The Mainland's Chap Cai Png

Okay, so this doesn't happen to me very often, but once in a while I find myself at places where I know I (very likely) will not be returning to them anymore. 

It's not because the food isn't good.

Neither is it because there's nothing of value on the menu.

Just that I like to know upfront how much I'm supposed to pay, what exactly I'm paying for, and whether or not I'm getting a great value. 

What makes this a wee bit sighy is that I had been quite excited to try this place. 

When we walked past this place the first time, we had noticed the dishes all laid out prettily and neatly on the counters. We had also noticed the posters and advertisements stating how their system worked, and how there was now a deal of 3 for the price of 2. 

It felt like a good deal, so this evening we had our dinner there. 

It was lovely seeing all the different dishes laid out on the counter. 

What exactly there were- now I can't remember- but there were local favorites- the same kind you find in a Teochew Porridge or Scissors Cut Curry Rice stall- and dishes that one would normally only be able to have in a regular Mainland restaurant. 

Some of the dishes I thought rare were like the steamed chicken feet (with some sort of sauce). There was then a dish of Sichuan-style La Zi Ji, another dish of what I call Sichuan-style Fish with Pickled Mustard Greens (Suan Cai Yu), and another smaller dish of steamed fish very much like what I would see at the Teochew Porridge stall. 

We chose what we wanted, put it on our tray and went to the cashier.

The lady rang it up, and that's when I got a bit of a surprise.

Will I say it clouded my enjoyment of the meal?

No. 

I had my fill.

I loved what I ate.

But the eye-opening price of $17 for all them six dishes had me wondering just what exactly I were paying for. 

How did all of these come to the grand total price of $17.20? 

How had the price come about? 

Were it because of the dishes we chose... but the most expensive I saw was $3.90..?

Or were it because of the beautiful, aesthetic way they had been arranged? 

I have no idea.

The brain refused to calculate. 

The mouth felt too shy to ask.

And in any case hungry me wasn't in the mood to get into a bantering mode with the cashier knowing she'd probably give me an answer the jiak kentang I would grasp. 

This evening I just wanted to eat.

I just wanted to enjoy my food. 

So no way was I going to let an answer leave me with a sour taste when right in front of me there were all them dishes I wanted to reminisce, and wanted to try. 

Looking at these pictures more carefully now, a part of me realizes I really shouldn't see the cost to be that much of an issue, especially when you consider how a main dish at any Mainland Chinese place is minimum of $15, whilst here on the table there were a sampler of six. 

Perhaps that be the only way one should see it. 

Because where else (in the world of Mainland dining places here on the island) can one get a steamed egg, a tomato egg, a sweet and sour pork, a braised eggplant, a couple pieces of La Zi Ji, and a heap of beautifully arranged Mei Cai Kou Rou for the price of one main dish? 

Where else (in the world of Mainland places here on the island) does one get to choose their own samplers and have a taste of this and that at 1/6 of what they would normally pay? 

What's more, the dishes were done good. 

I really liked the sweet sour pork, the tomato egg, the braised eggplant and the Mei Cai Kou Rou (Pork Belly with Mei Cai- I've no idea what the English name of these vegetables they are). 

The sweet sour pork was surprisingly tender, not overwhelming sweet, and chopped into bite sized pieces that I felt were easy to pick up and eat. I had worried it would be either all hard meat, or all tendon fat- both of which I don't quite fancy.

The tomato egg wasn't bad, not on any counts even if- as some say- be the most ordinary of homecooked dishes that is easy to prepare. Eating it made me wonder just how life had been that (Cantonese that I am) had never had it before.

What I appreciated very much, however, were the braised eggplant and the Mei Cai Pork Belly. 

There are places where they slice the eggplant so thin that you're literally getting eggplant chips doused in lots and lots of sauce but have no chew. 

Then there are places where the division between vegetable and pork belly is so mixed that I can eat only vegetable but not the pork belly. 

Here the pork belly was evenly divided, slice by slice, making it possible to eat it with scoops of rice.

That I liked. 

I only wish there could have been more of them pork bellies.

The steamed egg and the La Zi Ji were just as good. 

Sometimes in life you want to mush up your egg with rice, carve it separately or you want to have a bit of fried stuff for the day without too much spice. 

That's where this version of La Zi Ji comes in. 

I barely tasted the Mala. 

One thing though, given these prices, perhaps next time I should be more discerning when it comes to what I want to eat and what I want to take.

Maybe I'll still take the steamed egg and the braised eggplant and the Mei Cai, but I might just drop the sweet sour pork and go for the Suan Cai Yu instead. A sample dish of Fish with Pickled Mustard Greens gives me a whiff of flavor without me having to finish a full-sized dish.  

Maybe I'll go for some of the more unusual, more difficult to make dishes. 

That way, I'd make my moolah feel more satisfied, more worth. 

Bus Ride Sights: Parkway-Suntec

You know something funny?

For all the times that I have taken Bus 36 from Parkway down to Suntec City, Raffles City, and Orchard, I have hardly had the chance to take a picture of this particular view. 

I don't know if it is because I happen to be standing most of the time. 

Or if it because I don't have Chonkycam with me those times. 

But today I had a seat, I had Chonkycam with me, and, best of all, the light was good. 

Hence it was that this afternoon granted me some of the loveliest pictures that I have ever taken on this one bus ride.  

Bus 36 for me today began at the bus stop outside Parkway Parade.

Like always.

By right, Chonkycam should have come out there and then, but I was settling down, and so not until the bus had gone past Mountbatten Road, onto Tanjong Katong South Road, and up onto the East Coast Parkway did she come out from my bag.

If there is one thing you must know, it is that it is a very quick journey from here down to Suntec City.

How long the journey takes, I don't know, but think thirty minutes at most from this one turn of Tanjong Katong South Road, onto the ECP, and into the Downtown zone of Temasek Boulevard. 

With such short leeway overall, you can imagine that Chonkycam worked overtime. 

But I didn't mind. 

See, one of the most charming things that Bus 36 has going for her is the view of the sea. 

The view doesn't actually begin here this side of East Coast, but stretches all the way back from Changi Airport where most of the route takes you along one of the most scenic views this side of the country. 

It is somewhere around there near the airport that the sea view begins, and on it goes at pockets here and there, not stopping even after the bus enters the residential areas, because after them blocks and schools and shops and condos, out onto another part of the East Coast Parkway she goes. 

Now, it would be perfect if the sea view stayed unabated all the way, but this is Singapore- a dot of an island- and there are bound to be places where, even though you're on the highway, your view gets blocked by the sight of (forested) trees, the glass showing the reflection showing the condominium towers opposite. 

I have no idea what these condominiums are, I also don't know which part of the East Coast area they are, but certainly they are not standing amongst the forests this side of the highway, because in the midst of all them leaves and one random staircase, all of a sudden, almost immediately, another view appears.

The unmistakable hotel towers of Marina Bay Sands, the distinctive curve of the Singapore Flyer, and the glassy, glossy blue surfaces of the Marina Bay Financial District. 

From here on, the view changes pretty fast.

All you get is a couple of minutes- five, ten- as the bus climbs up a sort of slope over the Benjamin Sheares Bridge- and then you're right into the heart of Suntec City, Marina Bay, and Temasek Boulevard. 

But an inspiring, breathtaking picture this will make if your hand works fast enough to get the shot right. 

All at once there is the view of the waters beyond Singapore's shores, there are the blue waters of the Marina Barrage Reservoir shimmering beautifully under the bright light of a Singapore sun, and as the bus nears Temasek Boulevard, the Supertrees, and them two bug-eye structures from Gardens by the Bay slide into view. 

At the same time, there is the Skypark atop Marina Bay Sands that from this angle is facing toward you, there is the ArtScience Museum that to me resembles a lotus flower in bloom, there is the F1 Pit Building, and then finally there is Marina Bay herself- distinctive, sharp, recognized. 

Never mind if you're seeing it through the grainy blur of a bus window. 

Shabu Sai!

It is an oddish sort of day to be writing this. 

Especially since it has been some time that we've come to Shabu Sai here at Orchard Central for an afternoon meal- and I am, in fact, missing it quite a bit. 

If it were another local franchise that made me see the value of (affordable) hotpot buffets, it was Shabu Sai that reignited that love. 

For the longest time I knew I had a special thing for hotpot buffets. What I didn't think, however, was just how much I would love it, come to appreciate it, and wish to have it such that I could have it every day. 

Maybe it is the fact that Shabu Sai serves up the most essential of hotpot ingredients in what I think is most classy a way. 

I don't know about other outlets, but never has it been, I tell you, that I come to this one here at Orchard Central and the vegetables are not properly placed, or nicely chilled. 

Always it is that the smoke from the chiller delights me whenever I step into the place. It's just a refreshing feeling, a cool, pleasant sight. 

Best of all it keeps the ingredients nice, chilled and cool. 

In recent days our favorite soup bases have leaned towards the light and the clean. When we first started coming here I liked to order the tonkotsu. After a while I began to realize that I liked the soup on its own, but not with other ingredients thrown inside. So afterwards I tried the yuzu, which, shall I say, was good. It didn't lose its sour even after boxes of thinly sliced meats were dunked inside. But my friend likes an even cleaner taste so it is to the seaweed he goes.

That's what he chose this afternoon. 

I decided to stick to the yuzu- I like the sour sour taste of the soup base before the savory of the ingredients take over. 

Amongst all that we ordered today from the menu, there was, of course, the meat. 

The meat is an integral part of our meal here. I don't know just how many trays of these thinly sliced beef we ordered but let's say there were enough to constitute two towers. 

What's interesting is that we don't actually order other kinds of meat. Not because they aren't good or that they aren't fresh- no, the meat comes out all cold and chilled, some trays even come out almost frozen- but because these slices are the fastest to cook and so the fastest to eat and so we can eat lots more. 

It usually takes about five, six trays of these before I start to feel full, but me being me, I dont' like to stop there, and instead try to squeeze in an extra tray or two. 

But it actually isn't the meat that makes me feel full. 

It is all the other ingredients that I throw into the pot to cook together with the meat.

There is good variety from the counters to choose from, I'm not kidding, and whilst I don't take everything, when it comes to my favorites I tend to take a lot, and so more often than not, my pot is filled not just with the many slices of meat, but the cabbage, the lettuce, the mushrooms and the occasional cheese tofu. 

This afternoon for my first plate I had gone straight for my favorite lettuces of Iceberg and Romaine. Never mind that there were other kinds of green leafy vegetables at the counter. For this plate I was only interested in the lettuce and even though the portion wasn't overflowing, for me, for me to put in my pot, it was more than enough. 

But I didn't just take the lettuce. 

Along with them greens I got myself a couple pieces of cheese tofu, because what is a hotpot if you don't have some of the fun ingredients to throw inside? 

I could have had a choice of, say, the fish balls and cuttlefish balls and some of them lobster balls. 

I could also have had some of them what we call tau kwa or some silky bean curd, or even a couple of meat balls. 

But I was happy with just the cheese tofu. 

Into the pot all these ingredients went, all bubbling away on their own, whilst piece by piece using my chopsticks I dropped the meats into the bowl, and swirled them around until they cooked. 

Altogether I think I helped myself to at least three plates of lettuces and cabbages alone.

Yes, it sounds like a lot, but if you know me, you'll know that I have this thing for lettuces, and cabbages cooked in soup. There's something soft and mushy about them vegetables that appeals to me. Maybe it is the way they turn this nice slightly brownish shade of fresh green. Maybe it is the way they absorb the soup, such that you get a burst of soup and a light crunch of the vegetable every time you take a bite. 

Never has it been one time I don't enjoy the warmth of the big lettuce leaf embracing my palate. 

Never has it been one time that I don't get the joy of feeling the soup burst out from the leaf once I've taken a bite. 

And the gentle crunch of the stems or the leaves, it is pleasant in terms of texture, nothing too soft, nothing too hard, nothing too green.

I pretty much liked watching the leaves all turn soft and smooth inside the bubbling pot as I alternated between a piece of vegetable and a piece of thinly sliced meat at the same time. 

Some of you might be wondering if the meat were tasteless- this one came unmarinated after all- but Shabu Sai does provide a variety of sauces which you can concoct however you like. 

I've seen diners take a variety of sauces including garlic, sesame seeds, chili oil and lots of fresh chili. 

Me, however, I tend to take a unique combination that consists of sesame sauce, sesame oil, and huge serving of parsley or coriander. On occasion I throw in a bit of fried shallots but normally I stick with the parsley. I'm happy with them. 

Same time too we do make our own version of dip for the meats. 

Like how we do it for the grilled, here too we sneak in the Greek style yogurt, one serving of miso, one serving of garlic powder, and that's about it. At one time we sneaked in the sesame oil even but later discovered we didn't need it at all. 

So good is our dip that we often finish our dip before our meats are finished.

I like the inclusion of miso and Greek style yogurt with our meat. 

It makes digestion faster, which, in turn, lets me have more of what I want to eat and want to try. 

This afternoon I somehow got attracted by the sight of them huge, fresh-looking, carefully chilled sliced tomatoes, so I decided to get a few. And then because right next to the tomatoes there were these huge spinach stems, so I got myself a few as well. 

Afterwards I decided that I wanted to have a bit of noodle. 

Because, why not? 

Here at the counter they have three kinds of noodles- there's ramen, soba and instant noodle. Out of all three, ramen is my favorite- always is, always has been- so I got myself a serving. 

However, I didn't realize is that my tongs had picked up more than I thought I wanted, so in the end, after having tossed it into the pot, it came out as two servings, which, let me say, I didn't mind. 

Two servings, two bowls. 

Both bowls, I stirred in a dash of the sesame sauce-sesame oil concoction I'd earlier made, then a single piece of lettuce and a single slice of meat. 

In one bowl I added some of the parsley, and can I just say all these fresher than fresh ingredients made this small bowl taste exceptionally good. 

Thinking back on it now, this really was a very pleasant, and memorable meal that I had this particular afternoon. 

More so, made by the fact that I haven't had the chance thus far to eat it again. 

Still, a meal is a meal, and there's nothing better than to come to its close than to have an ice cream for dessert. 

I generally have the same thing when it comes to dessert. In that sense they don't have much options, but oy, I don't care. Today, like how I always do,  I got myself a cup of vanilla soft serve, tossed in some sesame seeds- for no particular reason other than a bit of crunch- and had it in a very pleasant, delightful way. 

Tuna @ Thomson's Sushiro

This will be a short post. 

Not because there's nothing to write or that there's no picture or that the meal wasn't good.

Just that in life there are things which are simple yet fulfilling both at the same time, and one doesn't need to write a lot to appreciate a meal.

Originally we had not planned to have a meal here, my colleague and I, but there wasn't much here in the shopping center here today that we wanted to have, so off it was to the Sushiro outlet over at one corner of the mall that we went. 

There is a fair bit of variety to be had here on the menu here at Sushiro. 

I can't say it be the same as how other Japanese chain franchises do it, but the menu here is targeted and specific, intended for diners who appreciate their seafood, and their sushi. 

There aren't many chains I know that offer items like Grilled Mackerel sushi, Ark Shell sushi, Engawa sushi and Swordfish sushi. 

Also there aren't many places that have sushi of Fresh Octopus and Young Yellowtail and Marinated Sesame Red Snapper. 

They're a bit more mass palate when it comes to their cooked food. 

There're small bites of Sweet Potato Tempura, Chicken Kaarage, and Takoyaki. There're also mains that include Tonkotsu Ramen with Egg, Beef Udon and Shrimp Tempura Udon. 

I had thought of trying the Beef Udon (I like udon) but then decided to go all the way for sushi instead.

At another time I might be adventurous with my diet and try the Ark Shell sushi or the Swordfish sushi, but today we decided to just stick with the Tuna, the Aburi Salmon Cheese, and the Medium Fatty Tuna. 

It was more than enough for me.

What made the meal feel extra special was the amount of sushi that we ordered. 

Seeing all these red plates made the meal feel extra pleasant. 

It made the meal feel so pleasant. 

You know what I'll do next time?

I'll get a few pieces of the Medium Fatty Tuna sushi, a bowl of the Beef Udon- I still think it looks lovely- and then dessert. 

In the form of a Macaron Parfait and a Hokkaido Milk Crepe. 

It's been a long time since I had Japanese desserts anyway. 

Paradise Hotpot @ Bedok

You know, seeing these pictures now I'm starting to realize just how much of this hotpot I genuinely miss.

When we first started coming here, I didn't think that there would ever be a season where I'd have to be patient for my next round of hotpot buffet. I had assumed, at that time, that the opportunity would always be present, that the chance would always come. 

But life is such that you one day find yourself looking at a collection of pictures that you snapped a couple of months before and realize just how much you wish you could up and go eat it today, right now, no wait. 

That don't mean that I don't appreciate all that I've had. 

It just means I wish to have it more. 

On surface it sounds greedy, but truth is, when faced with a hotpot buffet like this, how does one say no?

The charm of this buffet doesn't lie only in your choice of soup, the presence of ingredients that you throw into your hotpot, or the freshness of them all. 

The charm lies in the cooked food, the drinks, and the desserts as well. 

I suppose one shouldn't be that surprised by the presence of cooked food in hotpot buffets anymore, but it always leaves me delighted and full of smiles. 

We always begin with our order of soup first. There're several kinds to be had here- offhand I don't quite recall what exactly they are- but there's Clear Chicken Soup Base, there's Tomato with Sweet Corn Soup Base, and there's Tom Yum Soup Base. I like to go for the Teochew Pork Bone with Dried Shrimp Soup Base. My friend chooses the herbal one in the form of Cordycep Flower with Mushroom Soup Base. 

The soup gets served very quickly here at Paradise Hotpot. 

Often is it that we have no sooner sat down that they bring out our individual pots.

I like to wait for them to come with the soup before going to get the food.

My friend, on the other hand, bops off happily to the counter.

There is a a fair bit of food to choose from. Whether it be the fried, the braised, or the steamed, there's a variety. 

I often start with the fried- what they have here is mostly finger food style compromising of foods like popcorn chicken, sweet potato fries, fries, spring rolls, bean curd skins, and a host of other snacks that sometimes make for dim sum orders. 

They have servings of fried rice, fried noodles, and even steamed cheong fun from time to time. 

On the other side of the counter there're usually a couple of braised dishes- I've seen braised pork belly (in its very dark gravy), I've seen some variations of soup (seaweed, was it) then they have curry fishballs and then there're the steamed versions of char siew bao, siew mais and, on occasion, char siew sou. 

I tend to be a little more cautious when it comes to the cooked food. 

Not because I don't like what they have but because I want to choose the best of what I want. 

I don't do the cooked food in a single serving.

Normally I do two.

So this afternoon I first got myself a plate of fried. On it there were a couple pieces of spam fries (for the fun of it), a piece of youtiao, and a couple of spring rolls. On the same plate too was a bowl of the curry fishballs. 

Later during the course of the meal I got myself another plate- this time with the mung bean pastry that I had procrastinated about the other time (and therefore missed), another spring roll, deep fried scallops (a favorite canteen snack of mine) and more curry fishballs. 

Don't laugh at my fishballs. 

They might seem like a simple dish- just fishballs boiled in a curry gravy- but they're strangely appetizing and they make for a very great snack to whet the appetite.

Something tells me it is the bounciness of the fishballs. 

But I think it is also the curry.

I use it as a dip for the boiled meats as and when I want to, and it's good. 

Today at Paradise Hotpot we got ourselves trays and trays of them pork belly sliced.

Actually there were two kinds, but I don't know which is which. 

All I know is that we ordered of each about four, or five. 

And I love it that they came all pleasantly chilled, almost frozen, and cool. 

The meal this afternoon alternated between dunking the meats in the soup, dipping them in our homemade yogurt dip, and eating them. 

What I really liked about them unmarinated meats was how easily they cooked, how clean they tasted, and how well they blended the savory taste of soup together with our sour-savory dip of Greek-style yogurt, garlic powder, and miso.

The dip really works, by the way. 

Not only does it complement the meat well, it yields the digestives, so much so that one doesn't feel as stuffed as you think you ought to be after all them platters of meat, plus everything else that you throw into the pot. 

I don't know if there be people who come to a hotpot buffet like this and not take any of the other ingredients all so beautifully laid out on the chilled counter.

I mean, how does one not even look at the variety of lettuce, cabbage, green leafy vegetables, range of mushrooms, fungus, carrots, radish, corn, and all the other fun stuff like lobster balls and cuttlefish balls and silk tofu and egg tofu and cheese tofu? How does one ignore the range and variety of meat balls and fish balls and stuffed fish balls that they have in the the trays of the counter?

Okay, so I may not go for a lot. 

But that's because I have a favorite vegetable and that is the only vegetable that I want to go for. 

It dont matter if on the counter they have a lot more of other ingredients or other kinds of vegetables. 

I'm arrowing just one type. 

The Lettuce. 

There's something about lettuce leaves in soup that I've always loved. So good are they that I can just have nothing else but them lettuce leaves in the soup and I'd be happy munching on them the entire time. 

What's more, here they got the Romaine. 

Big green leaves in a lovely, cheerful shade of green. 

This afternoon, I helped myself to lots and lots of these lettuce, but I also took a couple of cheese tofu, a tongful of mushrooms, a tongful of ramen, and then, from the menu, a serving of complimentary mala dumplings. 

I had thought they be numbing spicy, but to my surprise they were actually really good! The meat was big, the skin was thick, and the mala taste was not that of chili oil but wrapped inside the taste of the skin (and meat) itself.

I liked the chew of the dumplings.

They made for such a lovely complement to the (small serving) of ramen noodles and the mushrooms already in my bowl, it didn't even matter that by that time I was already beginning to feel full.

I was more or less cool with the mains by this time, but of course, Paradise Hotpot has dessert- and I wasn't going to leave without having any.

So off it was to the ice cream machine where I got myself a cup of chocolate soft serve, then, just for the fun of it, bopped over to the tau fu fa pot, and dropped in a couple of them cute tiny little taro balls. 

Not the most conventional topping one gets when eating ice cream, but oy, why not, when it's there, it's unusual, it doesn't affect the sweet of the chocolate, and makes for a picture this good?

Soi 47 Toa Payoh 2026

A blessing it is to have a meal here at the Soi 47 of Toa Payoh Lorong 6. 

Don't laugh.

Soi 47 might be one of those places where authenticity sits somewhere in between, but as far as one goes when craving a plate of Pad See Ew or Moo Ping or Green Curry, this is one of the best. 

I have a love for their Pad See Ew and their Pad Thai. 

I also have a love for the Green Curry and their Tom Kha, both of which, come to think of it, I have not had in a long time.

It is a relief, and joy, really, to be back here at this outlet at the corner unit of the void deck of this block. 

I don't know if it is the familiar sight of them tables and chairs. 

Or the sight of the menu, which, by the way (in much typical Thai fashion) has looked the same and has not changed since the first time I had their meals over at Temple Street in Chinatown. 

If you think it amusing, you must know that there was a season where Soi 47- six, seven outlets and all- faced the risk of an impending closure, and indeed, for a few weeks they did, until one day when corporate management did what corporate management does, and the outlets (or at least this one) reopened again.

We could not be more glad, I tell you. 

Especially since Thai food is very close to our hearts and which is a cuisine we always want to go for whenever we can. 

You might say it's the taste, or the portion or the fact that the cuisine somehow brings back very pleasant memories. 

And it doesn't always have to be the dishes that we favor. 

Sometimes we skip the familiar favorites and go for dishes that we feel like having that day.

Like today, this evening, where instead of Green Curry or Pad Thai, we ordered a plate of fried duck Mama (instant noodles), and a big fluffy egg omelet.

I had been surprised by the order of noodles.

My friend generally prefers rice. 

As it turns out, he had made the order by mistake, but what with us being us, we just ate the noodles (happily) anyway. 

The charm of this dish lies in the ingredients- the duck, and the fried egg. 

It might surprise some just why a duck leg is so attractive. 

First of all, it is fried. 

Here on this island, roast duck, braised duck, even stewed duck, are common. Fried duck, however, is not. I don't think I have ever seen fried duck meat ever been offered in any of our hawker centers, coffee shops or even restaurants. It is not a dish on any reputable Chinese restaurant menu. It is also not a dish that you can buy for a couple of dollars at a hawker center. 

It's rare. 

What's more, the meat beneath the crispy skin is remarkably tender.

One might think that the meat be dry and hard, but no, it isn't. 

It also has a distinctive, if not slight, smoky taste only distinguishable in meats that have been fried in a wok already full of wok hei. 

Think that's what we liked the most. 

Same too for the fluffy omelet.

Nearly every Thai place I know offers the omelet. At other places I don't have the feeling to order the omelet, but not here. 

Perhaps it be that Soi 47 does it in a homely, familiar way that makes you think of the street stalls in Bangkok whilst sitting at a table in Toa Payoh. 

Might be the generous amount of eggs they use for the omelet.

Or, might be the way they do their ubiquitous omelet that has textures both soft, fluffy, crispy, and tasty, yet not very, very greasy at the same time. 

Comforting as a dish this is, we had a great time with the omelet, eating it together with the rice, feeling the crisp and crunch of the egg mix perfectly good together with the hot grains of rice. 

The Last Koggi @ Suntec

So it doesn't really happen but it is making me kind of emo writing this right now. 

See, when I first began writing about Koggi sometime around the middle of last year, I had no idea that by early 2026, about 9 plus months after, I would be writing a last post of this place that I had come to cherish, and love.

A dramatic statement this is not- not when over the course of all these months I have appreciated, loved, and enjoyed everything that Koggi has to offer. 

It might seem surprising that a typical, regular, normal K-BBQ place would strike such a chord in me, but, you see, what Koggi offers is more than just a meal. It offers a cultural dining experience- at a gorgeous, affordable price. 

Never mind that it is in a central location of Suntec City.

Never mind that it is priced at $19.90++ after 530pm on weekdays and all day on weekends. 

It is the presence of menu offerings and its charcoal grill that I prefer. 

Today at Koggi we ordered our favorite serving of Thin Sliced Pork Belly. I can't remember if we ordered any other meat- we might have, we might have not- but definitely there were at least five or six of these pork belly plates which we unrolled, placed atop a bed of onions on the charcoal grill, grilled, and ate. 

In recent months we had discovered the joy of cooking with them fresh sliced onions. 

Not only does the unmarinated meat taste slightly better- there's the faint hint of caramel sweet as the onions cook- the meat doesn't stick to the grill even if we happen to leave it there longer. 

Of course, in that sense, we don't. 

The meat gets too hard otherwise. 

It isn't really that difficult to eat a slightly tougher piece of meat, especially when you have a choice of dips to go with it. 

Now, tradition says that you're supposed to have your meats with a combination of salt and sesame oil. 

This- I have- which I take from the counter and keep it on my table to eat with either the meat, or dishes that I want to have a bit taste of sesame oil.

Beyond that, however, we like to concoct our own dip where we have two small cups of Greek-style yogurt, a little bit of garlic powder, and a little bit of miso. Most of the time the garlic powder is more than enough, but the miso adds just that little bit of fermented kick.

I often have my meats with this homemade dip. 

Same too I have my meats with kimchi. 

They serve two types of kimchi here. One is the packaged kind with larger size lettuce. The other is the fresh kimchi which they introduced to the menu not too long ago and which I have taken ever since. 

If yogurt makes for a good effect of digestion, so does kimchi, I tell you, and very delightful it is to wrap up the meat inside the lettuce and eat it in one solid bite together. 

You know, up till coming here to Koggi I had not known just how good a combination of meat and kimchi could go together. There's a fresh burst of lettuce juice coming out from the leaf, and all at once your palate is bombarded with a balance of flavors sour, slightly sweet, spicy, and savory same time. What's more, the crunchy lettuce contrasts the gentle rough of the meat, so you get that rounded wrap of taste, and texture both at the same time.

In recent times they'd begun serving fresh kimchi, which, I'm going to say, I absolutely love. 

Suaku, yes, but I had no idea that fresh kimchi and packaged kimchi actually tasted so different. It wasn't just the manner of ingredients, there was also the difference in crunch. Packaged kimchi was significantly crunchier than fresh kimchi, and, well, I found I liked the fresh one better. Less stressful on my teeth. 

Coming here, of course I was not going to miss out on their cooked food selection and on their sides. 

I had (quietly) hoped for japchae- it was one of my absolute go-tos whenever they served it here- but in the tray it was- I think- spaghetti this afternoon. 

No matter, I helped myself to a portion of chicken nuggets and criss-cut fries, and a serving of macaroni salad, that, I have to say, I also love. 

I'm not complaining about the banchan. 

One of the joys coming here is seeing what they have brought out for the day. 

Especially since it varies a huge deal. . 

So far so, there have always been a few staples, like the macaroni salad, the chicken nuggets, the rice, and the fries. But the rest- they vary. 

Sometimes there's japchae. Sometimes there's spaghetti. Sometimes there's tteokbokki. Other times there're other dishes. 

Today there wasn't tteokbokki. I think they had a braised meat dish, that, honestly, if I knew how to eat it, would probably go well either eaten on its own, with rice, or with spaghetti. Maybe you were meant to mix the braised (stewed?) meat together with your grilled meats. 

I don't know. 

But I was glad for them banchan dishes. 

I may not take everything, I may not know how to take everything, but everything they have makes for a rich cultural experience- including the macaroni salad (as I only recently found out)- and am so thankful I got to try.

Pistachio Paste @ Ruxu Funan

Over a month it has been since my friend suggested we go to this place at Funan Mall for hot desserts then going viral all over the socials. 

Tell you honestly, I had been delighted with the suggestion. 

So seldom is it that we go for bowls like these that every opportunity becomes a pleasant, even special one. 

There is a fair bit of hot bowls here at Ruxu that one can choose from. 

What makes this place unique isn't just the food they have to offer, but the proof of fact that Mainland food is now no longer restricted to just giant-sized crepe pancakes called shao bing, twisted flour sticks called ma hua, or (sometimes not very aesthetic-looking) dishes of the earthy, agricultural kind.

If anything, Ruxu shows that they these days are more than happy to export their aesthetic-rich looking foods too. 

There have been several opinions about the bakes and pastries they have on offer. 

Some people find them bland. 

Others, however, find them disproportionate in size. 

I'm not sure how one interprets whether a food is good or not. 

But the bakes my friend got for us this evening were good. 

There were two- a bun, and a tart. The bun was for him, the tart for me. It wasn't because I had chosen not to have the bun, but because tarts have always been a favorite of mine, and what better than a tart of this sort that has both caramel and custard. 

Glistening beautifully under the lights, the custard, with its firm, buttery yet flaky pastry, hugged a filing that was at once rich and eggy with a distinctive milk pudding texture.  

I loved the puff pastry of the tart shell. 

Not only did it not crumble after the first bite, it made the tart very easy to hold, and to eat. 

Best of all, it wasn't as sweet as I thought it might be. 

Perhaps that be the way of some Cantonese-style, Mainland-style bakes. They can go all savory- no problem- but they hold back when it comes to the sweet. 

It was the same for his bun with the matcha cream filling.

So the cream might look a little bit dark here in the picture, but really, I can assure you, it' wasn't. More of a dark green, really, and rich with the matcha taste that combines a hint of the bitter with a faint taste of sweet. 

The way the cream got layered had it such that it felt silly to bite directly into the bun, so from both edges we picked at it with our fingers bit by bit before getting to the cream inside. 

If the bakes were good, same too can be said for the hot desserts. 

Originally I had thought we might share a bowl but my friend remembered my love for steamed milk desserts so he got one bowl of steamed milk custard, and another of the signature pistachio paste. 

The milk custard didn't bring me back strong vibes of Hong Kong (which it should have- given how I'd eaten it twice before and have never forgotten it) but the smooth white surface did make me relish what was right now in front of me- a clean, shiny, smooth white custard pudding that bounced when my spoon pressed on it, and which slid gently onto my spoon when I carved into it. 

I'm glad it wasn't one of those very sweet desserts that I sometimes get skeptical about. 

It isn't because I don't like sugar. 

If the dessert is meant to have lots of sweet- like chendol or ice kachang or iced cocktail jelly- then, of course, by all means, let's roll the sugar.

But in Cantonese-style tong shui desserts of this make, sugar masks the taste of milk, and the milk in this bowl was the very thing I wanted to have. 

So I'm glad it wasn't leaning to the sweet.

Same thing it were too, thankfully, for the pistachio paste. 

I would have been disappointed had the bowl of green paste turned out to have an artificial flavor to it masked generously with sugar. 

But it wasn't. 

The flavor of pistachio- nutty, slightly salty, with its distinctive taste- was obvious and strong. I didn't taste anything awkward on my tongue. Then the coloring too- it's lighter than what the picture shows, by the way- was natural, sitting somewhere between the pastel of green, and the depth of the real pistachio nut green. What's more, there was also the texture- thick and smooth like how a paste dessert ought to be. 

I'm pretty sure there'll be more places offering such pistachio paste desserts here and there. It is a trending flavor after all, family-friendly for all ages, even elderly whose teeth and dentures no longer work well with the crunchiness of nuts. 

But I think I might come back here to Ruxu. 

They have an ambience that is, to me, reminiscent of a tea house- but less heavy, more minimalist- and an upheld quality in their desserts and bakes, which, at moments in life, I ought to learn to love, and appreciate.