D'RIM at Mandarin Gallery

It's very hard to eat at DRIM and not have indigestion or food coma. We popped in for lunch at Mandarin Gallery and left so stuffed. It's probably the only place that I actually like the idea of Korean BBQ. Many Korean restaurants in Singapore are honestly... pedestrian and lacking. DRIM's got way better standards. Its stews and noodles are pretty much what we can get only in Seoul in terms of stock and richness of broth. 

If you like samgyetang, here’s what I suggest, eat here at DRIM rather than queue at the other popular restaurant under the restaurant group, Modu. (Song Gye Ok is also under the same group.) Pro-tip — ask for the menu for Modu's chicken ginseng soup and you don't have to stand in a long line for it. I don't/can't take ginseng, so it's not for me. But for people who love it, this is a convenient option. 

I was at DRIM for their signature noodles done chilled and dry with perilla oil, and a bit of beef. Those noodles were quite delicious, but I wished they used a better grade of cold-pressed/single-press-extracted, and untoasted perilla oil.

I just want regular beef, but the cut wasn't available. Got a portion of Hanwoo oyster blade, and their signature prime cut of pork. I love it that the staff grilled them tableside for us. The exhaust works well, and I never leave with the stench of grease lingering in the hair. 

Couldn't resist the beef tartare (yukhoe). Got that. DRIM's iteration was refreshing, crisp and superb. Husband wanted a beef stew (sogogi doenjang jjigae) too; the stock was deliciously robust and hearty. The banchan and kimchi were lovely too. 

Cabbage Consommé & Baked Fish

It has been a while since I had a good bowl of Cantonese soup and fish. Had a craving for these. Off to Yan Ting it was for dinner with S. 

Got my soup — a lovely double-boiled bowl of baby cabbage consommé, bamboo pith, and mushrooms. Had vegetables in the form of broccolini with tiny ikan bilis. 

Chose a leopard coral grouper (東星斑). Instead of our usual steamed Hong Kong style or Teochew style, we opted for it to be baked in onion and garlic (蔥蓉生焗). It was pretty good! The baked style was quite fun, and left the meat still juicy and tender. It arrived as a super manageable 700g portion. Minus the head and the bones, we had about 300g of meat. Given the calcuations of ~19g or protein per 100g of meat, that would yield about 55g of protein. I probably had like 35g of protein!

S was greedy and wanted a bite of noodles. I was super skeptical. There was no way she could even eat a bowl of it. We still ordered the seafood vermicelli (海鮮米線). LOL She had a spoonful. I had a small bowl. We knew we would have to pack home most of it. Hahahah. That's okay. Her husband would be able to have most of it for lunch the next day since he was working from home and would need food too.

Fresh Food Boxes Delivered, At 5.30am

I wanted to give myself a break from cooking and food prep. It's more of me being unable to cater to the husband's wants in eating 4-5 meals a day; and they must all be different items. OMG. We could buy it, we could be judicious, but my gawwd. So I decided to try out fresh ready-made meals delivered to the door. Opted for Nutrition Kitchen for two weeks. 

I wouldn't bother subscribing for a month since we don't need to. It has to suit our timings and meal schedules for the week. There're many of these 'healthy boxes' caterers around. I just wanted to delve deeper to ensure that it's indeed separate entities and brands instead of one corporate company owning several brands, or one central kitchen shilling out their menus to different brands. The tiffin caterers have got a bad name doing this sort of stuff.

Some people we know didn't have a good experience with Nutrition Kitchen, and would recommend other brands. But for us, at this juncture, it has been going decent so far. The husband likes the flavors, choices and quality of food. The macros are properly counted, of course. 

At $20.20 per meal (more if sometimes you swap out items), they don't come cheap. But it is cheaper than if I buy ingredients to prep meals for two persons. The economics don't work out. We could get takeout, but it's too much of a fuss too. Sodium levels, grease and such. Decent quality ingredients cooked for us always come at a price. Fish is always an issue. It's like they didn't indicate where their salmon comes from, but it's likely Tasmanian (gosh the controversies...). It's not what I would prefer, but it would have to do. But of course many wonder how tough the steaks would be done this way. Well, the husband ain't complaining. Food is already delivered to the door. These steaks were surprisingly done medium… nearly medium rare, allowing space to be reheated; not at all tough or rubbery-inedible.

I don't leave the food in these environmentally-friendly sugarcane boxes. I transfer them to a glass container. They seem to keep well enough. At least some of the 'lunches' became dinner for the husband when he's got a couple of calls and late nights at work. 

Nutrition Kitchen indicated that since we chose the morning delivery slot, the food boxes would arrive daily for the week between 5.45am to 10am. We got a delivery dude whose route put us on a damn early arrival timing sial. Well, he has been consistent and dependable; he also texts me daily the moment he drops off the bag. For the first week, the boxes arrived by 5.20am. This is the second week, and he's been driving through the estate's gantries at 5am. I'm more or less awake by 5am too. YAWN.