, mind you), but the broth on both sides of the Yuan-Yang hotpot was respectably tasty, and the little slivers of raw pickled garlic thrown into the peanut sauce helped too. I guess this isn't too far off from the way it's done in the mainland?

They have a S$26.90 (US$15.80) all-you-can-eat package here, but we found it slightly cheaper to order a la carte, especially given the boring selection of ingredients to pick from here (the waitress gave us the evil eye when we tried to order individually). Be careful though - it can add up quickly, especially given how pathetically small the S$8 (US$4.70) plates of beef slices are, not to mention the S$2 (US$1.20) edamame plates sitting on your table when you arrive and thus automatically charged for. I still prefer the Whispering Man by far (both taste-wise and price-wise), but I suppose if I had to come here again, I could bear it more than I did last time.

Simply Bread, Robertson Quay

This was another recommendation in a posting from a while back. Instead of going to the shop on 5th Avenue though, we went to the original bakery at the Quayside (#01-15, 6732-2966). Right when we walked in, we got a whiff of freshly baked bread, as well as French toast grilling away. Naturally, we ordered a plate of the French toast, as well as a roast beef sandwich. The latter came first, and was encouragingly done with nothing but with meat, tomatoes, and grain mustard. The Projectshop Cafe could use a lesson or two from here.

The French toast came next. It was a bit odd to see it without any powdered sugar on top (cue: Road Trip). I got another surprise when I realized that the maple syrup was actually honey instead (apparently that's the way it's done in Hong Kong?), thus making it a bit too sweet (but at least they kept it on the side). Well, the toast was rather perfectly grilled though (cue: Kramer vs. Kramer), so if they would just offer maple syrup for this, then we would be set.

Despite these issues, overall this place was pretty good, without being pretentious. We'll come back again for breakfast. A very tall and aptly named "Everything" sandwich that was ordered by a neighboring table looked like it was worth trying too.