(Light) Dinner @ Sushi Express

You know how there are some times in life where you want an early dinner whilst the sun's still high but you don't have much of an appetite?

Yep, today was one of those days.

We had just come from a meeting, my colleague and I, and we thought we would have dinner together before going our separate ways afterward.

It wasn't easy trying to decide what to have. 

There's a lot to be had at Bugis. 

Whether it were Thai, Malaysian, or grilled fish Sichuan-style, whether it be fast food or Western or Japanese, there's a lot one can choose. 

But today I wanted something light, so whilst the mood called for something spicy like Thai, something fun to eat, like Subway or McDonalds, or even something like a big bowl of curry noodles, the tummy didn't, so up to Sushi Express at Bugis Junction it was. 

It's funny that I didn't realize just how much I missed having casual conveyor belt sushi until I stepped into the place. 

Might have been the sense of familiarity.

Might have been the part where I always have had a thing for conveyor belt sushi and the ding ding ding sound it makes. 

But it was nice settling down on the neat, compact plastic chairs and reach out for both the teas, and the wasabi. 

You might think it normal, non-descript, no big deal, but let's just say that it does speak to someone who, for one reason or another, hasn't been back to Sushi Express in a while. 

Our meal this evening was predominantly salmon.

Which I got absolutely delighted with. 

First up was the sashimi, wonderful, given how today seemed to be a day for something cold and refreshing.

I dipped mine in wasabi and soy sauce, no need limes. 

Then after that, off the conveyor, I took a plate of Aburi Salmon with Mentaiko. Offhand now I can't remember if it were one plate. There might have been two. 

But there was, definitely, the salmon belly. 

That, my pictures tell me.

The fried salmon belly, complete with fin, has been a favorite of mine since we began eating at conveyor belt sushi places like this. It's not the cheapest item on the menu, mind, but it gives you an oomph which sits unique on its own.

I don't know if it be the tender flesh of the salmon, the crisp of the skin, or the oil that drips down from the fish every time I take a bite, but there's something very satisfying about eating this hot from the plate. 

It's amazing how the fish melts in your mouth at first bite, and you don't have to worry about whether there'll be bones big or small otherwise. 

That's one of the reasons why I like having this. 

Bones terrify me, and I have no skill in picking them out from the flesh of the fish with my chopsticks. 

One is recommended to have this fish with the limes they provide, though. 

Some people find the salmon fishy. Some find it not. 

Taste is very subjective. 

I don't normally have mine with the limes- I like the taste of the soft, tender salmon belly all on its own- but maybe I'll try a piece with the limes one day. Maybe it will enhance the taste even better. 

These be all the pictures of the meal I had this late afternoon at Sushi Express. 

There aren't more. 

Perhaps the next time I go I'll have more variety of sushi, like the Sweet Corn Gunkan, or the Hana Maki, which are in fact some of my favorites. 

But that will have to wait- when I next go to a conveyor belt sushi place again. 

Zichar @ Lengkong Tiga

A bit tragic, but I can count on one hand the number of times I ate at this coffee shop here. 

It doesn't usually happen.

Not when it comes to hawker centers or coffee shops. 

Sure I may not always take a picture- I don't always document my meals like that- but very, very seldom is it that I only patronize a coffee shop once or twice or thrice and then hardly at all. 

I shan't critic it- there already aren't that many hawkers and stall holders in coffee shops now. What's more, each person has their own preference and appetite- some may like it, some may not- but let me just say that there's significant difference between this coffee shop here at the block of Lengkong Tiga versus the coffee shop at, say, Chinatown near Chin Swee Road. 

I'm not sure if the food has anything to do with it. 

But in the two years I've been here, I've only had the food of the coffee shop three times, at most five. 

Most of my meals here are the zichar, of which I am exceptionally particular. 

I am the sort who won't take a plate of Yangzhou Fried Rice just for the sake of the fried rice. 

I am also the sort who will get very ngiao about the size and freshness and quality of the fish in the dishes she eats. 

Maybe even whether or not the gravy is extra starchy. 

Blame my favorite zichar places (that I also haven't gone in a while)

I don't think I took a picture of the first zichar I had here at this coffee shop in the 'hood of Lengkong Tiga. 

But in recent months the zichar stall changed hands- and I wanted to try. 

So we did, two separate occasions, two hot afternoons, both enroute to the MRT station.

First time we ordered a plate of sweet sour fish and rice. 

The picture doesn't look much- we see more of the rice than the fish- but it actually wasn't too bad. 

For one thing the rice wasn't very hard. 

No doubt it wasn't as soft and fluffy the way I think rice should be, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. 

The fish too, was thick enough to make one feel full. 

Five pieces of fish there were, each with some soft parts, others with not. The taste wasn't too bad either. Maybe the sauce covered up the fresh-not fresh type of taste but the texture wasn't hard or dry either. 

Only thing, of course, was that because we had it shared between the both of us, my friend took 3 pieces whilst I took 2. 

It were better with the second time we went there. 

This time we decided to go for two separate dishes. 

My friend chose the black pepper venison, I chose the sam lor hor fun. 

I don't have a picture of the black pepper venison but my friend said it was reasonable- not as tender as he would have hoped- but thick with sauce and the black pepper was strong. 

I do, however, have a picture of the sam lor. 

Did I like it?

Well, I didn't dislike it. 

The rice noodles were thick and they had that bit of wok hei chew, especially at certain parts. The fish too was, thankfully, thicker, and fresher than the one of the previous stall, and that made a huge difference, considering just how I'm the sort who values the freshness of fish in my sam lor more than anything else. 

At another place I might have been able to dip the fish in fresh grated ginger. 

Here, no ginger, but the whole plate had plenty of gravy which fish was literally drowned in. 

I'd have loved the gravy to be a little tastier (maybe I'm biased) but the noodles were good, the fish was good enough, there was a small portion with the wok hei, and all that got left on the plate after I finished was the gravy, and the tau gey. 

The Hawker of Toa Payoh Lorong 5

First time here at the hawker center of Lorong 5 in Toa Payoh, and can I say, I'm surprised, delighted, and absolutely glad. 

See, I don't know my way around Toa Payoh.

As in, I don't know what good food there is, I don't know where those good food are, and I don't know what exactly is considered good and what exactly is considered not good. 

So eating at Toa Payoh is very much a trial and error. 

Sometimes it's a hit.

Other times it can be a better hit. 

Thus far I've had the food from the Central, and from the Lorong 7 side. 

Maybe because I've no idea just what's good at the hawker center of Lorong 7, or maybe I haven't had much of a chance to explore the rest of the stalls, but I seem to have had more of the coffee shop zichar rather than the food of the hawker stalls.

We were intending to have Thai food this particular evening.

But life be such that the place wasn't open when we headed there, so off it was to the hawker center behind instead. 

What makes this side of Toa Payoh so interesting is that the Lorongs are all so intersected, so let's say you're presently at Lorong 5, but whilst Lorong 5 is a single stretch of road, you're actually a short walk away through the blocks from Lorong 6, and Lorong 4.

Maybe Toa Payoh is such an estate that the roads are the circumference or the semi-circumference, or the loop. 

I never knew how short the route was from the Central to Lorong 7, but it's completely walkable, and on a comfortable windy day, thirty minutes tops cutting through the blocks via Lorong 4, 5, and 6.

But I digress. 

The food of the hawker center here at Lorong 5 was lovely. 

It's not a very huge hawker, mind, literally just two rows, but what they lack in size, they supply in variety. I didn't have enough time to explore all the stalls- my friend and I were much too occupied in getting ourselves a table- but from where I sat there was a char kuay teow stall, a cooked food stall, a stall offering a variety of noodles- wanton noodles, dumpling noodles, laksa etc, and then another stall offering the dishes of double-boiled soups, and, surprisingly, chicken curry. 

We'd tried the chicken curry and one of their soups before, so this late afternoon we decided on some other foods that we hadn't had before. 

Actually my friend had come here for the chicken rice. 

But the stall owner happened to be away (always a hit and miss when it comes to the good food, it seems) so we hunted about a bit. 

As an alternative I had thought of trying the Ban Mian and the Mian Fen Guo- these seemed to be really popular- but three or four stalls away on the other side my friend discovered the nasi lemak stall, so decided we'd eat that instead. 

Will it surprise you if I tell you that this plate here cost not more than $5? 

It wasn't just the food nor the ingredients of the nasi lemak itself that made one feel warm and stuffed and happily satisfied. 

There was also the presentation, the plating, the colors, the way the stall owner had had everything arranged on the medium sized plate. 

Just the sight of this nasi lemak alone with all chosen ingredients laid atop the bed of white coconut rice was enough to whet the appetite. 

It didn't matter that the rice didn't release whiffs of fragrant coconut. 

It didn't matter also that the sambal tucked underneath one corner of the heap had the peanuts and ikan bilis swimming inside it. 

Everything was packed in such a way that it just made you hungry, ready to eat. 

Which I did, beginning with a scoop of plain rice first, then a roasted peanut for crunch, then the orange-colored, mildly spicy, slightly chonky otah mushed together with the rice. 

I loved how the spice of the otah gave the fragrant rice that wee bit of oomph. 

And then there was, of course, the chicken wing. 

Hardly a nasi lemak (to me) is complete without the presence of the fried chicken wing, and what made this one particularly special was the marination of the chicken, inside and out. I had wondered if the meat would be a little dry- sometimes they are- sometimes they aren't- but this turned out to be a mix. Some parts of this little chicken wing were drier, but the batter of the chicken skin was good overall, leaving one with the taste of fried chicken wings sold ayam goreng style way back in school canteen days. 

I had thought this plate be enough for dinner, but then my friend thought we should try out the satay- it had seemed popular amongst the other diners last time we came here- so off he went hunting for the stall and came back armed with a plate of satay, onions, and cucumber. 

There was a little bit of smoke, a little bit of burn, but the burn sat at all the right places, it gave the meat the kind of charcoal-grilled feels, and we had a lovely time pulling the meat off the stick. 

The onions I ate dipped inside the peanut sauce, which, by the way, was good, save for that slight sheen of oil that to this day I can never get used to. 

We finished off the meal with a plate of BBQ chicken wings that, if I may say, we bought on impulse. 

I don't know, maybe we missed the wings over at East Coast Lagoon, maybe we missed our suppers at Fengshan 85, or maybe we so happened to be sitting right in front of the stall. 

But the fragrance got to us, so we got a plate. 

It was so good. 

Not only did they make me think of BBQ nights down at my grandfather's house during Mid-Autumn and Christmas, these here were so perfectly roasted, the marination so evenly spread. 

I loved the tender meat of the chicken, the glistening sheen of the oil, the smokiness of the BBQ over the smooth, crispy skin.

A wonderful way to end the meal, I really wished I could have had more. 

Chap Cai Pngs

There are only two pictures of chap cai pngs in my collection for the year 2025. 

It's not because I took only two pictures.

It's because I ate only two times. 

Yes, chap cai png, or mixed economy rice, is a popular go-to meal amongst local Singaporeans and generally just about anyone who has been to a coffee shop or hawker center.  

Perchance there might be those who have it three times a week or maybe four. 

But I run around a lot, I vary my meals a lot, and so rare does it become that I get to have a plate of chap cai png for lunch, or dinner. 

What's interesting about these two meals here is that I'd had them at the same place only one week apart.

Had I expected it? 

No, of course not.

I might have ordered different dishes otherwise. 

But that's life.

That's how life with chap cai png is. 

You never know what it is you want until you're in front of the stall, eyes skimming quickly through the dishes on display whilst the uncle or aunty stands there impatiently armed with plate and tongs as you frantically try to make up your mind. 

First box at the Kangkar Mall Kopitiam food court I'd gotten stewed lettuce- or is it cabbage- and then unsure me had dawdled a bit trying to decide if I should get meat or eggs and whether it should be fried or stir fried or steamed. Eventually I decided on brinjals and omelet.

Meat is expensive these days. 

Having mostly vegetables however didn't mean that the meal was compromised. 

On the contrary, the food was easy to eat, there was great taste, and because it had been prepared with the diner in mind, there was even a good chew. 

You know how some places like to make their food really small, or slice their pieces really thin? 

Not so here. 

The lettuce (I think it's cabbage) was cooked perfectly well with a little bit of bean curd skin and some black fungus hidden amongst the vegetable. I liked how they had the vegetables all chopped up to small little bite size pieces so it was easy to pick up. And the lettuce/cabbage wasn't hard either. 

When it came to the brinjals they were sliced thick, and slant, making them pieces soak up the gravy and again very easy to pick up and chew. I loved that I didn't get mushy brinjal pieces but the thick, soft, slightly chewy ones. 

Perhaps the only dish that was familiar was the omelet. 

Tell the truth, I actually had no idea what kind of omelet I was getting. 

I didn't get to ask the uncle. 

Sometimes one gets spring onions, sometimes one gets onions, sometimes one gets long beans. 

I had thought I would be getting the long bean kind. 

As it turned out, it was more of an onion and spring onion kind. 

But I don't mind.

Onions and eggs are one of the most fragrant dishes ever, not to mention tomatoes, but you don't get tomatoes in omelet very much. They mush up the whole egg, making it so hard to fry. 

Onions are easier.

It was a very comfortable, comforting meal, one that really spoke and appealed to me. 

Perhaps the best decision I made for this meal was to have all my food in the dabao styrofoam box instead of having it on a plate. 

The sight of everything piled up squished and squashed inside the box made me feel so much fuller than had they been spread out on a plate. 

The impressions of this meal stayed with me so much that the following week when I found myself back at the same food court again I went back for the same stall. 

What's funny is that I could have gone on to have other foods, like YTF Laksa, Ban Mian, or even dumpling noodles, but $7 for YTF Laksa seemed a little high. (Perhaps I still remember a time when it was just $5) 

Moreover, I felt like having the joy of having all that variety of food in my dabao styrofoam box again, so back to the same stall I went. 

The great thing about chap cai png is that you can order whatever you want depending on your mood, so it were different dishes for me this time, save for the cabbage/lettuce that I really, really like, and which I saw glistening so prettily at the counter. 

So first things first, I got back the lettuce/cabbage, ignored the uncle looking over willing me to make my decision, chose the sweet-savory stir-fried hot dogs with potatoes, a portion of soft bouncy steamed egg, and then had the cashier uncle ladle curry all over the rice in my box. 

I had a need for something spicy.

And I wanted something warm. 

Lunch @ Changi Airport

A month or so ago I found myself alone at Changi Airport.  

At other times it might have been a pleasant experience.

I, after all, do have a thing for Changi Airport, her shopping mall of a JEWEL, and all her terminals. 

But today was a day that I wish I didn't need to be alone, and whilst that's how life is, still I wish I too could have gone along, or better yet, that Hedgehog didn't need to go. 

Me being me however, I tried to make the best use of it, and so, after waving him off at the Immigration, headed straight to the staff canteen of Terminal 2 for a long-awaited lunch. 

Now you might find it surprising that I wanted in particular to eat at this one staff canteen, but let's just say that we all have our memories, we all have images in our head that even years later we haven't let go, and sometimes we try to recreate. 

Coming to the Terminal 2 staff canteen however was a real reminder that life doesn't wait, that things change, and whilst you might hope to have back the same thing as you once did, well, it's not like that anymore. 

The canteen has changed. 

No more is the place a white fluorescent canteen-looking kind of place, today the canteen has transformed itself to look more like a food court for just about everybody and anybody to have their meal in. 

The selections of stalls too have become different. 

Yes, you have the usual plethora of mixed economy rice, chicken rice, wanton noodles, nasi padang, briyani and a host of other foods, no question about that, but there're more these days in the nature of specific foods rather than generic ones, so whilst you will still get the favorites of fishball noodles and chai tow kuay, there'll also be malatang and other specialties. 

I had come here for char kuay teow this afternoon. 

A memory I had hoped to recreate. 

But things don't always happen your way, and I don't know how it is but even though I had really wanted the white version, somehow the staff at counter convinced me that the black version would be nicer, and I said ok to that. 

It was nice, make no mistake, but to be honest, I really ought to have stood my ground. 

Like, if white char kuay teow was what I wanted, why didn't I just stick to my balls and insist on white kuay teow? Not as if they would charge me different anyway. 

But I guess maybe some memories are not meant to be recreated- you can't go back to what it had been last time- so here I was, at the table nearest the stall, armed with my bottle, my book that I'd found from one of the drawers, and my plate of noodles. 

So huge the plate was that I couldn't finish. 

But I guess I can tell myself that it had been done. 

All these years, all this time, with the memory of The Parents and I at this particular canteen, I'd come back. 

Alone. 

BBRC Cafe @ Cineleisure

A friend introduced me to this place at Cineleisure Orchard, said that they had an interesting menu, an interesting ambience, and would I be keen to try. 

At first I wondered if prices would be expensive, because, you know, Orchard, Somerset, everything. 

But the menu showed regular brunch prices, plus, they had a most fantastic lunch offer, so, yep, we went. 

What first caught my eye wasn't the food of the lunch menu, but that of their regular menu, which, amongst others, had very interesting mains. 

There was something called a Prawn Quinoa Bowl, which in and of itself was already interesting, since there aren't many places that serve quinoa. Theirs had butternut squash, sundried tomato, pomegranate, prawn and kale. 

There was also this dish called Pulled Beef Rigatoni which featured rigatoni (pasta), cherry tomatoes, something they called grana padano (I've no idea what it is) and pink sauce. 

If I were going to eat it, it would be just to find out what grana padano was and what exactly went into the pink sauce. 

There were more familiar dishes on the menu, some of which I might come for next time during the dinner hour, but for today the 3-course set lunch menu consisted of three mains for you to choose from. 

There was a Chargrilled Sirloin Steak with Fries, a Bulgogi Pork Ribs Pasta, and a Fried Chicken with Japanese Curry. 

All mains came with a salad and a small little dish of gyoza. 

May not look like much, these little babies, but the skin was soft, smooth, and the meat inside juicy and tasty like what a proper gyoza should be. 

For the mains, my friend chose the Sirloin Steak with Fries.

Me, I was in a dilemma. 

On one hand I wanted the Fried Chicken with Japanese Curry. 

On the other, however, I wasn't quite in the mood for anything fried, nor for mild, creamy curry.

So, pork ribs it was instead.

It was a good choice, if not a startling, stimulating one. 

I had not expected the spaghetti to be spicy. 

The menu didn't say. 

But there it was- a very stimulating, surprising first taste that at once awakened my palate, my taste buds, my senses and my spirits, putting me in a bit of an unexpected, if not, alert mood. 

Will I say I didn't like the spaghetti?

No.

It took a bit of getting used to, yes- I'm not usually comfortable with this amount of spice in my mouth, but once I adjusted, the taste was really good. The spaghetti (al dente they call it, I think?) had been done well, so clean was the pasta, and there was no sauce on the plate that would have made the noodles soggy. 

What amazed me most about this dish was the texture and taste. 

I have had ribs before where the meat is tough and dry and difficult to eat. 

Not so here.

The meat on the ribs was soft, almost melt-in-the-mouth, yet, at the same time, not so soft that I couldn't feel the meat at all. 

You know how shredded chicken sometimes feels like when it's cooked well? Yes, something like that. That's how the texture was, soft, tender, yet present at the same time. 

It wasn't hard to cut the meat into bite size pieces with spoon and fork. 

It wasn't hard to chew through the meat too. 

Favorite part of the dish, however, had to be the flavors. I don't know how it's done. Maybe they dipped the rib into the sauce and then pan-fried it. Maybe they fried the rib first then dipped it on the sauce and then quickly fried it again. 

Whichever method they used, it came out perfect. There was the sweet, savory flavors of the marination together with the meat, especially the skin, if I may say, and it made for a very wholesome, satisfying bite. 

I loved the sweetness of the marination.

I loved the tender pork meat that I could slather some of the sauce over it with.

And best part, it made for a great contrast with the little bowl of salad that had come earlier. 

Sure, the vegetables might not be the kind that I would choose had I seen them at the salad bar- I don't know what they are- and I still don't know what that little pink slice is, but the dressing was light, refreshing, sufficient, and the vegetables had that hint of a crunch. 

I'll be wanting their fish and chips the next time I come.

Maybe for dinner.

Their fish is battered the way I like, and if their lunch selections are already this good, I'm sure the fish won't be any different either. 

The Salmons of Don Q

If there's one thing I've come to appreciate about Don Don Donki, or Don Q as I like to call it these days, it is that there always is a ready supply of ready-to-eat foods that you can pick off their well-stocked shelves, and you don't have to worry that your favorites will not be there. 

Sometimes the outlets run out of the cooked food bentos, but no surprise, and nothing to complain about, because hey, the faster the better when it comes to a bento of fried udon with takoyaki, or a bento of Japanese curry pork katsu rice, or a bento of rice with unagi, tamago and takoyaki. 

It's a different story when it comes to the sushi, however. 

Not that they don't move fast, they just have more variety on the shelves, and so there's more to choose. 

It goes without saying that salmon's my first choice. 

Actually it is my only choice. 

With that being said, however, that doesn't mean I don't look at other foods. It simply means I look at salmons first before looking at anything else. 

What's so wonderful about their sushi is that it makes for a great meal when you have to eat something but don't want anything too expensive or too heavy on the stomach. 

As in, you don't have to wonder whether or not there'll be sushi there. 

All you need is to find the Don Q. 

In the past couple of months I've come to feel very much for the sushis of Don Q. It might have been that I altered my diet a couple of months ago. It might have been that there were situations which needed bursts of color and sparks of taste to spike me up. It might also have been that I just wanted to have something special to get through the day. 

The colors of salmon sushi are magnificent. 

Vibrant, bright, delightful to the eyes. 

Just the sight of them is more than enough to lift one's spirits. 

I don't know whether it is the symmetrical neatness of the sushi that gets to me, or if it is the colors and shine that appeal to my eyes, but the sight of these on the table really do speak to me, and I always find myself wager to pick up my chopsticks, and dig in. 

There have been times that the sushi's not ice-cold chilled, but that doesn't matter. 

What's important is that the fish is chilled, cold, fresh, and is appetizing throughout. 

There are times when I take salmon belly. 

There are times when I take the regular salmon. 

Salmon belly is, of course, by nature, softer, more melt-in-the-mouth, but I'm a lover of both, and whether I have one or the other doesn't matter to me. 

If it not be the raw salmon sushi that I want that day, there is also the Aburi salmon, where from Don Q I have had more than once, from different Don Qs, and which have all tasted just as good. 

So the colors and angles of all three might look different, but perhaps it might be because I've taken pictures of them at different places. 

There's one I took when at the Don Q in Clarke Quay.

There's one I took when at the Don Q in Orchard Central. 

Then there's one I took when at their newly opened outlet in PLQ. 

What charms me most about this sushi is the Mentaiko sauce. It's not always consistent, mind, but it doesn't make a difference. Sometimes too there's a lot of fish roe, sometimes it's scattered all around so you don't see the heap at all. 

Then, depending on how chilled it is, there're sometimes different textures. 

I have had Aburi salmons that are softer. 

I have also had Aburi salmons that aren't as soft as I'd like them to be.

But that too doesn't really matter.

Not when I'm a fan of the slightly burnt burnt taste, not when I like the taste of the soft salmon itself, and the huge, wholesome, chonk of rice underneath. 

You know, come to think of it, today is a day that I could do with some of these. I had not thought I would want to have salmon sushi or Aburi salmon sushi when I woke up this morning, but things happen, disappointments do come in, and a bit of cheering up would do me good.