I was flipping through the menu, wondering which of the usuals I should be settling on when something on the last page of the menu caught my eye.

Teriyaki sliced pork with poached egg on rice in hot stone served with miso soup and a small side salad for under $14.

Let's try it shall we?What a happy pop of colors from the cherry tomatoes, carrots and egg. And a generous serving of teriyaki sliced pork of course.

The side salad was sad though. random veggies with a dollop of mayonnaise. Hmm. Wafu dressing would've been much appreciated.

Be sure to stir the rice from time to time before it becomes burnt rice. Unless, of course you like it like that.

In a word? Flavourful. I didn't need to add any condiments to this in order to finish this bowl of yum.

That's a state of emergency and must be dealt with pronto. So for a quick fix, i headed to ichiban on a weeknight and made an order for their salmon sashimi don.This must be one of the few times where the actual order looked better than the picture in the menu.

Fresh slabs of salmon sashimi decorated my bowl of Japanese rice.
The slices of raw salmon were thick and those lines of fat just simply melted in your mouth. Take a small pinch of wasabi and a dab of shoyu with each piece of meat. It would have looked prettier, except that I ordered it without the chilli padi.

Kudos to ichiban for keeping costs down while not compromising on food quality.

While the market continues to rock on their colorful xlbs. We joined in that madness and ordered steamers after steamers of xlbs. Crab, meat, garlic, truffles. Like that. Just a whole table of xlbs and saucers of ginger slices and vinegar.

Dinner was served and devoured with pleasure. The garlic ones were the least well received and the crab roe ones were the first to go. Crab roe xiao long bao was bursting with flavours of the sea and its pretty yellow color from the roe made it a delight to eat.

The grey garlic ones weren't the most attractive colour and the taste of garlic left a foul smell in one's mouth that basically caused anyone to think twice before taking a second helping.

Simple original meat xlb takes the cake. I loved the basic meat ones that go for $9.80 for a basket of 10. Full of juice and perfect zing from the vinegar. Yum.

It was a toss up between medz and this.

As a no brainer. I voted for ramen. And so did the rest. Why we voted in the first place?

I had the basic chashu ramen. It was satisfyingly salty. And the pickled spicy beansprouts a perfect accompaniment to my otherwise boring broth.

While I love my ramen and its texture, the soup is always just a tad too salty... only on hindsight.

I'd rather much head to the other outlets with hardboiled eggs to take the edge off the salt.

It was a swelteringly hot day and our cars were parked over at Stadium Link.

We decided to take a break from the usual food courts and head over to prawn noodles at the start of Geylang Road.

The walk under the mad oppressive heat of the sun seemed like a terrible decision.

And adding fuel to the fire?

There was no more ngoh hiang left.

Well then, leaves me no choice but to get my bowl of prawn and pork rib noodle soup. A beehoon mee combination doused in much too little broth, a few pieces of short ribs and two prawns split lengthwise.

Five buckaroos.

Worth my sweat? The company definitely was.

Just a tip though. Stay away from the air conditioning vents.

Those are just HEAT radiators.