Have been wanting to check out this new pao fan place and coincidentally stumbled upon it when walking into a random coffee shop for lunch! (Its directly opposite Bugis+.)
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Pao fan is literally rice that’s soaking in soup. I got the mixed fish one (with steamed fish and fried fish) and the seafood one (which had fish, prawns, and clams. They gave quite a bit of seafood, and it wasn’t overcooked at all. (Rare, imo. You could actually taste the clams and the prawns weren’t mush.) The steamed fish in particular was enjoyable because it’s not over-brined and soft bc it’s coated in corn starch, unlike how some other fish soup places are. The soup was tasty - kind of like an enhanced fish soup but with a slightly sweet prawny flavour, evident from the red tinge of prawn oil. It’s extremely drinkable because it isn’t too salty. The rice inside it a mixture of normal rice and some crispy rice bits for pops of texture, and they also put fried egg inside which absorbs the soup perfectly. My only gripe is that the soup was too hot when we started eating it and I could only properly taste the flavours better after it cooled a bit, so I guess just let it cool for a bit.
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Definitely worth a try! Pao fan isn’t common but really I feel like it’s just the rice version of fish soup. It’s a comforting meal for sure, and would be perfect on a rainy day.

Thick meaty sandwiches get lots of love but this Mackie Melts does not fall short at all. It reminds me of a more indulgent lunch-time version of the tuna mayo sandwiches my mum makes for breakfast, which I love.
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The crisp buttery toast is stuffed with their smoked mackerel mix and sweet onion marmalade, and lined with smoked American cheese. (It also comes with jalapeños normally but I requested for it without them.)
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The smoked mackerel mix is such a joy! I really love the balance of flavours. The mackerel is delightfully oily (think grilled saba…), but it’s balanced out with small bits of pickles. The mackerel mix is also slightly cold, which makes the sandwich taste almost refreshing.
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Was initially very sceptical about choosing this over their other options but have absolutely no regrets now!!!! My only complaints are that it’s kinda small and the name mackie melts is kinda misleading because it made me think of a cheesy warm sandwich but the cheese isn’t really that melted and the mackerel is cold. But otherwise I love the sandwich as it is. I’m going back for this again.

I liked the sesame mochi bread the least even though it’s pretty popular on instagram. I was expecting it to be a thick, rich sesame paste, similar to tangyuan filling but in solid form. Unfortunately, the sesame paste tasted very buttery, which took away from the earthiness of the sesame. I can see the appeal, but I personally didn’t like it. Wish it had a stronger and richer pure sesame taste.

The peanut mochi bread was delicious too. It has a chunky peanut paste inside, with whole peanuts for texture, and is slightly salty, which I like! It is slightly drying to the throat as you can imagine, but the mochi helps here to tone down the richer flavours like the sesame and peanut.

The highlight of Muyoo’s bread is the texture of their breads for sure. It has a chewiness that makes it taste like Japanese breads with tang zhong in them, and I love it!
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I liked the choco banana mochi bread the most. It isn’t too sweet and has some banana purée inside. The mochi is the typical soft type that they put into breads that remain chewy at room temp. It’s not too sweet and also fun to eat, I guess.

Overall, I wish they did the choco banana one with more banana purée and no mochi! That would be delicious.

I love these noodles. The fried chicken cutlet is freshly fried on the spot because they’re so popular and the queue is very long, so it’s piping hot when you eat it. I think the highlight of this dish is the curry though. I love it! It’s not very spicy, and extremely fragrant because of the coconut milk and other spices. It also clings onto the noodles perfectly. Don’t sleep on their 水饺 (dumplings) either!! Add it onto your meal!!!! It’s completely stuffed with prawns and there’s even water chestnut inside. Delicious!

Carne had great marketing when I opened but my friend and I thought that the burger did not meet our expectations. Funnily enough, my favourite thing I tried there was their only dessert - the orange and chocolate sacher torte.
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The orange and chocolate sacher torte had a great balance of flavours and very appealing textures! And I am a sucker for orange chocolate. It consists of single origin chocolate sachet torte, candied orange peel, toasted almonds, and artisanal orange gelato.
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The gelato tastes light, yogurty, and doesn’t have a very concentrated orange flavour, and has has the consistency of a soft creamy sorbet. It sits in some sort of orangy custard that tastes a bit stronger than the gelato. It pairs well with the crunchy, fragrant toasted almonds and candied orange peels which surprisingly weren’t that intrusive. There were also orange slices inside too, but they didn’t add that much to the flavour.
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The cubes of sacher torte were a bit more controversial. It's supposed to be a Viennese chocolate cake that is dry with a mild and light chocolate flavour, that’s served with some cream to mitigate the dryness. I don’t think I’ve tried it before, so I can’t profess whether it’s authentic or not. But this one had a cakey, floury texture, that tastes like the texture of a vegan bean brownie that’s somewhat fudgy, but overbearingly (a very specific texture, but can’t think of much else). My friend disliked the texture, but I thought it worked well with the other wet components.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Overall, it’s one of the more enjoyable desserts that I’ve had recently. But not sure if I’d come back just for this dessert and fries with their ketchup.

I enjoyed the menchikatsu sando! It’s basically a soft fluffy potato croquette with specks of minced beef inside. And the standard sandwich topping of shredded lettuce and egg Mayo.
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Overall my main gripe (apart from the price and size) is that the sando toppings are all pretty similar and so despite ordering 4 sandos, it tasted all somewhat homogenous. The sandwiches are all pleasant and I don’t dislike them, but I don’t think they warrant all the praises they’ve gotten. That said, I still want to dine in at Esora!

The tamago sando is not bad. It isn’t really anything life changing. There’s fluffy panko-crusted tamagoyaki and the same shredded lettuce egg mayo combi like in every sando. Delicious but not really a must try.

The gyukatsu sando was quite disappointing. Same ingredients as the tonkatsu, but didn’t feel like a thoughtful pairing. The shiso was too overpowering with the beef, and the beef was kind of tough. I’m not really willing to pay for the $88 omi wagyu to taste the difference either. Wish they had done another flavour for the beef!

I tried Esora’s sandwiches during the last dine-in ban because of the billions of reviews about how good they are. My verdict is that while they were decently yummy, they weren’t very extraordinary, particularly when you factor in the price and the size of the sandwich. Not really sure why people rave about it so strongly. It’s a taste of luxury from Esora for sure, but other than that, I can’t see why it’s so appealing. (I’m sure dining in is a whole other experience though, and I do want to try it.)
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That said, my favourite was the tonkatsu. I thought that the floral taste of shiso paired the best with it and the shredded cabbage made me feel like I was eating tonkatsu w rice. The punchy mustard also toned down the flavour of the pork.

Was looking forward to trying Cafe Kuriko after seeing it at Funan, especially after seeing their special mont blanc machine that looks similar to the ones on Japanese cafe instagrams. But this was quite disappointing.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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A good mont blanc means that every component is thoughtfully made… and this was not it. The waguri (chestnut paste strands were earthy and not too sweet, but was a bit too dry and didn’t have enough cream inside, which resulted in the strands breaking up in quite an ugly manner once it reached our table. We had to turn it around to get its best angle, but I was a bit aghast at how it was presented. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the mont blanc and the cream to chestnut paste ratio was off as there wasn’t enough cream. The cream that was there wasn’t exactly light and fluffy either. The overall mouthfeel was just dry instead of it tasting luxurious. The chocolate cake at the base was dry too.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Sadly a flop! It’s okay if you haven’t eaten a good mont blanc before and want to try it casually, but otherwise, I probably wouldn’t go for this.