根叔美食世家 - Gen Shu Mei Shi Shi Jia

Another great discovery from Leslie Tay - this small stall in Toa Payoh is a seriously good value-for-money place. We had read so much about it that when we finally had the chance to go there for lunch, we were pretty excited and were determined to try as many dishes as we could stomach 2 hours after eating lor mee and wanton mee at Tiong Bahru.

We decided to try 3 items - the yam cake, the pork ribs with rice, and the boat style porridge.

The husband declared this as the best yam cake in Singapore. It was soft, slightly bouncy and extremely flavourful with a really tender and moist texture.

I had the boat style porridge, or tang zai zhok. The texture of the porridge was very creamy, although not quite as fine as say, Crystal Jade. But a good bowl nonetheless - it was easy to gulp down, and we didn't get the usual post-porridge MSG-induced thirst after lunch.  

This has to be the winning dish - steamed pork ribs with black bean sauce on rice. I would go back in a heartbeat for the super tender pork ribs that were not too salty, with the run-off flavouring and infusing the rice. Almost perfect.

Address: #01-03, Block 74 Toa Payoh Lorong 4

Daikokuya - our favourite new ramen place

We only happened to chance upon this place at Robertson Quay because it was almost 2.30pm and almost every other Japanese restaurant in the area was already closed. We used to eat at Menya Shinchan - the previous tenant - quite a bit, but had not ventured much to Robertson Quay in the past couple of years. Until now, with the discovery of Daikokuya drawing us back.

It was only after doing some searching on the internet did we realise that there are other branches of this ramen chain, which wasn't all that new to Singapore. Although I've never been to the Paragon or Raffles City branches, I think this particular shop is slightly different, since I can't find the things we ate on their menu listed in their website. 

I can't recall what the dish is called, but there are 2 main types of ramen being sold at the Robertson Quay outlet - the Tsukemen that you dip into a very thick soup, and another more conventional type that is served in soup. 

We had the gyoza to start with - this was pretty good. Hot and crispy on the base, and soft and juicy inside.

On my first visit, I had the conventional noodles-in-soup version with all the extra toppings - I think this cost almost $15. The soup stock was fantastic - described as pork and fish stock in the menu, it was really rich, flavourful and best of all, not too oily.The chashu was very tender, and came in thick meaty slices. The tamago was perfect, with the soy flavour infused in the white and a perfect molten yolk.

 The noodles were firm, chewy and cooked just right.

My next trip, I went for the Tsukemen - this was even better than I expected. Somehow, having the noodles out of the hot soup probably helped to retain the chewy texture so much better.

The soup was extra rich since it wasn't entirely for drinking, but they also had plain broth on standby in case we felt like diluting the soup.

Highly, highly recommended. Better than any other ramen restaurant in Singapore, methinks, and second best ramen experience we've had all year, losing out only to Ippudo in Tokyo. 

Website: http://www.daikokuya.com.sg/index.html

Basilico Sunday Brunch

We went to Basilico at The Regent for Sunday brunch one weekend, and were shocked to find that prices had increased by almost double to $78+++ since our last visit in 2010. There were also a few issues with my camera, and I couldn't take as many photos as I wanted to.

However, the quality was as good as ever - the first thing we saw were lobsters galore. These were also the first to vanish.
 

There were also other types of seafood - quite a good variety.

The usual amazing variety of tomatoes and different types of burrata and mozzarella

The lobster bisque was pretty amazing.

The porcini risotto was freshly made - this was beautiful.

The usual entrees. Parma ham, burrata and tomatoes - as good as ever.

One of the biggest hits at the buffet - freshly fried foie gras.

The cheese room was something else altogether - it seemed that every single type of Italian cheese was available, all ripe for the picking. They even had a hard truffle cheese that was incredibly fragrant.

Back in 2010, almost everything definitely appeared better: my photos, the value for money factor, and even our appetites, which have declined tremendously probably due to age. The quality of food, however, and the variety were just as good, but at $78+++ per person, you'd have to really be a die hard fan of Italian food to go.

Old Chengdu Reprise

I headed back to Lao Chengdu recently with a group of old friends for dinner - it's a great place for loud, noisy, rowdy meals to catch up with people who like to eat a lot and talk loudly. Like me :)

凉粉 again - this was a favourite.

I liked their cold cucumber with garlic, but felt there was just a little bit too much garlic.

Their beancurd skin strips were reasonably tasty, with a good mix of chilli and sesame oil. I liked the Mi Si version better though, which had lots of coriander.  

The salted egg tofu soup was as good as ever, especially in extinguishing mouth and stomach fires

French beans with chilli, dried shrimp and black beans. This was reasonable...nothing to crow about.

梅菜扣肉- nice with rice. Not sure how authentically Sichuan this dish was, though.

Pork ribs with spices - I found the meat a bit tough. It could have been cooked slightly longer.

茶树菇 - this wasn't so impressive. The mushrooms tasted kinda weird, actually. 

Dou miao - can't go too far wrong with this dish

辣子鸡- one of the best in Singapore I think. Hot, spicy, and not too oily. Great on steamed rice.

Close up of the little firebombs

We also tried a serving of the 担担面 but it wasn't that impressive in terms of the stock and flavour. It needed to be slightly more oily, with a lot more sesame.

 

The noodles were nicely cooked, though. Good texture.

Mi Si Hunan Restaurant (密斯湘菜馆) - Take 2

We made it back to Mi Si Hunan Restaurant with a few other colleagues, where we managed to order a few more things to try. Our Chinese colleague did the ordering, which was the correct thing to do. The food was as good as ever, and left me longing for yet another visit.

This was beef with vegetables - it was almost like beef jerky. Slightly tough but not too bad. 

This was a steamed fish with chilli in lieu of the fish head...I am not sure how the chilli turned out to be yellow - whether it was initially green, or whether there are such things as yellow chillies. Anyway since I am not a huge fish fan, it didn't really matter and the fish (or what I had of it) was all right.

Dried bean curd skin with a sesame chilli oil dressing and lots of coriander - this was fantastic. I could have eaten the entire dish by myself.

Black fungus with pork. This was all right, nothing spectacular but the non chilli eaters among us were quite grateful for it.

These beans were quite nice as well, lightly fried with what looked like olive vegetable.

We had my favourite dish again - bamboo shoots with smoked waxed meat. Lovely as ever, with steamed rice.

 

We also ordered golden mushrooms with vermicelli - which to our surprise, was served warm. But this was not bad also...just a bit on the salty side.

 

6 hours in Dubai

We flew Emirates to Rome, and scored ourselves a 9 hour stopover in Dubai on the way there. We had friends who very kindly picked us up from the airport, brought us around Dubai, and sent us back to the airport.

They brought us to eat camel burger at one of the restaurants near the Creek. We were pretty intrigued by the idea, and were looking forward to seeing how exotic the meat was.

When we got there, honestly, the food didn't matter - what mattered was that they had air-conditioning. It was absolutely SWELTERING.

No prizes for guessing what they serve

 

As my friend said, the Camel burger tasted like a cross between beef and chicken...and it was true. It was slightly drier than beef, but still enjoyable and I'm glad we tried it.

We also had time for a ride on an abra, from the silk souk to the spice souk to do a bit of shopping. I managed to buy saffron and fresh vanilla pods from the spice souk.

And we also managed to make it to the Dubai Mall. The scale was insane - even all the large in-your-face Chinese developments could not have prepared me for this - buildings and buildings (albeit of varied heights) set around this man made lake, with every single shop in the world you could ask for (even Brunetti had a branch there!), and this crazy 3-storey aquarium with almost all varieties of marine life, from sharks to snappers. We were pretty overwhelmed.

We had booked our tickets to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa a few weeks before the trip, and were really looking forward to being at 620m AMSL. Ok, I don't know what the MSL in the Middle East is. It's got residential apartments, a hotel, and an office tower. I wonder what the efficiency of the building is; that's a lot of space being taken up by different service cores.

 And we were on our way.

The same pond looking so tiny from the 120th storey.

Heck, everything looked tiny. And there were so many spaghetti-like traffic junctions. I think that main thoroughfare where all the buildings were was Sheik Zayed Road.

It was almost surreal to be up so high.

Our friends also brought us to Zaatar W Zeit, which is a 24 hour joint serving something like a naan or flatbread, with stuff wrapped up inside.

This was the version with haloumi cheese - I really liked it. It was slightly chewy, not too salty, and the bread had a really nice soft texture with a slightly crusty outside. 

 

 With chicken, tomato and salad

This one had minced meat - not sure what it was, possibly lamb. Ok but nothing to crow about. 

This one was my favourite - the Zaatar, with sesame seeds, thyme and possibly a bit of lemon. You can't go wrong ordering the dish that is named after the house. 

And at Dubai Airport, we also got to try Pinkberry Yogurt (photos not available). Apparently my friend has spotted Thaksin Shinawatra at various Pinkberry outlets in the city - and Thaksin's absolutely right, Pinkberry yogurt was good!