Burgers and Milkshakes

August 28, 2019, 25 degrees Burger joint, 200 Middle Road, Singapore

Today marks the first day of leaving full time work. What beholds in the future, I have no clue. I may do part time work or go back to full time work – that’s a possibility. At this point in time, I am quite mentally tired and am looking forward to a long break.

Back to my food blogging. Started thinking about lunch around 11am. Only had a nutty bar after a 7km run this morning. So was feeling peckish. I left it too late in the day to wander to popular lunchtime places as I could not face the office lunchtime crowds, not when I am not working. I started googling places for best burgers and most of the recommended locations were tad too far except this 25 Degrees Burger place. Middle Road is only a number 48 bus ride from my place, so relatively convenient. The reviews were quite good, so here I am.

It is located on the ground floor of Hotel G, with great street frontage. The single bar seats face the Middle Road Bencoolen St junction, so great for people watching.

The burgers are given numbers rather than names, no 1, no 2 etc.

They had a lunchtime burger set for $12 which comes with their signature burger and French fries. I asked if I could swap the fries for coleslaw but was told that I can’t. The fries was priced the same as the coleslaw so I am not sure why they could not swap for me. I suspect that because it is a lunch set, the portion of the French fries is smaller than the standard size and the kitchen probably could not do an equivalent smaller portion of the coleslaw. Just another example of no initiative, pure laziness or just sheer ambivalence.

Back to the burger- I ordered Burger no3 which has jalapeño- wanted something with a bite. When they brought the burger out, the chargrilled smell of the patty was divine. They really did a great job there. The patty was cooked medium rare and quite flavour some and juicy. They use brioche buns which I found it too soft for my liking.

I also ordered milkshake, wish they have cream soda.

Overall it was a decent meal. The standard size burger was not too huge, so I did not feel bloated full.

Looking at their menu, they have decent breakfast brunch offerings. So could be a place to come for weekend brunch.

Burger no 5 is buttermilk fried chicken burger- something to try next time.

They also have cheesy mac which looked wicked.

Need to plan my meals and not over indulge now that I am not working.

Kub Kao Kub Pla – rising Thai restaurant chain in Bangkok

I was in Bangkok on the weekend. It has been nearly 12 months since I spent few days vacation in Bangkok, a city where I spent four years working and living from 2010 to 2015. It was good time to catch up with friends and to try new places.

Friend mentioned this new Thai cuisine restaurant chain that has become quite popular, with branches in most of the key shopping malls in Bangkok including the newly opened Icon Siam. I walked past the Icon Siam branch on Sunday lunchtime and there was a queue waiting to get in.

So today I decided to head to the branch at Emquartier for early lunch to avoid the lunchtime crowd. It says on the website that their restaurants open at 10am, so 11am would be just ideal.

The menu is quite extensive with mainly Thai food but it also have pasta dishes done in Thai fusion.

So many choices but a solo diner can only try two dishes – I can’t let food go to waste so mere sampling of dishes would not do for me. It is also sacrilegious to let food go to waste when hunger abounds.

After harrumphing for 10 minutes I finally settled for pomelo salad with crispy prawns ( have had somtum at Somtum Der the past couple of days) and beef green curry with small bowl of rice berry rice.

The pomelo salad serving was very generous with large chunks of pomelo. The crispy prawns was crunchy. The sauce that came with the salad was not your typical Thai fish sauce with lime and chili. Rather it was caramelised sweetness to it with bit of heat. It initially tasted good but after a few spoonful, it was just too sweet and thick. I have to reached out to the pomelo to use the freshness to cut down on the sweetness.

The beef green curry appeared halfway through me getting through the sweetness of he pomelo salad.

When I first arrived in Bangkok some 8 years ago and ordered my first green curry, I was taken by surprise how watery the green curry was. In Australia, the green curry like the rest of the yellow curry, red curry and panang curry were thick and sweet. The thought was that the sweetness was to cater to the Australian taste – helps to cut down the heat.

At Kub Kao Kub Pla, the green curry was thick and dense and very sweet. The beef was tender and generous portions. The green eggplants were nice and plump. But alas, the sweetness was too overwhelming for me.

Given my limited sampling, I must say that the ingredients used by the restaurant are good quality and they are very generous with the portions. But they need to cut back slightly on the sweetness of their dishes to make it less overpowering and more enjoyable. I always equate Thai food with light tangy taste especially the salads which open up one’s appetite but unfortunately the salad I had today did the opposite.

The prices are quite reasonable given the generous portions. Two dishes with small bowl of rice and coconut smoothie cane to less than THB800 or SG32.