Rice Rice Baby

It's actually pretty good for airport food - tender chicken, sweet sauce, nice warm rice and a simple papaya salad with chopped peanuts sprinkled on top. This surely satisfied my need for a quick and simple meal before my flight.

Grilllo serves such tender prime beef to go with their truffle-drizzled short grain rice.

For this bowl, go ahead and break that perfect Onsen egg and mix it all up in that rice; I bet that's what it's there for. In fact, mix everything in the bowl to get that balance of flavor with every mouthful, and that added surprise of crispy garlic bits with each bite.

Not shown: A simple cabbage and carrot slaw that comes on the side, for some extra dietary fibre.

Always packed during lunch, Foong Kee boasts a great deal of local meat delights and my favorite has to be the Char Siew Rice.

To avoid the crowd, go at about 6pm for an early dinner. Order from the lady at the stall and grab some chili or soy sauce from the side before you take your seat. It usually doesn't take that long in the evenings - 5 to 10 minutes max for your order to arrive at your table.

The char siew comes nicely charred on the edges and if you're lucky (I usually am), you get mostly lean meat and just the right amount of fat to not feel guilty after. If you're worried, just request for lean meat; I just personally prefer to throw the dice and see what I get.

This char siew rice is hugely addictive. I didn't even know it was famous the first few times I had it. I just kept going back.

I ordered the Crustacean Rice Bowl as my main from the 3-course weekend dinner set. ($33.90; roasted pumpkin soup as my starter and wild berry pannacotta as dessert).

I was thoroughly impressed with this bowl of carb-filled goodness. Although a little pricier than my usual meals, this one was certainly worth the price.

First look, it doesn't seem like much: A golden-yellow layer of char-grilled cheese topped with three precise scoops of black caviar and a small sprig of chervil each. Simple presentation, but as you start to dig in, you uncover the fragrant rice with honey-ponzu that adds sweet citrusy taste to the mix, butter-poached lobsters that are firm and sweet and the sea urchin cream that adds to the seafood flavour profile.

Mix it all up and you get a buttery, seafood-filled, cheesy, rich bowl of rice with bits of caviar to add that soft burst of salt and oil. Delicious.

Had this great find for lunch at $12.90. Located at Pasarbella Suntec City, Grilllo is the first stall you see as you enter this hipsteresque food court from the right entrance. Only a short wait (7 mins at lunch hour) from the time I paid till the time my coaster pager started buzzing.

The Yuzu rice bowl was a good ratio of salmon to rice. It came with two good-sized chunks of grilled salmon skewers that are fatty enough they almost melt in your mouth, some grilled zucchinis and fragrant rice to balance out the richness of the salmon. It could do with just a tad bit more of yuzu sauce, or I could've just mixed it in better so the rice on the bottom wouldn't feel left out.