If you grew up in Hongkong or Malaysia in the 90's, chances are that you would have enjoyed many after-school trips to Hong Kong Kim Gary with your friends. The food is unabashedly B-rate, a bastardised hodgepodge of the east and west flavours. Compound that with value-for-money sets that helped stretch a limited allowance, Kim Gary was a teenager's paradise. One thing I hated though, was how disorganized and repetitive the 7 different menus here were; it drove me crazy.

The Seven Treasure Cheese Baked Curry ($12.50) was laden with pork chop, squid rings, ham, chicken wing, sausage, egg, and potatoes; great for hungry hippos.The Cheese Baked Rice with Pork Chop ($13.90) with red sauce was decent; moist and sumptuous.The Cheese Baked Rice with Pork Chop ($13.90) with white sauce got a little cloying and heavy halfway through, although a girlfriend, who loves her cream, lapped this all up. I much prefer the red sauce, an instant bottled spaghetti-like sauce, the Cheese Baked Rice with Chicken Chop ($13.90) and the chicken was better done than the pork. More juicy.All the sets comprise a choice of Borsch or Sweet Corn Cream Soup. I say to get the minestrone-like borsch over the sweet corn cream, which was marginally better than a can of campbells.Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant

1 Harbourfront Walk

Vivocity #02-128

Tel: 6376 8183

Open daily from 10am to 10pm

Having dined at 4 of their branches (Keisuke Tori King, Keisuke Tonkotsu King Four Seasons, Keisuke Tokyo, and Gyoza King), we thought it high time to hit up the mothership where it all started.

The Black Spicy Tonkotsu King ($11.80) with Flavoured Egg ($2) was so thick the broth was practically viscous. I couldn't finish this, it was terribly cloying. I should have ticked the 'light' option for the soup base, this needed to be watered down to half its viscosity. The Red Spicy Tonkotsu King ($11.80) with the option of Special Topping ($4) comprising a flavoured egg, seaweed, and stewed pork, was just as stodgy. In contrast, the pork needed more flavour and stewing time.The best part of the meal: the marinated beansprouts that were totally refreshing, addicting and delicious.

The casual Vietnamese diner passes muster, but barely, and their price points are probably a huge factor in their staying power.

A word to the wise: bring lots of deodorant; Pho Hoa's poorly ventilated so fully expect to walk out reeking of the day-old frying oil and a mish-mash of bone stock.

The Cha Gio ($6) was decent flavour-wise, but seemed more like the usual Chinese spring rolls than a Vietnamese rice-paper wrap. The Bun Ga Nuong ($13.95), a massive bowl of fresh vegetables and grilled chicken, sauced up with a salty dip, made for quite the refreshing salad. The Pho Tai Bo Vien ($12.95), a hefty stock that was laden with MSG, was topped with juicy striploin and meatballs. The Pho Ga ($11.95), a clear chicken-based noodle soup, was lighter than I'd expected, but still reeked of artificial MSG.

The classic Catalan cuisine was pretty great, if a little stodgy. There were a couple of memorable hits, but many were tame, as traditional fare is wont to be. That said, for a bill that just hit the $100 mark for 6 dishes, La Ventana could possibly be the cheapest Michelin-related restaurant ever.

The Chicken Wing Confit ($14), conveniently boneless, was a lovely showpiece of slow-cooked succulence, blanketed in a lightly spiced jus. Nice, but a little forgettable. Ditto for the Surf & Turf ($18), juicy fat beef meatballs and baby calamari dunked in a well-rounded tomato-based sauce. It was a particularly thoughtful gesture to split them up into 2 portions for us. Ah, the highlight of dinner was the humble Croquetas ($14), breaded tubes of mashed potato and cream and shredded roasted chicken, deep-fried to a beautiful golden. This was insanely good...I'm still dreaming about these babies. A look inside each croqueta, this was more meat than potato or cream, making it a lot more substantive and savoury than most other renditions. Another surprise was the Miniature Tortillas ($12), a perfect circle of a Spanish-style omelette flecked with potatoes and onions. This may have appeared drab, but turned out simplicity at its finest, delicious and wonderfully nuanced. The Cod Bunuelos ($18) fritters of mashed Atlantic cod were so well done I hardly noticed the parsley specks weaved into it. Here, I actually thought the parsley balanced out the fattiness of the cod, rather than detracted from it. The Fiduea ($32), a Catalan-style noodle paella simmered in a rich seafood stock and aioli, was a little contentious. I thought the umami exuberance wasn't as hateful as the Hubs felt, even if it was a smidge oily and overwhelming with the taste of octopus.

Tanjong Pagar Road may be known as Little Korea for its multitude of Korean eateries, but there's the occasional oddball that bucks the pattern. Pho Stop, a sensible little outfit sandwiched between 2 Korean barbecue eateries, churns out notable Vietnamese cuisine for those not keen on bulgogi or kimchi. Which was exactly what we were thankful for when we found ourselves stuck in the area without a brolly in the middle of a thunderstorm.

We'd thought a steaming hot bowl of soupy noodles would hit the comfort button in rainy weather, so we walked in even though Pho Stop's clean, modern aesthetic didn't quite inspire confidence for authenticity. Turned out the food was great. Not as great as Long Phung, the undisputed best Vietnamese restaurant in sg imho, but great for its centralised location, less brusque service, less shabby ambience and wallet-friendly price points.

The Cha Gio ($5.50) a cornucopia of minced root vegetables and pork mince, was a lot more meaty than I'd expected. Most Vietnamese spring rolls are 80% vegetables 20% meat, but this was the other way round. Perfectly decent but I prefer Long Phung's more authentic, vegetable-heavy version. The Pho Ga ($8.50), Hanoi-styled chicken noodles, was flush with shredded chicken, and while the broth was delicate, it was flavourful.The Pho Bo Tai Va Bo Vien ($9), a sumptuous beef noodles with fatty slices of beef and juicy beef balls, and an additional order of Poached Egg ($1), was full-bodied without being cloyingly saccharine. Pho Stop

72 Tanjong Pagar Road

Tel: 6534 8178

Open Mondays & Tuesdays from 11.30am to 10pm;

Wednesdays & Thursdays from 11.30am to 12midnight;

Fridays & Saturdays from 11.30am to 2am;

Closed on Sundays

http://www.phostop.sg/