Savour 2013- My bday treat

We are back from our trip! Before I start to blog about the trip, here's a post abt my bday celebration. Dear managed to score an invite to Savour 2013, so clever him turned it into my bday celebration.

It was my first time to the atas food festival and the setting was smaller than I thought. It was also pretty warm that night we visited, though it seems that I was the only one feeling warm.

 

 Now to the food! It was certainly a pricey outing as we spend $120 between us sampling the food.

My fav of the night!  Gunther Hubrechsen's signature dish of cold angel hair pasta with Oscietra caviar and truffle oil. Served cold and full of flavours, it was wonderful on a warm evening. This was one of the dishes that I was looking forward to trying and it didn't disappoint.

How can I pass on trying the interesting dishes from Bo Innovation? We tried the X-treme Long Bao (front) and quail egg with caviar (back). The Xiao Long Bao is chef Alvin Leung's specialty and burst in the mouth with sesame oil flvaours. Well, at least I tried the works of the Asian father of molecular gastronomy. I came up with that name myself, haha.

We ordered two of the Xiao Long Bao but managed to get one more for free when the counter thought that we had only received one of the Xiao Long Baos. Score!

And of course, we had foie gras too. We tried the rendition from Chef Douglas Tay of Osia Singapore and were happy with it. He had given the foie gras a very crunchy texture while the inside was still soft and moist.

Another score we had that night: I encouraged Dear to try the foie gras ice- cream from one of the booths. Since it was $16, and I wasn't particular interested in eating a solidified version of foie gras, we only ordered one of those to try. The chef kindly treated me as well to the ice cream, so we got two for the price of 1! Score again!!

The rest of the food we had:

Braised beef cheek with potato mash and dessert from Chef Jason Atherton of Pollen Street Social UK (his food is generally good!), coconut dessrt with exploding sugar grains from Forrest Singapore and chicken biryani from Song of India.

Ya I know, it is a little lame to have the biryani but I have never tried the Song of India before and wanted to see what is so good about its food. Besides, at $10 a plate, the biryani is a cost effective way of filling up the tummy if you are not full at the end of the night.

It was a fun experience, though I kept telling Dear that I felt so guilty to spend so much on food in such a setting. But I guess it is nice to have been there, done that. : )

Ramen Keisuke Tori King

Here's a post before Dear and I fly off later for our hol! I have changed to a new job and am taking a break before starting at the new place. Since it has also been a little while since our last trip, we took the chance to go off on a road trip this time!

Meantime, here's what we have been up to. Dear is a ramen fan and wanted to eat ramen for brunch. The first place that came to my mind was Ramen Keisuke Tori King. I had heard much about their ramen and have always wanted to give it a try. 

 This is their latest outlet in 100AM mall. I like the kinda authentic Japanese decor. They even have Japanese songs from the 1990s playing the background.

 

We sat at the counter, which added to the Japanese experience, lol.

They have lots of extras (marinated beansprouts on the left, eggs, sesame seeds, house special chilli sauce etc) on the counter for you to add to your noodles.

One advantage of seating at the counter is to observe how the kitchen works.

My ramen. All bowls of ramen came with a grilled chicken thigh which was very tender. The broth was chicken based, which is what their ramen brand is famous for. I think I prefer chicken ramen to pork ramen. It's much lighter and sweeter. 

Dear's ramen, which has all the works (seaweed, char siew, tamago). His was the pepper flavoured soup. 

After the ramen, we went to Tsujiri which came from Kyoto and is supposedly a high esteemed brand in Japan. How could I pass up the chance to try it?

A pretty small quiet cafe. Then again, 100AM mall was quite deserted on a Saturday.

We had a green tea parfait with green tea sponge cake, red bean paste and cornflakes at the bottom of the cup. I rather like this picture of Dear modelling his watch in the background, hurhur. 

I thought the dessert was not bad (or maybe I'm just charmed by its Japanese heritage) but Dear found it average. A nice surprise, which I guess is because of the Japanese roots, they provided wet towels at the counter for you to take freely! Good for cleaning up after eating dessert messily. Love it!

Another episode that happened was that after a nice meal, we walked out to the roadside parking to find that it was raining heavily. Never mind that we had an umbrella, the rain was so heavy that we were still drenched from the splashing rain. And Dear's automatic car key had to fail to work! We only managed to get it working after an anxious 15min. Aiyoh!

Ramen Keisuke Ramen King

100 Tras Street

#03-15 100AM mall  

Tsujiri

100 Tras Street

#01-14B 100AM mall

Dear's 30th bday- part 1

 

Dear celebrates his 30th birthday this month, and it was on me to plan something big for him. There were many ideas that I had, but due to the many happenings in the past months, I decided to plan for a staycation bday surprise. Ok, it was not that big a surprise because I had told him the plan to make sure he is ok with my choice.

Before checking into the hotel for our staycation, I planned for a yummy lunch at Tatsuya. The lunch bentos are such a good deal!

We sat at the counter where we could see the chefs in action. Note how they have arranged the counter so nicely and neatly.

Besides watching the chefs prepare the dishes, we could also observe them preparing the ingredients. One chef was peeling the prawns and preparing the raw chunks of fish for keeping. It is incredible how fresh and good their ingredients looked, and the kind of attention paid to them. I snapped this pic of the scallops which just looked so humongous!

I ordered the unagi and sashimi bento. The kimono clad waitress will even help you to pour the soy sauce into the saucer after she places the bento down on the table!

It is honestly a lot of food. Thumbs up. The sashimi was juicy and thick enough for the price of the bento set. And my favourite was the tempura. Even the batter was flavourful and it stayed fairly crispy even a while.

Dear's sushi bento. The fish slices were thiner and I think a sashimi bento will be better for those who want to have more taste of the fish. 

Dining at Tatsuya is always a nice experience. It is one of those places where you can imagine yourself being transported to Japan for a while. Of course, dining in such a atas place, observing the rich who will just order anything they fancy without looking at the price, is also pretty shiok. Haha.

After lunch, we went to get Garret's popcorn before checking into the hotel to start the staycation offically. Part 2 of Dear's bday coming up soon!

Tatsuya

22 Scotts Road

Goodwood Park Hotel

Botanic Gardens: Casa Verde

Can you guess where this is?

It's the Botanical Gardens! Dear and I have actually never really been here for a date. But today, we are drawn here because we wanted to try the food Casa Verde. Ya, we are slow to discover this place.

But first, some photos of the reception area of the Botanic Gardens. Even got a Singa the lion of courtesy!

Ok, now about the place that we came for. Luckily the weather had not turned warm when we visited. So the place wasn't too uncomfortable cos it didn't feel like there was much air-conditioning in the indoor area.

We managed to find a seat by the window, looking out to the al fresco area. 

I ordered a carbonara to share with Dear, and it was much better than I expected. It was not too creamy, abundant with toppings of bacon. The serving was also pretty huge for the price. *thumbs up* Dear said the pasta was good, which means it is really quite yummy cos Dear doesn't like milky or cheesy flavours.

The ham and asparagus pizza topped with a sunny side up that is supposed to be one of their popular dishes.

Maybe it was because the carbonara was served first and we were a little full when the pizza came, but it wasn't anything too outstanding. And it was pretty large, so we ended up packing it home instead after devouring two slices.

Still it was a pretty nice experience to have brunch and chill in the greenery. Though I still prefer my own brunch favs in the east!

Casa Verde
Singapore Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre
Cluny Road 

Vday at New Ubin Seafood

Isn't scary how restaurants are packed on special occasions and how difficult it is to find a decent place to eat? Poor Dear, who surprisingly has a lot of initiative this year and made calls (a couple of days before Vday) to find us a table, was traumatised by the difficulty of it as dinner time looms.

In comes the clever me who saves the day. We have never been big on Vday, though we try to have dinner tog if we can. So, I thought of having a hearty tze char dinner because it is one of the most value for money ways to eat dinner on Vday.

And I have a place in mind. Specifically, I have a dish in mind, and it is something pretty costly and unusual to have at a tze char shop. More about that later. To unravel the mystery, the place we went to was New Ubin Seafood at Sin Ming Industrial estate.

It had a whole shopfront to itself and was bigger than I thought. The place was crowded, I guess it is testimony that the food is pretty decent for people to come and eat in an industrial area.

 

Drumroll: The dish we came for was the grilled Angust beef steak. Minimum order of 500g which means the beef will cost around $50. This price includes crispy french fries, caramalised onions and the yummy beef which is cut for your convenience.

The beef was succulent enough; not tough. But the star of the show was the fried rice, which is part of the order, that was fried with the fats of the beef steak.

Super sinful and addicitive. Dear said it was good. And he seldom uses the word 'good'. The rice tasted like claypot rice but had more depth of the smoky flavour and juicy after being coated by the beef fats.

We may return for the crabs, which we saw loads of people ordering. The beef may not be your everyday tze char dish because of the price tag but it is a good treat. I'm glad that I finally got to try it!

New Ubin Seafood
27 Sector A Sin Ming Industrial Estate

The new Bedok 85 market

The new Bedok 85 market finally re-opened and we visited it. There are more seats in the market now, and lots of sinks at one end of the market for folks to wash their hands. All the popular stalls are still in business. :)

What is interesting is that the open area where there used to be many makeshift tables, now has stone tables that you'll usually see at void decks. Probably they want to provide a sense of la kopi under the stars.

I am predicting that the makeshift tables will be back on the weekends.

 For our first visit, we had the yummy oyster omelette. 

The main course was our must-order at the market: the bak chor mee. 

Now that the new market is opened, it is more comfortable to eat there now!

JB: Arashi shabu shabu restaurant

We had a little adventure last Sat, visiting JB for some cheap eats and shopping.
 

We went to Tebrau City. It was a rainy weekend. I like how spacious the mall is.

Our lunch spot: Arashi shabu shabu restaurant. I was shocked by how grand is the decor in this mid range restaurant. If only restaurants in Sg put in as much effort. And the place was pretty spacious too. Not squeezed like how restaurants in Sg will place tables almost side by side. 

The hot pot set that Dear ordered. 

 which came with thin yummy slices of beef and pork.

I ordered the salmon belly teriyaki, which comes serves in a pan perched on a stand. See how even the stand is so opulent, in accordance to the design theme of the restaurant!

And the abundance of fish, corn, and egg which filled up my tummy.

The total bill only came up to S$28! Super reasonable!

And we had a quick walk around the mall before doing some grocery shopping and crossing the causeway again. Pretty nice for a weekend getaway (although it is only for a day). At least it is a new experience for me and Dear; we've never been to JB tog.

Arashi shabu shabu restaurant
Multiple outlets in Malaysia

Ryoshi Sushi Ikeikemaru

 Visiting Japan and indulging in its food has made me picky about Japanese food. While I will still eat the $5 bento set in food courts if I really feel like having a quick fix, I am merely tolerating the sub-par standards of the average Japanese food in Singapore.

The good thing, there are actually quite a number of restaurants that serve good Japanese food, at a cost still bearable to my wallet.

I am sharing my new found haunt for sushi: Ryoshi Sushi Ikeikemaru. The discovery of this place comes in handy- right after my trip back from the land of the rising sun.

The places serves conveyor sushi, but the quality is similar to that of Itacho's,and in the same price range too. While there may not be a wide variety of sushi here, there are some pretty innovative ones that you don't see elsewhere. 

The icing on the cake is the service here is very good. The manager is a jolly fellow who smiles a lot, is friendly, and actually checks if you enjoyed the meal.  

 The pretty spacious restaurant

with earnest sushi chefs making the food. That was natto sushi that just came on to the conveyor belt. Natto!

We ordered a udon set, which allowed us to top up to order a sushi platter. But the real stars are the following: 

My favourite: prawn with grilled mozzarella cheese. 

On the left: crab innards with miso. Nice crabby flavours, if you know what I mean. But some may find the taste slightly too strong. 

On the right: squid with mentaiko. Look at the huge blob of mentaiko! There was a generous topping of squid, which tasted so much more flavourful with the spicy kick of the mentaiko.

 I think this was marinated mackeral with ginger on top.

Of course, salmon sushi is a must order. They also serve a salmon belly sushi for those who want to enjoy more of that melt-in-your-mouth feeling. 

And finally, some udon to set the stomach.

The sushi here are made with huge slices of fish and a proportionately lesser amount of rice. I like this kind of sushi where there is more fish than rice.

Like Fukuichi, Ryoshi seems to have a mother company in Japanese, explaining the quality of fish here. Most of the fishes originate from Hokkaido.

Maybe I'll return for dinner there tomorrow, hurhur. 

Ryoshi Sushi Ikeikemaru
Liang Court, B1-48
177 River Valley Road