Hawkers

New Viet stall opened by the Thai stall. Wtf. Anyway this is a special item. Their usual dry noodles come with fried meat, but they had run out of it. After some to and fro that I thought settled on beef pho, out came this. It's a fulfilling bowl. The noodles were quite authentic, the raw greens weren't too scary, the meats were lovely and I love Viet fried spring roll. Nice soup too.

Okay their Japanese is better than their pao fan. It's not the best and there's something inauthentic about it but it's enjoyable at least.

They use large and gooey pieces of carrot cake. I would give this a failing score. And stallholder so attitude for what?

With sunny side up. I wanted this to be good but a bad patty arrived. It was so sinewy I had to spit out something every bite. Can I say more? The truffle cream and sauteed mushrooms were fine.

I was initially excited they finally added a pasta menu, because, you know, chef's from Cicheti. But the result was mixed hmm. Whatever the intention was, and despite me being a lard fanatic, this didn't work. Taken together the bacon, lard and spaghetti were confusing. But I award some credit for the authenticity of carbonara, minimal with just a sous vide egg.

That's literally the name. It's pork chop. So why review it? It's superb and a signature here. It's available to add onto most mains. Imagine tonkatsu. It's like a budget version.

My first impression was this is very expensive for not a lot. The plate is big but the rice is half a bowl with a lot of empty space. After trying the chicken, I think the price is arguable. It's flawless lah. The marinade and the frying were restaurant level. Individually, the components were impressive too. The blue pea rice was fragrant, the chilli was obviously homemade, the peanuts seemed like they were roasted again and the cucumber wasn't the cheap variety.

I settled on this because it's so reliable elsewhere. But there's something off here. The egg was substandard, just a typical flat omelette slapped on the rice. The curry was also much less than other joints, leaving me not enough for the rice, which is a sin for Japanese curry. Fish was fine. This is machiam a pirated Washoku Goen.

I keep foolishly giving this Korean-Japanese stall chances. After the disappointing kimchi fried rice, you'd think no one gets Japanese curry wrong, since it's instant powder. This was possibly the worst paid Japanese curry I've eaten. It wasn't only bland, it had an incorrect flavour profile that frustrated me. No complaints about the shrimps, they checked all the boxes.

I had said their Hakka mee kia was lovely, so I came back to try just their Hakka mee kia. I wasn't disappointed. Simple seasoning and the noodles took care of the rest. Add even more simplicity in the form of lard, minced meat, tau gey, fried shallot. The portion was also huge.

I wanted it to be good, because I like such stalls. Unfortunately it was just one dimension - salty. There was some effort with variety of ingredients, even yam, but serving quite little.

I wanted it to be good, because I like such stalls. Unfortunately it was just one dimension - salty.