Botanist at Neil Road

The cafe is housed in an old shop house in the Tanjong Pagar conservation area.  The sign is not very prominent.  We almost walked right past it without noticing it.

The place is quite small, with 5-6 tables in the alfresco area, indoors there was only the cashier, kitchen and product displays .  The alfresco area is just a stone's throw away from Neil Road, so sometimes it can be quite noisy when there is a lot of traffic.

You have to go the cashier to order your food and drinks, make the payment and then came back with a number plate for your order.  Surprisingly, there is no service charge, GST is included in the stated price.

Slow Cooked Beef Cheek, $24.00

I ordered their signature slow cooked beef cheek.  Well, beef cheek is the cow's facial muscle, which works really hard throughout a cow's life, munching grass.  This tough muscle transforms into tender stew after being cooked low and slow.  You could still see the coarse fibre-like tissues but it was pleasant to bite and chew.

Underneath the beef cheek was the truffle mash, which is mash potato cooked with butter and truffle oil.  Butter and truffle oil added layers of complex sensations to this otherwise common ingredient, in particular the fragrance, which enhances your appetite.

Piccolo Latte, $4.50

Other than food, this cafe is famous for its coffee.  They are by the Pacamara people.  Well, as if I knew what Pacamara are.  Frankly speaking, I have never heard of Pacamara, until now.  Obviously they are a well-known boutique coffee roaster in Singapore, providing good coffee to the Singapore connoisseurs.  At first, I wanted to try their cold brew, but then it was not available on the day of my visit (why?).  I ordered a piccolo latte instead.

I always wonder why there are so many different names for the same stuff, coffee is just coffee.  Piccolo latte is a kind of 'new' invention that became popular in Sydney about 10 years ago.  It is coffee with milk served in a small glass.

The milk tames the bitterness of the coffee, while retains the nutty flavor of the beans.  It is gentle to the stomach, stimulating to the brain, fresh for the nose.  It would be great to have it after meal, but too bad, they served it before my food arrived.  Still not bad.

Overall, it was a pleasant dining experience.  The staff were friendly, service with a smile.  The place can be noisy and hot sometimes, mostly due to its close proximity to the main road.  Food and coffee are both good.  My friend whose standard comment on food is always 'so-so', surprised me with an 'above average' comment for Botanist.

Santouka at Clark Quay Central

This is my second visit to this ramen restaurant in 8 or 9 years.  During my last visit, their ramen was way too authentic for me.  The soup base was so salty that it was unpleasant to eat.

Shio Ramen, $13.50++

This time, I ordered their Shio ramen.  The soup base was still as thick and milky, but the taste was a lot less salty.  I think they had made adjustment to their soup base so that it is more acceptable to the local taste.  It is also better from the health point of view.  Too much salt in a person's diet will have many serious consequences, including high blood pressure, diabetes and even stomach cancer.  Japan has one of the highest stomach cancer cases in the world, partially because of their diet.  It is great that they made the adjustment. 

Back to my Shio ramen.  The chashu was thinly sliced.  The proportion of fat and lean meat was good.  Melt-in-your-mouth element was still there for the fat part.

Ramen-wise, it was like our egg noodle, and I think it was slightly over-cooked, leaving the contour less clearly defined. 

Overall, their ramen was quite enjoyable, with good adaption to the local taste for the soup base.
The staff were friendly and service efficient.  If you choose your table correctly, you can enjoy the view of Clark Quay while enjoying your ramen too.

Sik Bao Sin Eating House at Geylang Road

Spotted this Sik Bao Sin Cantonese eating house along Geylang Road the other day and decided to give it a try.  The place is open for dinner from 5.45pm, we arrived at around 6.20pm, the place was already almost full.  Luckily there were only the two of us, and we were warmly ushered in immediately.

We were given a menu to order, but there was no price tag on the menu, so you have to be a bit thick-skinned to ask them for the prices.  There are not many items on the menu, so almost every item on the menu is their recommended dish.

Black Chicken Herbal Soup, $26.00

My friend wanted the black chicken soup, so we ordered one.  When it arrived, it gave us a shock.  Usually the soup is in a small bowl, and you get some body parts of the black chicken, and some tiny amount of herbs, but the black chicken soup here came in a giant bowl, with an entire black chicken in it.  There were generous portions of Chinese herbs of YuZhu (玉竹), BeiQi (北芪）, QiZi （杞子）, etc.   The soup was excellent, 真材实料, boiled for hours with authentic ingredients.  The sweetness of the soup came from the ingredients, not some added sugar or artificial flavouring.  As the portion is quite big, I think it can be shared by at least 3 persons.

Steamed Song Fish-head, $26.00

We also ordered their signature dish, the steamed Song fish-head.  When the dish came, we got another shock.   When I ordered the steamed Song fishhead in another local restaurant, the fishhead was of palm size, but the one here again was of giant size.  It was steamed with preserved vegetables, and deep-fried pork lard, topped with spring onion and then finally hot oil was poured on it to spark off the fragrance.

Cantonese like to eat fishheads, as it has lots of collagen, which is tender and smooth, full of nutrients.  The fish head was done just nice.  The meat was still tender but fully cooked.  The collagen was still juicy.  It was good!  However, there was something I didn't like.  Somehow they use fermented tofu (豆腐乳) as part of the sauce.  Fermented tofu's flavor was too strong for such a delicate dish, it grossly dominated the entire sensation system.   Well, it is just my opinion, maybe many other patrons like the strong taste.

We also ordered a vegetable dish, together with two bowls of rice and two teas, in grand total we paid $68.00 for the entire meal.  No GST and no service charge.

I think I will go back for their soup, but with more people.  Their soup is simply too big for just one or two persons.

Jumbo Seafood at Riverside Point

It has been quite some time since I last visited Jumbo Seafood restaurant, as some foreign visitors were in town so we decided to have dinner at Jumbo Riverside Point.  I didn't know their business had become so successful.  On a weekday night, we almost couldn't secure a table.  The restaurant opens at 5.30pm for its alfresco section, 6.00pm for its indoor section.  At 5.30pm, there was already a huge queue, for people with reservations!  We waited for about 15 minutes before we were seated.

We ordered a very expensive set menu, which is not shown at their website.

The first dish that came was the PingPang (拼盘), a combination of appetizers of roast duck salad with mango, crispy fried baby squid, bacon wrapped sausage, and fried seafood beancurd.  We had motley crew of people that night, 3 Americans, 1 Italian, 1 Korean, 1 Japanese, 1 Mexican, 1 Indonesian and of course 1 Singaporean.  The Italian didn't like sweet dishes other than dessert, so he didn't like the fried baby squid.  I don't like sausages in general.  The rest of the guys somehow finished all that appetizer in no time.  For the next few dishes, they were gone before I could take a photo!

The next dish I managed a photo was steamed bamboo clam.  Vermicelli was strategically placed underneath the clam meat, and minced garlic was placed on top the clam meat.  When the clam was steamed, all the richly flavored juice was absorbed in the vermicelli.  At first, I was a bit concerned that the clam meat may be too tough to chew.  As it turned out, it was good.  Fully cooked, but it was crispy, easy to bite it off, not the rubbery type.  The chef did a good job.  Other than one Italian American who doesn't like garlic, all the bamboo clams were gone in an instant.

Our expensive set menu offered Alaska crab.  We decided to have half to cook with black pepper, and half with chili.  I must say that Alaska crab itself was very good, but the black pepper was really too strong and overwhelmed the taste of the Alaska crab itself.  In my opinion,

The chili crab somehow still managed to retain the original taste of the Alaska crab itself.  Alaska crab itself was sweet, the chili sauce added an added layer of complexity to the taste, while not overwhelming its original taste.  The Italian, Indonesian and Singaporean like the chili crab, while one American favors the black pepper crab, while the rest like both, so chili crab had a small edge.

Having had two strong flavor dishes of black pepper and chili crabs, we savor something less spicy - steamed grouper.  It was done in typical Cantonese style, steamed with nothing but some tiny pieces of ginger, topped with some spring onion and parsley for decoration, and seasoned with boiled soy sauce.  This way of cooking is an ultimate test of the freshness of the fish.  If the fish is just a tad less fresh, the dish will stink!  In our case, we got a really good fish.  And to the chef's credit, he didn't over cook it, the meat was just nice, fully cooked yet still tender.

Our meal finished with a grand finale of desserts.  They offered mango pudding and chilled jelly with mixed fruits.  The mango pudding was excellent.  Fragrant but not too sweet, helps you to digest that abundance of food that you just had.

The staff there were worth a praise.  The place was crazy busy at night, there were really so many customers there.  I can imagine their work load must be damned heavy, yet they could still manage to have a smile on their faces.   In all that chaos, they didn't make mistakes, and still manage to meet my requests, although trifle.

I very much enjoyed their food, although it was quite expensive.  For the 17 of us, we spent a total of ~$2100.   The food was good but still has room for improvement.  The downside is the huge crowd, you can't really have a very relaxed meal.  Well, is this the curse of the winner?

Curry Times at Westgate

Curry Times is a subsidiary of the well-established local delight franchise Old Chan Kee.   They pride themselves in serving up good local food at affordable prices. 

I visited their branch at Westgate at a Sunday morning.  The place was just opened and not many customers yet.  The interior decoration is very 60s or 70s, reminding you of the days of guys with long hairs. 

Prata with egg, $2.00

My first dish was an egg prata. The curry, and the prata, were both quite decent.  The curry was not very spicy, probably to cater to the patrons who can't take very spicy food.  Prata is just a piece of bread, except that all that flip flopping makes it very elastic, and the frying of the prata on a hot plate with generous portion of oil makes it sinfully fragrant and people mouth-watering.  In Indian, prata is the favor mostly by the working class, especially truck drivers, who have to work very hard but with pathetic pay.  Prata's social status in India is kind of low.  However in Singapore, the early Indian immigrants passed down their favorite food and it is almost a national delicacy here.  If you have never had prata before, you can't say you have ever seen the multi-racial, multi-cultural side of Singapore. 

Sambal Chicken Drumstick with rice, $8.50

My second dish was sambal chicken drumstick with rice.  It was served in a plate, well. probably dated before my birthday.  The sambal was not bad, but it was on the sweet side, rather than the spicy side.  The pickles added additional flavour to the chicken and the rice. 

Overall, I think they serve decent local food in an air-conditioned environment, at affordable prices, but then you know for the many hygiene standards to meet in order to operate as a restaurant, so flavors are lost.  I most probably will still go back from time to time, just for some nostalgia sensations.