January 4, 2018
Singapore
FEAST
Located in the third-floor food court of the Raffles City Mall is a wonderful chicken rice joint, I don't think it had a formal name. With that Hainanese chicken rice from last night still very fresh in my mind, I figured I'd try this location's version of it. I had the chicken done three ways: roasted, boiled & fried. The rice tasted quite similar to what I had at the Maxwell stand, a wonderful hint of fresh ginger was in every bite. The cup of broth served with it was also excellent, a perfect chicken soup that wasn't too salty. Blindfolded, I wouldn't be able to tell which version of the dish came from which location.
"Chicken Rice"
Chicken rice three ways:
After that wonderful, quick meal at the food court, I hopped on the MRT and headed north about 45 minutes away to the hawker stands at Marsiling Mall. It was around 2:15 PM when I got there, but most of the stalls were closed. My guess is they weren't going to re-open until dinner in the early evening.
Ye Lai Xiang
Prawn & pork ribs noodle soup:
This hawker stand advertised itself as a laksa (soup with a coconut, curry base) joint, but I got a bowl with a pork broth instead. No matter because this dish was excellent! The spicy soup even took on some of the flavor of the iceberg lettuce. The pork was very tender, though the shrimp were unremarkable. The noodles were also very tasty; all the noodle I've had on this trip, so far, have had excellent body...nothing soggy about them.
And for the second time today, I decided to give Hainanese chicken rice a try. I actually forgot to take a photo of this dish, but it certainly wasn't visually stunning or anything. The rice was less seasoned than in the other two occasions, and there wasn't that nice fragrance of ginger. But it was still very tasty.
Seng Hainanese Chicken Rice
Chicken rice:
I guessed wrong for dinner by trying the buffet in the lower level of the shopping mall near my hotel. They had some good shellfish selections and decent cuts of salmon and tuna sashimi. I don't know, I was hoping there'd be dumplings galore and some interesting soups. I'll give it one Lick since it has a kiddie area for families.
"Food Buffet"
Buffet:
Dimbulah
Ugh, if I could give negative Licks, I would, for this glass of Barbera d'Asti I had at one of the restaurants across the street in this converted convent. Oh, well, I wanted to sit at a bar and have a few drinks, and this one just sent me home that much quicker. I've noticed that wines by the glass aren't so terrific here in the Far East, though I'm overgeneralizing. All I could taste was the alcohol from start to finish.
