PUTIAN CUISINE AT COFFEE SHOP STALL

There is more than meets the eye at Classic Putian, a shabby corner stall in a Jurong West coffeeshop where head cook Chang Yue Jie, 35, surprises with a few restaurant-worthy dishes.

For the Deep Fried Squirrel Style Sea Bass ($22 for dine-in; promotional price of $20 via GrabFood until end-November), he dips fresh sea bass that is deboned and scored in his own batter, then deep-fries it twice.

While the sweet and tangy sauce with onion, papaya and pineapple that accompanies the dish tastes a tad too much like ketchup, the fish is so crispy, you can hear the crunch as you bite into its skin. You can even eat its tail like a biscuit, yet the meat is moist and tender.

The stall has a wide selection of dishes on GrabFood, but some are better for eaten there.

The Herbal Bamboo Prawn is served in a specially crafted bamboo container for dine-in customers. The mininum order for dine-in is one serving ($6), while you have to order at least two servings ($12) on Grabfood.

Fresh water prawns are cooked in superior stock made from simmering old hens, pork bones and jin hua ham. The soup is flavoured with herbal wine made from steeping herbs, including dangshen (codonopsis root), chuan gong (Szechuan lovage) and dang gui (Chinese angelica) in Hua Tiao wine.

The stall also serves fresh cockles ($8/$10/$12 for dine-in; $10 on GrabFood). While the cockles are indeed fresh, the light soya sauce-based dressing is overwhelmed by an avalanche of minced garlic.

The Heng Hua Bee Hoon ($4.50/$7 for dine-in; $5/$8/$12 on GrabFood) is rather bland if not for the sweetness of the clams and prawn. But the beehoon, produced in Putian, is curly and springier in texture than the type commonly used here.

WHERE: Stall 8, 01-855, Block 503 Jurong West Avenue 1

MRT: Lakeside

OPEN: 10.30am to 11pm (dine-in); 10.30am to midnight (delivery via GrabFood)

TEL: 8656-7878

ARTISAN BREADS

Tablescape, a modern European restaurant and bar, has offered a tableside bread trolley service since it opened in January 2018.

It is currently closed for dine-in service until 2021, but customers can enjoy its artisan breads and house-churned butters in the form of a new Bread & Butter Set - via takeaway or delivery.

There is a current promotional price of $48. Orders must be placed one day in advance.

Guests who opt for self-collection get 10 per cent off. Delivery to one location is free if you order two or more sets.

Breads are freshly baked on the day of pick-up or delivery. The set comprises five types of breads: a round sourdough loaf that comes in a basket, two pieces of brioche bread, two mini Baguettes, two pieces of onion bread, and two pieces of multi-grain bread.

The sourdough, with a thin crisp crust and light well-aerated interior, is a fixture, while the other four breads will be rotated with other flavours every few months.

The set also comes with two 25g jars of lobster butter, two 25g jars of unsalted butter, one 10ml dropper bottle of truffle oil and 5g of sea salt.

The unsalted butter is made from fresh full cream and yoghurt which are fermented for two days. For the lobster butter, a rich lobster bisque concentrate made from scratch is added to freshly churned butter.

WHERE: Grand Park City Hall, Level 3, 10 Coleman Street

MRT: City Hall

TO ORDER: tablescape-restaurant-bar.myshopify.com

DELIVERY: $15

TEL: 6336-3456

E-MAIL: hello@tablescape.sg

FUDGY HOME-MADE BROWNIES

Housewife and home baker Serene Lee, 39, who recently launched her home-based business Seriously Dough.sg, makes fudgy brownies with gooey centres.

There are seven flavours of filled brownies (6.5cm in diameter, $5 each or $30 for a tasting box of six): sea salt & dark chocolate, peanut butter, hazelnut praline, kaya, biscoff butter, salted caramel and matcha.

For the kaya one, which is a blonde brownie (no cocoa is used, vanilla and brown sugar go into the batter), Ms Lee uses locally produced kaya, which she blends with white chocolate and other ingredients to get a thick gooey consistency for the filling.

You cannot go wrong with a safe choice like sea salt & dark chocolate, which has salty accents that go well with the creamy luscious dark chocolate.

But the real palate pleaser is the bite-sized avocado brownie (3.5cm in diameter, $20 for a box of 15), which is made from real avocado and using more cocoa powder than flour.

WHERE: Seriously Dough.sg

TO ORDER: Go to @seriouslydough.sg on Instagram or Whatsapp 8470-9535

DELIVERY: $8 islandwide