Entree Kibbles

Sunday, June 06, 2021

SMITHS Authentic British Fish & Chip Shop @ Balmoral Plaza (Walking Distance from Newton MRT Station) [Singapore]

We received news that Waffletown would be closed for good on 18 May 2021 and as the eatery brought back many nice memories when I was a young adult; the Great Kon and I, together with another friend, decided to check it out for the last time!

Alas, the queue was insanely long even at 5.00 pm and as I would be proceeding to another location after dinner, there's hardly enough time for me to wait. Looking around, we chanced upon SMITHS; no queue but full house before dinnertime was already very impressive.

The eatery was notable for authentic British fish and chips although there are other items on the menu and even specials like English Prawn Cocktail. It's a pity Alex didn't join us as he was indisputably the guru for fish & chips among my friends.

To be honest, the fish and chips were costly at S$26.50 for a standard size; a small one was S$3.00 cheaper. Well, the restaurant claimed they were "of the highest quality and imported directly from UK" and that should justify for the high price. Furthermore, cods are expensive!

Cod & Salad - chips was one option but I decided on salad given the amount of sinful food I had over the past few months. Should have stayed with the chips as the raw vegetables with minimal dressing was just not to my liking.

Fish portion was generous and it was fresh; cooked with just enough crispy batter (said to be secret recipe and it wasn't cloying) to envelop the fish, the meat was juicy, albeit just a bit too bland for me.

I had to rely on the chilli and tartar sauces; perfection after that although I wonder if their cheapest fish and chips (S$15.00 for blended haddock and cod fillets) would be more worth the deal.

Whatever the case, it was a lot of meat and despite not having any chips; I was literally forcing myself to clean out the fish! And to think I didn't even have much for lunch earlier!

Kon passed me some chips to try; it's known among my peers that I am no fan of potato stuff including potato chips and french fries but I do have preferences. For French fries (American term for chips), I like them crispy in the shoestring form; the ones from SMITHS were not. However, I bet there are fans for that kind of fries / chips.

Battered Mars Bars - I used to enjoy snickers / mars when I was younger with a metabolism that seemed like a bottomless pit! Gone were those days but since this was listed under desserts; let's give it a try!

Dip into a batter and then deep-fry; I guess it should be quite a simple process as there wasn't any fireworks exploding in my mind when I took a bite. Tasted just like a sweet mars bar with a crisp casing.

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Would be back again so that the guru can try out the fish and chips. There are also other mains I am keen to check out; like their steak and Guinness pie, apple crumble etc.

Address

271 Bukit Timah Road,

#01-02, Balmoral Plaza,

Singapore 259708

Map

As above.

Website

https://www.smithsfishandchips.com/

Menu

As above.

Pricing

Cod & Salad - S$26.50

Battered Mars Bars - S$6.50

(Inclusive of GST)

Saturday, June 05, 2021

The Suju Bento from JW360° Suju Masayuki Japanese Restaurant @ Jewel Changi Airport [Singapore]

Although Jewel Changi Airport would be closed till 13 June 2021, I thought there's no harm to publish the review of JW360° Suju Masayuki Japanese Restaurant since the mall would be open in slightly more than a week's time and hopefully by then, we could all start dining-in again!

It's nice to dine in at Suju Masayuki as you could soak in the views of the iconic 40-meter tall HSBC Rain Vortex, said to be "the world's tallest indoor waterfall", with your souls being comforted by the therapeutic sound of water.

As usual, my main concern was food and being overly greedy and indecisive mean I would often pay extra attention to bentos as they provide a lot of variety! The suju bento, with dessert, definitely caught my attention even though I would much prefer pork / chicken / beef over fish.

Tea - one big pot per person for S$3.00 and it appeared to retain heat extremely well since the tea remained hot throughout our meal. I expressed surprised when I tried to finish it quickly before leaving, and almost scalded my tongue in haste.

Sakura White Chocolate Cake - Alex's order since I am not usually a fan of Japanese cake, except for maybe strawberry shortcake. This was pretty good with a balance of sweetness and sourness, with what seemed to be bites of strawberry seeds; my untrained taste buds can't discern the pistachio in the sponge cake.

Chawanmushi - this would be the kind of chawanmushi I would strongly recommend to others; it's pricey at S$9.00 but the serving was also a lot larger than your typical chawanmushi. Most importantly, the taste was more flavourful (maybe due to the dried scallops) and contained three small prawns and two pieces of chicken.

Agedashi Tofu - I must have been feeling guilty over the ton of sinful food I had been having before this COVID-19 phase two (heightened alert) kicked in as this is one Japanese side dish I wouldn't order in normal times. Small, wooden coffin-like holder contained chilli powder.

Sitting in a shallow pool of lightly seasoned broth, the tofu was expectedly bland with smooth insides. What's more interesting for me were the gelatinous crust covering the tofu and the delicious shimeji mushrooms. And yes, the chilli powder came in handy.

Gindara Misozuke Yaki - meaning "grilled miso-marinated black cod", my apology for not taking the picture before it was half devoured by Alex. Said to be the restaurant's signature, both of us thought it was too salty for our liking and very much preferred the ones I can made at home, using my Ninja Foodi Grill.

Suju Bento - here comes my brunch!

Two different view for your viewing pleasure.

You can choose between white and seasoned rice. Honestly, I am more accustomed to seeing brown rice which I would not choose given their not as palatable taste and texture. Seeing seasoned rice on the menu was refreshing; so why not?

The "seasoned" in this case refers to the seaweed, silverfish and sesame seeds; not my cup of my tea and I think their plain, white rice from Iizuna area in Nagano would have sufficed. The miso soup, despite its unconventional appearance with plenty of beancurd skin, also failed to impress us.

Crunchy green pickles were enjoyable; the four appetizers were acceptable (not fabulous) and I totally loved the two pieces of chicken, even though more with the accompanying mayo sauce, rather than the marination of the chicken. To be fair, they were juicy!

It's been a while since I last had such amazing saba fish! I was praying hard that it wouldn't be fishy, as with the case with many restaurants, and my prayers were answered! The fish meat was also not overcooked and each bite was a moment of blissfulness! According to the website, their fish "is selected and delivered by air from the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo"!

I was about to take my leave when the staff scrambled over and said they had yet to pass us the dessert that was part of the bento; totally slipped my mind. It's vanilla ice cream which wasn't too sweet with the taste that it came from some high quality brand. Yum yum!

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Hits and misses, with more of the latter, but I wouldn't mind a second visit to check out other Japanese dishes. One dish that I would definitely reorder in my next visit shall be the chawanmushi!

Address

78 Airport Boulevard,

#01-223/224/225,

Jewel Changi Airport

Singapore 819666

Website

https://suju-masayuki.com/sg/#box01

Pricing

Tea - S$3.00 per pot per person

Sakura White Chocolate Cake - S$8.00

Chawanmushi - S$9.00

Agedashi Tofu - S$12.00

Gindara Misozuke Yaki - S$42.00

Suju Bento - S$28.00

(Subject to Service Charge and GST)

Friday, June 04, 2021

Blossoms (喜悅) - Peking Duck & Fried Rice @ Marina Bay Sands [Singapore]

Blossoms is a restaurant at Marina Bay Sands that's hard to miss! I mean, who can visually ignore the row of humongous wooden containers on the ground floor!?!

Since it's our first staycation at my dream hotel, we thought we might as well give some support to its associate restaurants by dining there. p.s. I was just way too lazy to travel out and also, I can't secure a reservation at Waku Ghin.

There were just two of us and with limited capacity, we could only go with their chef recommended peking duck, fried rice, tea and appetiser. Oh, Alex got a dessert too but I didn't manage to get a picture or a bite; hence, no review on that.

Pu-erh Tea - seldom would you go wrong with pu-erh which also happens to be my favourite tea. It's mild on the tummy and said to contain a ton of antioxidants! This was so nice; we asked to top up about three to four times.

Appetizer - after the potato chip appetizer at Hua Ting, this was another instance where I rolled my eyes. Was I having beer so that nuts were provided? Thankfully, the walnuts were crunchy and sweet with generous sprinkles of sesame seeds; tasted like those I got for S$10 a big bag at Bangkok and this cost us S$5.00 for a small bowl.

Blossom Peking Duck - for a roast duck lover, it's sad to hear that Alex never had Peking duck before. So, this serving of half a peking duck was really for him.

Meat was okay; juicy yet without any exceptional flavour that could have surprised us. Maybe I was expecting too much given that this is chef recommended. Nevertheless, when it comes to Peking duck, it's the skin that matters most.

And here it was; a plate of glistening, thinly-sliced roasted duck skin with its 'accessories' comprising of cucumber, spring onion, sauces and a basket of pancakes.

Combining the items on the pancake; the same, typical way I did when I had peking duck at the Scholar Chinese Restaurant (NUSS) and Quan Ju De (Beijing).

Wrapped it up and took a bite! Pancake was on the thick and the duck skin didn't had that desirable crispness. There were two sauces; one was more similar to the sweet sauce usually used for peking duck whereas the other had a noticeable ginger tinge to it. In summary, it was acceptable as a roast duck dish but maybe not so for peking duck.

How about Alex? Well, our charming boy copied my steps and complained that the pancake was very chewy. Turned out he used the waxed paper (placed in between the pancakes from sticking to each other) as the base; we had a great laugh over it! His review was almost aligned with mine; this was more a normal roast duck.

Fried Rice with Crab, Conpoy and Egg White - we waited so long for this; we were on the verge of cancelling the order. It came 30 minutes after the peking duck!

Don't you just love fried rice with grain-by-grain texture? On a whole, it's nice, imbued with wok hei. However, taste wise was comparable to good neighbourhood tze char stall, at a fraction of the price. Of course, the dried scallops, crabs would command a high premium but to me, they would be useless if there's no significant difference in taste, which is exactly the case here. For extra oomph, always eat with green chilli!

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