When I'm asked to recommend brunch places, there are two places that instinctively come to mind, namely Symmetry and, more recently, Hummerstons.

It was because of Hummerstons that I was introduced to the concept of poutine. Originating from Quebec in Canada, a traditional dish of poutine is made by pouring warm meat gravy onto a mound of fries topped with cheese curds. Because it's impossible to get cheese curds in Singapore for some reason, Hummerstons states on their menu that quesillo oaxaca, a type of semi-soft white Mexican string cheese, is used as a substitute. Doesn't matter to me since I've never tasted the real thing. Count me in for anything au fromage.

The fries used in Hummerstons' poutine have their skins on, just the type I prefer. Sadly, however, for some reason the dish is never served piping hot, like all fries ought to be. The gravy's hot and flavorful all right, but there's a conspicuous lack of it. They could definitely be more generous with the quesillo oaxaca as well. The Italian Job fared slightly worse than The Hangover - the beef and mushroom ragout taste like substandard bolognese sauce and just doesn't gel with the fries and gravy. The Hangover's saving grace is that the runny yolk of the poached egg increases the volume and viscosity of the gravy.

I order the poutine repeatedly because the different groups of people I've visited Hummerstons with are just so excited by the idea of cheese, meat and fries. It does look like an infallible concept. Unfortunately I've never been impressed.

Thankfully, Hummerstons does brunch really well.

Their desserts used to be outstanding as well, but have since been replaced with an unimaginative selection of cakes - "Chocolate Fudge Cake, Red Velvet Cake, Carrot Cake". I wish they would bring their fun desserts back.

Though the food at Hummerstons can hardly be regarded as uniformly excellent, they do have some very good brunch dishes. I love the ambiance and its location in a quiet corner of Robertson Walk as well. It's a perfect stop to do some filling up before spending a lazy afternoon lounging at one of the picturesque cafes in the area. I suppose that's why I've developed a fondness for the place, and why I keep returning in spite of the steep prices.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/hummerstons/

I’m pretty sure those addicted to the concept of hipster brunches are well acquainted with the snaking lines found at cafes around Singapore on weekend mornings. No one enjoys having to wait to be seated, especially in a climate as grossly humid as ours.

Which is why a surprise find like Kith presented an attractive option for weekend brunch. I’m not sure what the crowds are like at its Robertson Quay and Sentosa Cove outlets, but the outlet at the low-key Park Mall was only half-filled on the morning of a public holiday, despite it being sited in the heart of town.

Big Breakfast, $15.50 - Any enterprising eatery would offer greedy and fickle consumers the option of ordering a sample platter. For the morning menu that would be the Big Breakfast option. Comprising toasted brioche, smoked bratwurst sausages, sauteed shitake mushrooms, bacon, and 2 eggs (you get to choose if you want them poached, sunny side up, scrambled or overeasy), this looked much better on paper than it did in real life.

The brioche was pleasantly buttery, and came apart easily when you tore into it. I thought it was the best part of the meal, since the scrambled eggs were uninspiring and the bacon was limp and insipid. This pig-lover gave the bacon away, which speaks volumes about its edibility. The mushrooms and sausage tasted good, though in that guilt-inducing way that eating anything oily triggers.

Corn Frittata, $14.00 - The Corn Frittata was served with your run-of-the-mill dry toast, the same tasteless bacon that came with the Big Breakfast, and dices of tomato and avocado. The frittata had kernels of sweet corn embedded throughout, and tasted fine. However it didn’t possess the cake-like appearance typical of frittatas, and resembled and tasted more like an omelette. Would much rather have the Teochew-style omelettes stuffed with crispy silverfish or prawns.

I’d actually visited the same cafe a few weeks earlier for dinner, and I thought they fared better in that department.

Bacon Sandwich, $12.00 - Strangely, the bacon served in their sandwich was a lot more palatable than the one served in their breakfast sets. This open faced sandwich came with caramelized bacon, 2 poached eggs, a heap of sliced avocado, a drizzle of Japanese mayonnaise, and a mix of tapioca and nacho chips at the side. I thought this sandwich was delicious. The piquancy of the Japanese mayo added a much needed tartness to what would otherwise have been an overwhelmingly creamy dish. For its relatively low price point (we’re talking cafe food of course), the serving was generous as well.

It’s been some time since I last visited Kith, and with cafes sprouting left right and center I haven’t found any compelling reason to return. I’ll save this place for days when I decide I hate crowds and people (sometimes them cat-lady instincts can’t be fought) and desperately need a cafe in which some chillin’ can actually be accomplished. That be rare in this overcrowded space, yall.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/kith/

Headed down to this bustling zi char place one Sunday evening. Located in a quiet neighborhood deep in the heart of Toa Payoh, this place was quite a pain in the ass to find. We cheated and took a cab from Toa Payoh interchange.

When one visits a place for the sole purpose of eating, obviously one would come with a clear idea of what to eat. I’d done my research and bossed everyone (sorry friends) into ordering what I wanted to try.

Beancurd with Chai Po (家乡自制豆腐), $10 for medium sized serving - Excessive toppings delight me. There is a poetic beauty in the sight of chai po tumbling down the sides of a fried tofu cuboid. I hope you like my use of imagery. But seriously, if I were a chef trying to create visually appealing dishes, I would never scrimp on toppings. Better to err on the side of excess

The tofu was smooth and silky and was encased in an eggy brown skin imbued with the goodness of wok hei. Consumed fresh out of the wok alongside heaping spoonfuls of chai po, this dish disappeared just as quickly as it appeared on the table. Sometimes it’s the homely dishes which taste the most satisfying.

Honeydew Prawns with Thousand Island Dressing (千岛蜜瓜虾球), $18 for a small serving - This dish features in every online review there is of this eatery. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? Or maybe I’m just a little too obsessed with the idea of eating out of carved fruits. It was therefore quite disappointing when this dish turned out to look better than it tasted. I had to eat the melon balls in order to taste any hint of melon in this dish. Quite a pity, since the prawn balls, constructed of minced prawn and coated in crunchy batter, were excellent after I wiped the cloyingly sweet sauce off on my rice.

Strawberry Chicken (草莓酥鸡), $10 for a small portion - This one, on the other hand, tasted exactly like how it looked: Weird. Imagine eating a crispy chicken cutlet coated with strawberry-flavored, watered-down condensed milk. Alternatively, go buy yourself a chicken cutlet and alternate each mouthful of chicken with a strawberry Hello Panda. You’ll be able to replicate this dish in your own kitchen (or bedroom, if your snack stash is hidden there like mine is).

Like the prawn balls in the previous dish, the chicken cutlet here was by itself quite outstanding. The batter was crispy and the chicken, succulent. I looked longingly over at another table tucking happily into the same cutlet doused in lemon sauce. Couldn’t help but wish I’d ordered the right fruit.

Salted Egg Crab (Wet) (咸蛋炸螃蟹), $34/kg for male crabs & $38/kg for female crabs - Isn’t it cute how this place discriminates against crab genders? I’m cool with it, since you’re paying $4/kg more for the assurance of (1) roe; and (2) a fleshier crab. The aunty taking our orders gave us the option of ordering the dry version or wet version of this dish. We decided to be adventurous and order the wet version, ‘cuz we’re daredevils who order STRAWBERRY CHICKEN. #YOLO

Apart from the fact that this dish took forever to arrive (and the poor aunty looked increasingly harassed as we kept telling her to check on our order), the crab was amazing. Not the best salted egg crab I’ve had, but a great version nonetheless. The flesh of the crab was sweet, which, coupled with the rich and creamy salted egg sauce, made for an amazeballs dish. It was enough to placate us for the long wait.

We then proceeded to order mantou (little deep fried buns) to mop up the gravy. That’s the hallmark of good gravy okay.

Overall, there were hits and misses. Given that the misses were due not to a failure in execution but to… experimentation, I’m more than happy to return to Yi Jia South Village Seafood. Prices here are also extremely value-for-money. Next time though, I’ll stick with the tried and tested.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/yi-jia-south-village-seafood-restaurant/

So I did a bit of research on HGW and realised this place was located in one of the seedier Lorongs in Geylang, plus there’s an urban legend that this is a hot spot for gang fights. How exciting right? Thing is, you don’t actually understand how dodgy the locale is until it hits home that you’re spending New Year’s Day surrounded by many shady-looking uncles looking for a hearty bite before, I dunno, making a shady deal – the ratio of males to females is around the region of 99:1, I kid you not. But shadiness aside, uncle crowds tend to be highly accurate indicators of the presence of excellent food.

Snake beans with lotus root (蛇豆炒莲藕) ($10 for a small portion) - This was a dish I would never have ordered had it not come highly recommended on HGW – snake beans are not my favorite veggies. Yet I was glad I had heeded the advice of the reviewers, because the lotus root chips were excellent. They were sliced into thin flakes and coated with a small amount of batter, then fried to the point where they were crispy but still retained their mild, natural sweetness. I would totally buy a packet of these to snack on at home.

Deep fried fish skin (香炸鱼皮) ($10 for a small portion) - Another dish I was reluctant to order, this time because it sounded gross. Terribly unadventurous, I know. S persuaded me to order it as an appetizer whilst we were waiting for B and L to arrive. I ended up polishing off half the dish because these babies tasted nothing like the gloopiness and slime that I’d imagined fish skin to be. They were crisp (and stayed that way 2 hours after they were served), not too greasy and had the fragrance of fish keropok. Paired with the raw mango slices and dipped into the accompanying chilli sauce, each was a crunchy and tangy slice of heaven.

King pork ribs (排骨大王) ($10 for a small portion) - Went off the tried and tested route to order the pork ribs because it sounded delish. We were on the fence for this one: S and L thought it was average – S said you could find this at any zhap chai bng stall and L was nitpicky about how the meat wasn’t fall-off-the-bone tender. On the other hand, B and I liked it because… I guess we just like to eat pigs lor. The sauce was defo a bit too sweet for my liking though. It’s still an above average dish la, just looked a bit lacklustre beside the rest of its outstanding peers.

White pepper crabs (白胡椒螃蟹) (market rate; aunty charged us $32 for 2 crabs that day) - Friends, I have no idea what breed these crabs are, but they’re damn meaty. I was picking out meat from every nook and cranny of the crab’s body and the flesh was sweet and firm. I don’t know if we simply got lucky, but something tells me these folks have a stringent criteria for selecting the crabs to use in their dishes. Crab aside, the creamy white pepper sauce was outstanding. It packed a punch without being too spicy – my nose runs whenever I eat something too spicy for me, and my nose remained where it was throughout the course of this dish.

JB sanlou meehoon (新山三楼米粉) ($8 for the medium portion) - You know how there’s a genre of rom-coms where there’s a super handsome dude who pretends to be a servant/low-level salaried employee/beggar but is actually the heir to a multi-million dollar conglomerate? This, ladies and gents, is the food equivalent of that dude. The nondescript appearance of this plain-looking beehoon belies the fragrance and flavor that it packs. I still think they could be more generous with the squid, eggs and prawns, but the conspicuous absence of these ingredients might actually highlight the taste of the beehoon. The minute it touches your tongue, a flavor burst of unadulterated wok hei explodes in your mouth. I’m quite sure this is the best beehoon I’ve tasted.

Salted egg prawn balls (咸蛋黄炒虾球) ($18 for a small portion) - The last dish to be served was also the undisputed star dish of the night. This dish has received a number of mixed reviews – apparently it’s lauded by Makansutra and ieat but panned by a number of other bloggers. For us, it was a hit. All four of us did that eye-widening thing the minute we bit into one of them juicy prawns… who doesn’t love the lethal combination of salted egg + crustacean? The little balls of fried salted egg bits that crowded the bottom of the dish pan tasted sooo good we kept shovelling them into our mouths. Only gripe I have is that the batter could be crispier, although admittedly that could require more flour which would affect the taste of the batter. Also the name prawn ball is a bit misleading – the prawns are not minced, they’re whole. And so damn good.

I actually thought the tense atmosphere (our sole guy friend, B was constantly shifty and looking nervously behind him throughout the meal, then became the poster boy for bravado when we dashed back into the safety of S’ van) enhanced the entire experience. It’s one of the most memorable meals I’ve ever had. If you’re looking for some excitement in SG, I suggest you head to Geylang Lorong 23 on a weekend night. Just remember to bring some pepper spray (or a bodybuilder friend) along.

For complete review and pictures, please visit: http://theyummyyak.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/jb-ah-meng-%E6%96%B0%E5%B1%B1%E4%BA%9A%E6%98%8E%E5%B0%8F%E5%8E%A8/