Curry Prawn Risotto from The Wicked Garlic. The six prawns had the girth of the ridiculously muscled men that sashay out of the yoga studio/rock climbing wall room next to Brawn & Brains, whilst the risotto and its spicy Indian mystique remind you (in a most fond and complimentary way)…
Claypot coconut tom yum soup from Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe. Wildly different from its more sadistic Red Tom Yum Soup sibling on the menu. The tom yum soup was robustly spicy yet at the same time sweet and not too milky, and I enjoyed the uncommon inclusion of coconut slices, which…
Tom Yum Seafood Pasta from Rise & Grind Coffee Co. – squid, fish, shrimp, creamy tom yum sauce, nori. I have had overrated interpretations of this dish elsewhere which left me cold, but here my breath (and all sensation in the lips) were taken away rapidly. The creamy tom yum…
Stir-fried squid with chillies, green peppercorns and basil at Long Chim. The sauce was thick, salty, and sharply spicy – the kind of life partner every rice grain dreams of meeting, someday. The marquee name almost feels like a supporting actor here but is itself commendable for its crunchiness, although…
Chiang Mai chicken relish with cabbage, chilli and mint. Delectably fatty and salty, and wickedly spicy of the slow-burn, mouth-numbing variety. Remarkably humble a dish (and humbly-priced at $10), yet it spectacularly kickstarts a meal on a supernova explosive note. 4.3/5 P.S. One needs to be faithful to the concept…
Aglio olio with prawns, mushrooms and squid from The Wicked Garlic. These are my comments from my virgin experience a year ago: “Amazingly wok hei prawns, and wickedly value for money. It’s the PSLE top student of aglio olios seriously, why it doesn’t have its own Brands Essence of Chicken…
Steamed seabass with lime and chilli. The indignant-looking seabass soaked in a homemade broth made using fresh lime juice, garlic, chilli, and spring onions among others. The broth was sharply tangy, enormously flavourful and easily the spiciest thing I had that night – two sips in, I was frankly dumbfounded…
Spicy chicken nanban. A Singapore-exclusive item, and essentially the concept of “dish localization” executed to perfection. The spiciness doesn’t just dwell in the sauce – it looks all creamy and harmless but oh, boy – but also in the chicken’s marinate. Thus, it’s spicy inside out yet restrained enough that…
Red Tom Yum Soup. Like Willy Wonka’s Three Course Dinner Chewing Gum, this soup morphs from form to form while it swishes in your mouth, all within seconds – it starts off as piquant tomato bisque, then becomes classic spicy tom yum soup, but in the final few seconds it…