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3 food reviews (mostly sans photos, too bad):
Crystal Jade Hong Kong Cafe (Liang Seah Street)
California Girl and I wanted to visit Nadezhda Russian Restaurant (run by Russians) at Kampong Glam (140 Arab Street, facing Golden Landmark Hotel), but when I tried calling their number, it was invalid. Since the last review I found online dated from May 2007, we decided to try out luck, but when we reached the address we found a new 2-month-old Indian/Central Asian place. If anyone knows where Nadezhda moved to, or where to go in Singapore for authentic Russian food, such information would be welcome (Shashlik sounds like a joke).
After wandering for some time, we found ourselves in Liang Seah Street. Given that this was around the location of "Causeway Bay Cafe", the last bad Hong Kong cafe I'd tried, perhaps I should've taken that as a sign and stayed away (indeed, since I didn't see Causeway Bay Cafe, it might even have been on the exact same premises)
We ordered:
Pumpkin Seafood Soup, Baked Pork Chop Rice, Curry Chee Cheong Fun, Iced Milk Tea, Shaved ice with Chin Chow and Fruit [Cocktail]
Shark's Fin Soup in a Bowl, Vermicelli with Beef Brisket, Shaved ice with wolfberry and some translucent white thing
The first disappointment was my milk tea which had been steeped too long and was horribly tannic (I almost couldn't swallow it).
The Pumpkin Seafood Soup was alright, though a bit weird (I'm used to my pumpkin soup being thick and slightly sweet, but I guess this is called Fusion cuisine).
My pork chop rice came with the meat cut up. I can't remember if it's supposed to be given to you whole, but in any case cutting the meat up made it hard to discern the size of the cut, which was probably the intention. The mushroom sauce on top tasted like cream soup from a can. Now, using cream canned soup is a good shortcut (which I have used myself) to get a tasty sauce, but you must add other things to it to create a more complex taste; this sauce tasted like it was out of the can.
The Curry Chee Cheong Fun was weird. The flour rolls were limp and were solid pieces of flour, rather than being rolls (as Chee Cheong Fun is supposed to be).
I didn't finish my food, and that tells you something.
California Girl said her tang hoon was alright, and tasted herby. I didn't expect her Shark's Fin Soup to have real Shark's Fin, but they should at least have duplicated the taste of the stock. Instead, it tasted like mushroom soup.
The service was bad also. Ignoring the usual Singaporean phenomenon of the staff speaking to you in Mandarin when you speak to them in English, California Girl's soup came after her main order, and though she asked them to serve her dessert 10 minutes before I ordered mine, mine came first.
The saving grace was the desserts, which were quite good, but if you can screw up shaved ice desserts you suck.
I'm quite disappointed, given that hitherto Crystal Jade has never disappointed me. If you want good Hong Kong food, go to Kim Gary Cafe (one of the few good things that has come out of Malaysia) or better yet, Central.
Penang Place (International Business Park, The Atrium)
This place is billed as serving authentic Penang food.
Yet it doesn't use pork or lard, so its claim to authenticity is very contestable.
In any case, I judged it on its food quality, rather than its adherence to culinary principles (marketing notwithstanding).
It served a buffet of 20+ dishes. Most were alright, but the siew mai stood out for being awful and the lorbak for being excellent (despite having no pork - I preferred the York one though).
The signature dish, the Penang Char Kway Teow, was disappointing:
This 'authentic' Penang Char Kway Teow has fishcake, lap cheong (Chinese sausage) and sotong. A genuine authentic version has none of these. Personally I prefer taste over authenticity, but authenticity is authenticity, so. There was also too much vegetables in this.
The place is good for variety and service, but the food isn't quite there. Go to York Hotel's Penang Hawkers event for authentic and good Penang food.
Inagiku, Fairmont Singapore
Inagiku is hideously expensive, and the only reason I was there, as with my last visit, was because I was with someone who had the Raffles Gourmet card (when 2 dine and one uses it, there's a 50% discount, but even then the price is steep). It'd been 4 years or so since my last visit, and the hotel had since changed names (it used to be "Raffles The Plaza") and the restuarant been renovated (it has a darker interior now, and fewer teppanyaki grills you can sit in front of).
The golden sauce served with the seafood teppanyaki seemed to be down a little bit, saltier and less rich than before, but it was still delicious, and it's been 4 years, so. The teppayaki vegetables were definitely lousier than before (and I think you used to get garlic fried rice - now it's plain rice).
It was the first time I'd had the tempura. It was good, but I'd been expecting more given the rave reviews I'd heard about the batter being as light as air (and live prawns too, given the price, hurr hurr). The chef's skill in frying a dark green leaf such that it was almost straight (and not curled) was admirable though.
Portions were bigger than before, but so were the prices (A Prawn, Salmon and Beef set is now $70).
I was slightly annoyed as the chef was quite noisy (talking a lot) and kept calling his underling 'brother'.