Nanjing Impressions Guangzhou China

Nanjing Impressions, or 南京大排档 in Chinese, is located in a modern shopping mall in Guangzhou's busy and up-class Tiyu Xi Lu (体育西路), the country's most busy metro interchange.  The mall is ultra modern, but once you step into Nanjing Impressions, it feels like you have been transported back in time to the era of end of Qing Dynasty, and the beginning of Republic of China. 

The interior design is of the Qin-huai (秦淮) style, after Nanjing's famous Qin-huai River, a go-to place for night entertainment in the early 1900s.  Records of Qin-opera, a form of opera popular in Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province, is being played as the background music. 

Braised Duck, CNY29.00

Nanjing is famous for its Xiaochi, small bites.  The concept is like the Spanish tapas, snacks for you to have wide selections of food to enhance your taste buds but not too heavy for the stomach, and perfect as companions for the rice wine. 

The first one that came was braised duck.  It is a cold dish.  The duck drumstick is first braised till tender, then chilled to retain all that collagen.  It is actually crunchy, with a hint of Huadiao, a popular Chinese rice wine. 

Lion's Head, CNY 28.00

 Next was stewed Lion's Head.  Lion's Head?  Are you sure?  Don't worry, it is not the real Lion, nor its head.  Lion's Head is just a name for the dish.  It is actually stewed meat ball, a really big meat ball.  The chef mixes minced pork, fresh mushroom and some other ingredients together and makes it into a giant meat ball.  Then this meat ball is slowly stewed to cooked.  The meat is very tender.  It breaks into small pieces easily in your mouth.  It is a dish that is very suitable for people who have problems with their teeth, and senior citizens. 

家传云斗煮干丝, CNY28.00

The next dish is a bit hard to translate the name into English, but it is their signature dish.  Looking at the picture, you might think that it is vermicelli or noodles in that pot of soup.  No, you are wrong.  It is actually tofu skin sliced into small slices to make it look like vermicelli.  And then it is served with a very thick stock.  The tofu skin is excellent, I must say.  Unlike noodle's softness, or vermicelli's smoothness, the tofu skin offers its unique texture.  It is crunchy, yet the texture is more rough.  It gives sparks upon your tongue.  However, I didn't like the stock, way too salty for my liking. 

We ordered some other dishes, but I am not able to cover them all here.  Overall, it was a very pleasant experience.  Good food, accompanied by that feel of transporting back in time. 

Don't get upset if you think Nanjing Impressions is only available in China, it actually has a branch right in the busy Orchard Road in Singapore.  I have not given it a try yet, but hopefully I will do that soon.

Grillmarket Reykjavik Iceland

Grillmarkadurinn, which means Grillmarket in English, is a restaurant located in the center of Iceland's capital city of Reykjavik.  It doesn't have a street front, but behind another restaurant, so you have to walk behind the other restaurant to get to Grillmarket. 

We were there at 5.30pm, when the restaurant just opened for dinner service, as we didn't make a reservation before hand.  The place was quite empty at that time.  The atmosphere of the place was very cosy.  Warm lights dominate the place, very comforting in a cold winter evening. 

As a norm, bread and cheese were served as the 'capitol'.  The cheese was definitely worth mentioning.  They served 3 types of cheese:  cheese with sea salt, cheese with yogurt, and cheese with Iceland's iconic lava salt.  This experience was really unique for me.  First time having cheese with yogurt, which offered a layered sensation to the taste buds.  The black lava salt was less salty than your normal salt.  The waitress was kind to explain to us the difference between the different types of cheese. 

Whale Meat Steak, ~USD69.00

The 'exotic' dish we ordered to share was the whale meat steak.  It looked very much like your normal beef steak, but the texture was quite different.  It was very tender, and the texture was fine and smooth, a quality that beef steaks don't possess.  The cuisine here was a bit of fusion, providing soy sauce and wasabi as condiments.  Personally, I prefer to eat it as is, without any additional foreign taste to the very fine flavor of the whale.  It is a must-try if you visit this restaurant. 

Lamb Fillet, ~USD60.00

Main course was lamb fillet.  Lamb cooked to medium well, and served together with some preserved vegetables.  The fillet was a bit on the tough side for me, and the preserved vegetable was a bit too salty.  Maybe it was due to the local taste and weather. 

The staff there were very friendly and service was prompt.  Overall experience was excellent.  Price-wise it was a bit on the high side, but hey, it is Iceland.

Pura Brasa at Tanjong Pagar Center

Pura Brasa is a new restaurant in the new Tanjong Pagar Center.  New in the sense that it is there for only about a year or so.  The interior is cosy, with all the warm lights around, it is very suitable for a couple of friends to sit down, chit chat over some Spanish food and a pint of beer.

I was there on a Saturday night, about 6pm.  The place was still quite empty, but after around 7.30pm, the place was almost full.  Groups of friends and some big families came here for their weekend gatherings.

Estreella Beer, 1-for-1 at $15.00++

They had this Estrella beer promotion, if you order a pint, you get another pint free.  It was perfect for friends gathering.   The beer was light, and smooth.  Even under Singapore's hot weather, it didn't turn bitter.  Thumbs up for the beer!

Charcoal Rice Paella, $36.00++

We ordered the charcoal rice paella to share for the two of us.  I asked the waitress about the portion, she assured me that portion was meant for two to share.  When the paella came, the portion was really small.  It looked quite a lot from the picture, but the rice was just a thin layer.  Probably the waitress meant was for two small eaters to share, not two pigs like us....haha....

In terms of ingredients, there were 3 prawns, 3 mussels, and some peas, tomatoes slices, etc.  The rice was cooked to the Spanish standard, which means it was wet, but the core of the rice grain was still hard.  I was sure I didn't have a blocked nose that day, but the rice didn't have any seafood smell.  It probably was a good thing.  And it was not salty!  But somehow this paella tasted very plain, but lacked the punch it should have.

If you are going to order many other dishes, then you can just order 1 paella to share for two; otherwise, better get one for one person only, especially for guys.

Grilled Iberico Secreto, $35.00++

On recommendation from some local food blog, we also ordered the grilled Iberico secreto.  The meat is from the armpit area of the pig so it is supposed to be very good.  Indeed, the meat was pretty tender, with lots of juice (fat).  The fragrance of the fat makes this dish almost irresistible.  However, they probably used sea salt as the seasoning for the meat, so it was on the salty side of the taste scale.

Overall, I think the food is decent, but tend to lack of some wow factor.  The beer is good, if I go there again, I will go there for the beer.

By the way, this restaurant is from a Spanish restaurant chain that seems like to be quite well-known.