The Hungry Bunny

We'd gushed to the lovely waitress at Meta how we loved their food, but bemoaned the lack of an ala carte menu...So she recommended their sister restaurant, Kimme , a bistro-styled restaurant headed up by yet another Korean-born chef. Unlike Meta's exclusively degustation menus, Kimme 's menu is primarily ala carte: which is split into the sweet and savoury - the latter served in small and big plates. The food here is similar to Meta: European techniques awash with Asian influences and grounded in Korean flavours. We really wanted to like Kimme , mostly because we love Meta so damn much...But, while dinner was perfectly enjoyable, we thought that Kimme fell short of the extraordinary that is Meta. There wasn't a marked grouse nor could we pick a particular flaw, but it was missing that "je ne sais quoi", that magic-something that distinguishes between the competent and the transcendent. The sumptuousness of the Wagyu Bulgogi Tataki ($26) was contraste...

Sometime in the throes of my fishball noodle-frenzied spell, we made the trek out to Song Kee 's new home in the East. We weren't quite sure, at first blush, if we'd gotten the right address; the coffee-shop was barely occupied, on a Sunday evening no less. We'd braced ourselves for its legendary snaking queue and budgeted a half hour-long wait for our dinner, so it was almost shocking to find the famous hawker this desolate. But then we heard the familiar refrains of the music blaring out the stereo, a disparate compilation of 90's Mandopop and trashy techno covers of Billboard's Top 100, also from the 90's, and we knew, this was the correct Song Kee . I'm not sure why Song Kee appears a derelict wasteland these days, because their food is as amazing as it was back when they were located at Upper Serangoon . Maybe it's the fengshui, or maybe their customers haven't realised they've moved to Tembeling Road. Or maybe it's because they...

Every once a while, I get a craving for a particular hawker food. There was that one time, when I was crazy about chicken rice, and so I ate chicken rice for an entire month. And then there was that one time, where I went nuts over laksa, and had that for like three weeks. And there was that other time, when I was completely addicted to wanton mee, and so became a daily fixture at Eng's wantan noodles for two weeks straight. Bonkers, I know...I only stopped because I ended up with a bout of stomach flu. So recently, I got erm, well...a little obsessed with fishball noodles. And we thought of hitting up  Song Kee , which arguably serves up the best fishball noodles and fish dumplings in all of Singapore. But because we were too famished to drive all the way to its new locale in the East, we went to Finest Song Kee instead, a set-up by a relation of the original Song Kee, and which took over the old coffeeshop premises of the latter when it moved out to the East. And while it...

A week-long obsession with Hanwoo beef at just about every restaurant in Seoul meant that we were due for a change of protein. I wanted something-chicken and didn't want anything-fried...so we headed to Andong Jjimdak  for braised chicken. An insanely popular chain restaurant with multiple outlets all over Seoul, Andong Jjimdak is tremendously accessible as there's a branch in every district. Service is choppy but quick, detached but efficient. Like a fast-food restaurant, without the ensuing oil-laden guilt of fast food. So even if there's a queue, especially during peak dining hours, it moves real fast. Because we're lazy AF, we opted for the Boneless Jjim Dak (30,000KRW), which is nearly twice the price of the bone-in version. This passed muster: the chicken was juicy, the sauce was robust, and there was a comforting rustic quality to it...but I would have liked a stronger spice to this. And tbh, a competent homecook would easily muck out a better rendition. ...

Red House Seafood is one of the oldest seafood restaurants in Singapore. And like its contemporaries Jumbo and Long Beach, what was once a no-frills, simple and casual seafood joint in the East Coast has now gone upmarket and expanded into a chain restaurant. And while it's not acquired the commercial prominence of the aforementioned Jumbo and Long Beach, Red House has done pretty well for itself, with 3 centrally located outlets, each with its own crowd of local fans and tourist arrivals. We were at the Robertson Quay branch for dinner on a Monday night, and the sprawling restaurant was actually packed. The menu's extensive, a mix of the traditional and fusion fare with a modern slant. I say, you'll do well to order the latter, we had a spicy seafood melange and vegetable dish that were outstanding. Absolutely a must-try, the Spicy Seafood Combination ($32 for small) was this glorious heap of perfectly cooked squid, fish and prawns slathered in a laksa-ish egg-drop ...

Don't you just hate it when some half-wit posts tantalising pictures of seemingly delicious food, but then, incomprehensibly, refuses to divulge the name of the restaurant? Inane claims of "but I dun wan other people to know lah, because den there will be a long queue leh" ring hollow AF. Then wtf are you doing, posting online and bragging about eating the "best chicken rice in all of Singapore"?! Sheesh, good food is better shared with all, amiright people????? And it's not like foodie gems are some classified information requiring top-level security clearance. We're a teeny tiny city state populated by foodies aplenty whose pastimes are being preoccupied yakking about food; truly good food will never be kept hidden for long. But it's safe to assume these muppets wouldn't appreciate the concept of "sharing is caring". Urghh, that 'kiasu' yet pretentious routine always triggers me. Anyway...as luck would have it, the identit...

One of the best things about my little city state, is the abundance of amazing food that can be had for as little as $5. As much as I may seem to indulge (or really, as occasionally as my budget will allow) in fancy schmansy restaurants, I will always return to the local hawker fare. It's my comfort food, my "happy food" if you will; the familiarity of hawker cuisine, to me, is entwined with my roots, my Singaporean identity. Hawker food here is world-class, and something that I would miss most about Singapore if I'm ever away, because I could never replicate the same in my kitchen. Geylang, for all of its vice as " an overcrowded slum with a thriving underworld " (and shitty parking), is a vibrant trove of food gems, sights and smells. It's where we regularly take-away our hokkien mee , duck rice , and seafood cze char . And now, to add on to that list, is ban mian. Or the local answer to Chinese la mian. Ban mian is not a dish ubiquitous in many ha...