Udon Shin, Ngee Ann City/Takashimaya

Managed to snag seats at Udon Shin (#B2-32 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road) without a ridiculous queue today. They're from Tokyo and this outlet is apparently the first outside of Japan. Another one of those.

From what I gathered, their udon are not cut or boiled in advance. Each portion is rolled, cut, and cooked on order. Gotta admit the texture's smooth, firm and chewy.

This was their seasonal Arrabbiata bowl which featured a tomato base. Because of the name, I had the impression that it would be spicy. Wasn't really. It was cheesy and tomato-y though. And unexpectedly sweet. Came with some vegetable and snow crab tempura on the side. Those snow crab legs were puny. 

Their Carbonara bowl was topped with a strip of tempura bacon. That bacon was not bad tasting and wasn't as thick or salty as I had imagined. I'm not sure if I'd associate the flavour of this bowl with carbonara but it was eggy, buttery and cheesy. Kinda enjoyed it. Don't think I'll be getting it again though.

A couple of weeks later......

Butter shoyu udon with tempura. Tempura was sliced chashu and cheese. 

Cheese was gooey and salty so I liked it. Charshu was dry-ish and flavoured from the marinate. I think there was considerably more punch from the udons the last round because of the cheese in the noodles. This butter shoyu bowl felt less intense.

Mamita's Kitchen, Lucky Plaza

Food from Mamita's Kitchen (#02-60 Lucky Plaza, 304 Orchard Rd, tel : +65 9222 8894).

This was sinigang na bangus - milkfish in sour soup. Broth was savoury and tart.

Got ourselves some ginataang gulay which was vegetables in coconut cream. That coconut cream was a sweet and rich so this almost tasted like a dessert. First thing that came to mind was bubur cha cha. Mostly pumpkin and long beans in there.

Because the ban on pig's blood has been lifted recently, these guys have already started making dinuguan - a blood stew made with pork or pig innards, vinegar and chilli. Amongst other things. Texture was creamy and there was some livery/offal-y taste in it. There were chunks of meat which tasted like pork belly. Don't know if there were any actual offal. Looked kinda swampy. 😬

That dinuguan was so good with rice. That rice portion they served was pretty generous and I wiped it off the plate.

Some sinigang on the side. These were pretty sour.

For some reasons, the proprietress offered us a serving of tortang talong on the house. This was deep fried eggwashed eggplant and it was fresh off their fryer. The tortang was piping hot, had crispy eggy edges and the eggplant was tender and gooey. A little greasy but nice.

This needs mention - the rice we had today were really moist. Some of them have even compressed into lumpy chunks and I love those parts. Reminded me of ketupat that's warm and tender.

Taste of Sri Lanka, Sims Place

Another Sri Lankan stall (Mei Cheng Coffee Shop, #01-150, 53 Sims Place) has popped up on the radar.

This was their chicken curry meal which came with some salad, dal, potatoes (I detected cumin I think), papadam and choice of another vegetable. I got the beetroot. The curry was light with little to no coconut milk. Dal's delicious. There's loads of texture in this plate.

There's some kattal sambal which you could help yourself with which packed some heat, salt and something seafoody. The flavour of those reminded me of hae bi hiam. From what I gathered online, there's supposed to be fish in it. 👍🏼

Curry puff & goreng pisang from Selera Restaurant

I remember getting curry puffs in the vicinity many many years back. What I couldn't recollect was if they were from Selera Restaurant or Old Chang Kee across the road.

Tried a puff lately and based on impressions (aha!), I like these better than Old Chang Kee. But then again, I'm also biased against Old Chang Kee for their gimmicks and increasing prizes.

The skin was a nicer hue of golden brown and the fillings seem to taste "nicer". The oil in the fryer didn't inspire confidence though. Lol. 

Goreng pisang was awesome. Skin wasn't excessively thick or oily and had a good crisp to boot. The melty pisang raja inside was sweet and banana-y.

I need to come back for more of these.

Appam Place, Tekka Food Centre

Came across Appam Place (#01-235 Tekka Market & Food Centre, 665 Buffalo Road) recently. Left's chocolate and right's cheese. The picture they had led me to believe that they batter was folded with chocolate but it wasn't the case. These had some hazelnut chocolate spread over them. And curiously, color rice sprinkles as well. Noticed that they also gave jaggery.

More food from Tim Ho Wan (添好運)

More recent eats at Tim Ho Wan. Aside from some of the things we tended to get like their pan fried radish cake, spinach prawn dumpling and recently their morel dumpling which weren't photo-ed, there's a bunch of limited time stuff from their SG61 “Flavours of Singapore” specials.

XO fried rice with bacon and luncheon meat. Pretty decent. For something that has bacon and luncheon meat, this was really low on salt.

This was bak chor rice rolls - a take on bak chor mee obviously, using cheong fun. There's minced pork, stewed mushrooms, some fried pork lard, tau gay and a token sprinkle of chopped spring onions. It's not lardy like some of the local bcm but it was an interesting take, especially with the vinegar in the sauce that made it easy to inhale.

Not bad laksa seafood dumplings that's stuffed with bits of shrimp, scallops and water chestnut. Those water chestnuts were unexpectedly chunky. Laksa gravy was a little thin but it wasn't bad. Would have been great if there were more laksa leaves. 

I don't think I've never had egg tarts from Tim Ho Wan before. It might be a first time for me. Short crust pastry with eggy custard inside - typical of Hong Kong styled egg tarts. Not bad.

Never seen this peach gum & goji berries in coconut soup dessert before. I reckon it would have been nicer if there were more peach gum.

Some calamansi lemongrass fizz for the weather. Flavour was like a preserved plum (酸梅) drink, but not particularly lemongrass-y,