Old Airport Road & Maxwell | Singaporean Food

5th September 2013.

One of my studio mates was relating his design to food during critique and the tutor retorted, "its so Singaporean!" in a demeaning tone. What's wrong with that?

This semester my studio have 3 foreign exchange students and I have brought to them to some of my favourite hawker centres : Maxwell Food Centre and Old Airport Road Food Centre.

At Maxwell Food Centre, we tried Guotie from Shanghai Special Tim Sum which was not bad. Crispy, fried dumplings with generous fillings. Then there was Marina South Delicious Food's Banana Char Kway Teow and Tian Tian Chicken Rice. I prefer their plain chicken rice more than the ones with skin (half chicken) which often turned out to be too fatty for my liking. The skinless chicken was tender, juicy and the rice was nicely cooked and good on its own. The only problem if you want to eat Tian Tian is the queue which has became longer now thanks to the Gordon Ramsay thing.

Next we went to Old Airport Road Food Centre after our interim critique. Pity Chuan Kee Satay was closed, so we went for Toa Payoh Satay instead. The satay was not bad, meats were nicely grilled and both the chicken and mutton satay were fine but the portions was miserable, some sticks only have 1/10 of the stick's length. At 50 cent per stick, that is a reap-off.

We also had Char Kway Teow from Lao Fu Zi which was good fried noodles with wok hei flavour, and seems like it has its own loyal following judging from the long queue.

The stars of the dinner are the Chilli Crab and Sambal Stingray from Mattar Road Seafood BBQ recommended by ieatishootipost. The seafood here is very fresh. The sambal for the Sambal Stingray was really tasty (and spicy).

The Chilli Crab gets spicier and spicier as you dig in, both foreign and local diners were seemingly defeated by the chilli crab towards the end. But, it was a good chilli crab (with a nutty flavour), it is best enjoyed with some Fried Mantous (6 for 3SGD). The crab meat itself was rather sweet too. We ordered a portion for 3, together with the mantous and sambal stingray, it cost us 76 SGD.

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Maxwell Food Centre
To get to Maxwell Food Centre, you can take an MRT to Chinatown MRT or Tanjong Pagar MRT and make your way there on foot. The food centre is located next to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and the URA City Gallery.

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Old Airport Road Food Centre
To get to Old Airport Food Centre, you can take an MRT to Dakota Station on the Circle Line and walk there. Alternatively if you don't mind walking further, it is also possible to walk from Aljunied Station on the East West Line.

Otaru Seaport | 小樽シーポートマーケット

5th July 2013.

Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan.

My first meal on the Hokkaido Passion tour with Chan Brothers was at Otaru Seaport (小樽シーポートマーケット) , a restaurant cum market specializes in seafood. The Chanko Nabe Ozeki or Seafood Nabe  was average at best. The seafood which includes king crab and salmon were obviously frozen but the soup was passable. The furikake for the rice wasn’t good because it reeks of MSG. Our tour guide was honest about the food though. In the tour some of the other members purchased more ingredients such as fresh king crabs downstairs. You must be willing to fork out some 20000-40000 JPY for one though.

Otaru Seaport
小樽シーポートマーケット

Back to Dezato

14th August 2013.
A couple of weeks ago, I visited Marina East where the public golf course is for a site visit. It is kind of amazing that all these lands beyond Tanjong Rhu used to be part of the sea only about 30-40 years ago and Tanjong Rhu used to be like the clan jetties in Penang with various shipyards up till the 1990s. Today, one probably wouldn’t know until you do a search of Tanjong Rhu on PICAS.

I walked from Marina East gardens, dropping by the public golf course then walked to Marina Bay Sands and the Gardens by the Bay via the Marina Barrage.

Saw some kids on an excursion at Marina Barrage.

The site visit ended earlier (partly because of the heavy downpour) and it was about lunch time so I decided to drop by an old favourite, Dezato at Boat Quay. The sad thing is the prices here are no longer nett prices and consistency had been an issue during previous visits.



Fortunately, my special lunch set of Gyuniku Tendon pretty good, the tempura was just nice. The ebi tempura for example was succulent with a light crispy batter seasoned with tempura sauce. The beef slices were tasty too. The whole lunch set cost about 17.50 after taxes.

Dezato Desserts and Dining

20 Lorong Telok

Singapore 049032

Lam's Noodle House | Signature Specialty Noodle

3rd August 2013.

Desperately hungry and tired Yew Ann dragged me away from my peaceful outdoor sketching to Lam’s Noodle House at Marina Square.

Priced at 5.20 SGD, their Signature Specialty Noodle comes with fish ball, sliced meat, vegetables, minced meat, one prawn, an egg and fish skin. The noodle’s texture was decent, springy and doesn’t stick to the teeth and after mixing, it gets coated with an oily but delectable special sauce. The sliced meat was a tad dry and tough but the nicely done egg makes up for it.

Lam's Noodle House / Lam's Abalone Noodles

Located on the same floor as the food court in Marina Square and opposite Wee Nam Kee Chicken Rice.

Marina Square  

6 Raffles Boulevard 

Singapore 039594

Black Sheep Cafe | A Re-Visit

10th August 2013
Posted by Xin Li and Mu Yao. Photographs by Mu Yao.
Just about a couple of weeks after the visit to Black Sheep Café, I was back again to try some of the new items on menu and their lunch set menu which cost 26 – 29.50 SGD depending on whether you are getting 2 or 3 courses. Both comes with tea or coffee from Puro (:

Before I move on to the new items, I just got to order the Cheeky Pork on Sauteed Greens and Pear with Orange Glaze (28.50 SGD). It was good, the pork itself was very tender and the wrapped around the tender flesh is a crispy (but rather fatty) pork skin. Together with the orange glaze, it was really good.

Mu Yao:
Had nothing to say other than the fact that I'm a sucker for savoury and sweet things mixed together. The sweetness of the orange glaze was saccharine enough to balance the rich savoury taste of the pork, which is brilliant.

The set lunch menu was too heavy on the palate in my opinion, both starters, the Goat Cheese Salad and the Mushroom Soup (originally asparagus but it ran out so it was changed to mushroom) were rather quite heavy in terms of flavour and texture.

Mu Yao:
I loved the Goat Cheese Salad as a starter because I am quite a sucker for cheeses. The rich, heady creaminess of the goat cheese arrested me with a slight smokiness, complemented wonderfully with the tart tomatoes and the mesclun salad. The walnuts were a lovely touch as well, sealing in all that dairy creamy goodness with a smoky nutty taste and texture.

For the choice of mains, you could opt for the Duck Confit Crepe, a cream-based pasta or the beef fillet which are again heavy dishes in my opinion. All of my friends had the Duck Confit Crepe which proved to be underwhelming in the sense that the dish doesn’t do justice to the actual duck confit that Chef Ratha serves, the duck here was not as tender and while the mushroom cream sauce was pretty good, the dish gets monotonous towards the end. The addition of relish and cherry tomatoes helps to compensate for that but more variation in textures could have helped.

Mu Yao:
What I really appreciated was the sweet and spicy cherry tomato/pepper relish by the side, which broke the monotonous creaminess of the sauce. It was very uniform, and got a bit sick of it after eating everything, and I would have appreciated more flavours enticing my mouth. It was pretty underwhelming, and the heavy sauce sort of drowned out the actual taste of the duck itself. While it wasn't dry, it was slightly sinewy as well. I definitely recommend his mains, which I think, are much better.

In the original lunch set menu, the dessert was supposed to be a Crème Brulee, another heavy dessert. Thankfully we were able to request for a change to a Pear Crumble beforehand because one of my friends was a fan of his crumble dessert the last time we had a celebration at Black Sheep Café. Thankfully the desserts left a good overall impression, my friends enjoyed their Pear Crumble with Rum and Raisin Ice Cream a lot.

Mu Yao:
This dessert was a hit because of the slightly over-ripe pears inside that made the difference — a creamy sweetness and tenderness that melted into the rest of the crumble so well. I appreciated the wonderful fruits and that provided nice flavour contrasts, which are always a good thing.

For me, I had the Chocolate Boudini (9.50 SGD). Both Mu Yao and I think it is supposed to be “boudin” which means “pudding”. This dessert is probably Chef Ratha’s re-worked Flourless Chocolate Tart. It is like a lava cake embedded with grilled bananas and berries, topped off with a scoop of quality rum and raisin ice cream. I enjoyed it a lot. The fruits really help to balance the rich chocolate content in the dessert. Chef Ratha is still working to improve on this chocolate gem.

Overall, Black Sheep Café is still settling into its new haven at Thomson V, while the ambiance has been great and the food was pretty delicious, there are still things to iron out such as the set lunch menu which Chef Ratha is aware of . As of now, he is working to roll out a new set lunch menu in the near future.

Black Sheep Café
Thomson V, Basement 1
11 Sin Ming Road
Singapore 575629