Teppei Syokudo (Takashimaya)

Went to Teppei Syokudo at Takashimaya which provides only take-aways. I heard a lot of good reviews about it so I brought Ed with me to try.

Kaisendon "Bara Chirashi" ($16)- Big chunks of marinated raw fish with sushi rice. The marinate was not really to my liking as it was too salty. What I did like was the texture of the fish which was firmer than your usual sashimi (most likely cause of the marinate). I was kinda disappointed about it. For me, non marinated raw fish is better or maybe a less salty marinate. 

Rate:
Kaisendon "Bara Chirashi": 6/10 ☺

Idealite

Went to dine at Idealite with gf cause gf likes to eat healthy. 

Here they focus on providing vegetarian food that is healthy, nutritious and tasty at the same time. Say good bye to your usual vegetarian food that is sometimes more harmful then non vegetarian food.

They had a new item on the menu which was this steamboat which comes with a bowl of brown rice. 3 different soup base to choose from which I cant remember. I had the Pumpkin Miso soup (Around $15 plus) Creamy pumpkin with the slightly nutty and umami taste of the miso went very well together. The soup had enoki mushroom, tofu, seaweed, pumpkin, carrot, oyster mushroom, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, red cabbage and some green leafy vegetable. Love the green leafy vegetable the most as it had soaked up the soup while dislike the pumpkin and carrot which were still hard. 

Provence Tempura Mushroom ($7.90)- Fresh eryngii mushroom with high protein, vitamin B and minerals. Sprinkled with Provencal spices. Whatever those Provencal spices are, they sure are flavorful and sort of addictive. This is definitely a must try dish when you go there! 

Also from now till 15 April if you go to their facebook page and screenshot this post you can get a free dessert. 

Rate:
Pumpkin Miso: 7/10 ☺
Provence Tempura Mushroom: 9/10 ☺

Hyde & Co

Gf brought me to Hyde & Co for lunch.

The Big Ben ($17 candied turkey bacon/ $21 smoked salmon)- Mushroom duxelle, poached eggs, chipotle, hollandaise, served on a brioche toast. I chose the candied turkey bacon, it taste a lot less smokey then your usual bacon and it was slightly sweet. Duxelle is a paste made with mushrooms, onions, herbs and sauted in butter. It helped give moisture to the toast along with the hollandaise sauce. The egg was disappointing, it was overcooked. The garnish felt quite out of place. Potatao was well cooked.

Ondeh Ondeh French Toast ($12)- Brioche french toast, grated pandan coconut, gula melaka sauce, vanilla bean ice cream. Thick slice of toast with bits of  grated cocnut, chocolate chips, rich gula melaka sauce and creamy cool vanilla ice cream. Felt that the toast was a little too thick so it was quite dry but luckily there was the ice cream that helped give it moisture. This was one filing dessert.

If you're not a bread person like myself I would recommend you to dine during dinner time instead of lunch.

Rate:
The Big Ben: 6/10 ☺
Ondeh Ondeh French Toast: 6/10 ☺

Senmi Sushi

Went to Senmi Sushi with Ed cause I wanted to eat Chirashi don.

Here you can create you own chirashi don which is a bowl of rice topped with seafood and vegetables.

Here is our creation ($22). We added Ikura, Chutoro and Amaebi. It was really good. The sashimi was quite fresh and went well with the sushi rice, seaweed and (my favourite) ikura! But if you're too lazy to create one you can just go for their standard chirashi don which can be found in their menu.

Uni, Hamachi and Ebi Fry Bomb ($22). Deep fried coated prawns wrapped in seaweed and sushi rice with yellowtail fish topped with uni, spring onions and yellow flowers and drizzled with a pink sauce and garnished with more tobiko and ikura. It was really good. You get crunch from the prawns and tons of flavour from all the ingredients. What I didn't like though was the uni which was more on the strong sea smell side then I would like. Lucky Ed liked it so I gave it to him.

Dynamite Maki ($16.80). Prawn and avocado roll with flamed-seared wagyu beef slices topped with cheese, tempura bits and spring onion. First time having beef with sushi rice. The maki on the inside was quite mushy luckily there was the tmepura bits that gave it some crunch and the sauce which provided flavour for the sushi roll. I would say this is quite a unique maki.

Aburi Selection Platter ($18.80). Amaebi foie gras, scallop with mentaiko and salmon all flamed-torched. The salmon was good with the sweet sauce drizzled on top. The scallop was meaty and went well with the slightly spicy cod roe and mayo topping and the sweet shrimp with the creamy foie gras was a good match. My favourite was the scallop followed by the amaebi and lastly the salmon.

Rate:
Our creation: 8.5/10 ☺
Uni, Hamachi and Ebi Fry Bomb: 8/10 ☺
Dynamite Maki: 7/10 ☺
Aburi Selection Platter: 7/10 ☺

Ice Lab

Ice Lab is opened by a Korean comedian and has offering such as bingsu, toast and churros.

Mango Bingsu ($15.90). Milky shaved ice, banana slices, mango syrup, mango cubes and mango ice cream. I like the ice, it was really milky and fine and went well with the toppings. It's a good dessert to eat in Singapore's weather but it is a little pricy so do share with your friends.

Rate:
Mango Bingsu: 7.5/10 ☺

The Tuckerbox Lunch

Went to The Tuckerbox Lunch for some cheap bara chirashi don (yummmm....)

Premium Bara Chirashi ($12.80)- Sushi rice, salmon, salmon belly, kingfish, swordfish, prawns, avocado,ikura & tobiko. It was good. Besides the sushi rice, they topped it with furikake (a dry Japanese seasoning usually sprinkled on rice) and sweet inari skin which added more flavour the the sushi rice. The sashimi was good for the price that you're paying. The only one I didn't like was the ama ebi which was not fresh. Miso soup and green tea are free, self-service. I forgot the price of the salmon sashimi as ed was the one who ordered it.

Taken from their FB page

Here is their menu although it's super hard to distinguish the words.
They also have 2 other bara chirashi on their menu and if you don't like raw food you can try other options like teriyaki chicken don.

Rate:
Premium Bara Chirashi: 7.5/10 ☺

Overrun

Went to Overrun for their Chendol soft served ice cream!

The day that I went, there was only chendol flavour. Their soft serve are so popular that they only limit 2 cups per customer.

Chendol ($6). Vanilla soft serve with green jelly, desiccated coconut and gula melaka. Super yummy. The rich creamy vanilla goes so well together with the toppings. It's like a luxurious cool chendol. Really good. However, wished that it didn't melt so fast (most likely due to Sg's super hot weather).

Rate:
Chendol: 8.5/10 ☺

Sushi Airways

Went to Sushi Airways with Zq for lunch. At the entrance it was quite awkward. We arrive around 5 minutes after their opening time and did know if they were opened. We walked up the stairs and opened the curtain to see an aircraft and a busy waitress on the phone.

What's special about this place is their theme. I like the whole aircraft feel you get when you enter the place. Even the waitress is dressed as an air stewardess. The only thing missing is the aircraft engine noise which I like absent.

Their menu. Inside it there are also pictures of different section of the plane in accordance to your meal category like for starters they will show the front of the plane. Zq and I ordered the lunch set which is available even on weekends.On the lunch menu are items such as Salmon Teriyaki, Cold Goma Soba, Kurobuta Katsu and Bara Chirashi set.

Salad. All set lunch comes with a salad, miso soup and dessert of the day. The salad surprised me as it was not stated in their menu but they did showed a picture of it. The salad was dressed with (my favourite) sesame dressing.

Miso soup which tasted tasty like what you usually get.

Airways Bara Chirashi Sushi Set ($17). A combination of chopped sashimi with shoyu wasabi over sushi rice. There were tuna, salmon, some white flesh fish, cucumber, shredded eggs and lime in the bowl. I like the sushi rice but I wished the sashimi was marinated cause it's already chopped up into small pieces so Zq and I kind of pour shoyu on top of it so that it tasted better. Sashimi standard was okay for the price I paid.

Dessert of the day was soya milk pudding, I think from what I tasted. Zq said it tasted like the premix one which was not bad, it tasted good.

Sawagani ($17)- Fresh water crabs found in Japan. This was on their special menu and we decided to order it. They were really alive before they were sent to the deep fryer. Zq saw them in a bowl moving before they met their demise. The crab was yummy. Crunchy and tasted like crab (duh! hahaha). My favourite.

Rate:
Airways Bara Chirashi Sushi Set: 6/10 ☺
Sawagani: 8.5/10 ☺

BRIDGE - Restaurant & Bar

Ed and I met Putri for brunch at Bridge. It is a restaurant during day time and a bar during night but you could start drinking at anytime of the day. Of course it's not advisable if you have to get back to work after eating or if you're driving. Here they serve modern european food. Their brunch menu is super short, just one page- 10 mains and 4 desserts.

So there's a blackboard at the restaurant where you can order a brunch set which is not stated in the menu. There's also the salted egg and truffle custard croissant.

Salted Egg Croissant ($5.90). I FINALLY tried their salted egg croissant but it felt so...... meh. I was expecting more hahah cause a lot people were talking about it. I defintely prefer BreadTalk's croissant more than theirs. Bridge's croissant was flaky and buttery which was nice but the salted egg was not as sweet as what I would prefer. But it is good for people who really like savoury more than sweet taste of salted egg. 

BRIDGE Benedict ($20)- Homemade brioche muffin, Black Forest ham, bacon, cherry vine tomatoes, poached eggs, champagne hollandaise, sabaco, mesclun with truffle honey vinaigrette. You can never go wrong with the classic eggs benedict. Couldn't really taste the champagne in the hollandaise.

A-S-S ($18)- Avocado scramble, sourdough, smoked salmon, tomato and corn salsa, mozarella, tobiko cream. Putri ordered this and couldn't finish it. At first I could not processed that this dish was actually called ass until Ed pointed out. The avocado was creamy with the salty smoky salmon. This dish is perfect for people who like avocado as the taste is quite prominent. 

62˚C Egg ($19)- Sous vide egg, truffle mash potato, sauteed wild mushrooms, chicken jus, prosciutto di parma, sourdough, seasonal truffle slices. I love the truffle mash potato, you could really taste the truffle. I also love looking at that yolk flow. Even though this dish looked small it  was quite filling. I finished everything except for the bread which I ate half. Overall it's a very earthy dish with the mushrooms that went well with the salty parma ham.

Truffle Honey French Toast ($18)- Berries, vanilla sour cream, cinnamon sugar, truffle honey, ice cream. There was a hint of truffle smell that came from this dish. Again you could taste the truffle from the honey truffle. I somehow felt that the toast tasted very normal but overall the presentation was pretty nice.

What I liked most about this place is their truffle mash potatoes since I kind of like truffle taste. Also they don't charge GST, only service charge.

Rate:
Salted Egg Croissant: 6/10 ☺
BRIDGE Benedict: 7/10 ☺
A-S-S: 6/10 ☺
62˚C Egg: 7.5/10 ☺
Truffle Honey French Toast: 6.5/10 ☺

Nanta BBQ

Went with Ger and Ky to Nanta BBQ for dinner before going for our movie.

Side dishes. So here are the side dishes they gave- Beansprouts, cabbage, cucumber, green beans (?), leafy vegetable and another vegetable.

They also gave a salad with a dressing that taste like thousand island except in a different colour.

Don-tok-bokki [+pork cutlet] ($18). Well deep fried crispy pork cutlet with chewy rice cake, fish cake, hard boiled egg and a slighty spicy, sweet and umami gochujang sauce.

Cheese Deng-galbi A-set [Cheese pork spare rib] ($55). There are 3 different spicy levels- Mild, Spicy or Hot Spicy. We were not sure how spicy their spicy was so we chose the middle one- Spicy. The dish came and the service staff place it on the stove to let the cheese melt.

The cheese finally melted and we began eating. The cheese was so yummy and super stretchy. The mushroom was good as well. Now on to the sauce, it was really quite spicy much more than the one for the Don-tok-bokki. I would say if you can't handle spicy just get the mild one unless you like the stingy lingering pain then I suggest the Spicy or even Hot Spicy. For the meat, it wasn't as tender as expected. Not as tender as the ones you get in your Bak Ku Teh, kinda dissapointed considering the price of the dish. The saving grace of the dish was the cheese.

Overall just these 2 dishes were more than enough for the 3 of us.

Rate:
Don-tok-bokki: 7/10 ☺
Cheese Deng-galbi A-set: 7/10 ☺

Victor's Kitchen (Sunshine Plaza)

Went to Victor's Kitchen with zq for their Golden Egg Yolk Lava Bun. They aim to serve delicious dimsum at an affordable price.

King Prawn Cheong Fun ($4.80). Rice noodles with prawns. There were about 4 prawns in total with 3 rice noodle rolls with a salty tasty sauce. The nice thing about it is that they actually use prawns instead of shrimps but I felt that the noodles were a little thick.

Xiao Long Bao [soup dumpling] ($5.20). So we poke the bao before eating it so that the soup would flow out. Taste wise it was not bad but I still felt that the skin here was a little thicker than what I had tried before elsewhere. Zq also agreed.

Victor's King Prawn Dumplings ($5.20)- Succulent prawns encased in chewy, translucent flour. A must-try. Generously filled with prawns. The har gow is always a favourite for me.

Golden Egg Yolk Lava Bun ($4.80)-Our show-stopper. These fluffy buns pack a decadent punch - a gooey, sumptuous custard and egg yolk paste awaken your taste buds as you bite into them. Consistently voted #1 custard bun in Singapore. Another one of my favourites. It was sweet with some small chunks of salted egg, so yummy. However, the filling inside looked split.

Overall I feel that the items here are a little on the pricey side for their taste. The good thing is that all prices are inclusive of GST.

Rate:
King Prawn Cheong Fun: 6/10 ☺
Xiao Long Bao: 6/10 ☺
Victor's King Prawn Dumplings: 6/10 ☺
Golden Egg Yolk Lava Bun: 7/10 ☺

Sushi Jin

Went to Sushi Jin with Gf and Dj for lunch. All set lunch are served with salad & dessert.

Top view

Side view

Salad. Mixed salad with roasted sesame dressing and sliced cherry tomatoes.

Bara Chirashi Don ($32)- assorted sashimi cube over sushi rice. The sashimi was tasty and fresh. There was tuna, salmon, some white fish, tamago, cucumber, tobiko and ikura on top of a bed of well seasoned rice. Overall I really enjoyed it cause I LOVE ikura! Th tuna was really good as well.

Wagyu to Foie Gras Don ($39)- glazed foie gras & wagyu beef over rice. The foie gras was really good- soft and melts in your mouth. The beef on the other hand was very average. Such a big contrast. They should just have a foie gras don on its own.

Unagi Don ($29)- grilled freshwater eel over sushi rice. In case you're wondering what's the yellow strips, they're shredded tamago (eggs). There was nothing special about the eel. This dish overall was very average.

Dessert. We had watermelons, grapes and a jelly. The jelly tasted like corn jelly with waterchesnut bits.

Ebi no Mentaiko Tempura ($18)- deep fried prawn with cod roe mayo. Sounds so good- mentaiko! However it was super dissapointing. Somehow the ebi wasn't as crisp as expected maybe the mentaiko made it soggy? Mentaiko taste was not to my liking as well. Wasn't as creamy as what I wanted and was more towards the spicy side. Felt like I was eating stale crispy spikey tempura with a slightly spicy sauce and a touch of lemon. Not a nice way to end our meal.

Rate:
Bara Chirashi Don : 7.5/10 ☺
Wagyu to Foie Gras Don: 7/10 ☺
Unagi Don: 5.5/10 ☺
Ebi no Mentaiko Tempura: 5/10 ☺

SWAG

Went to SWAG with gf for a healthier meal. SWAG stand for Salad Wraps And Greens and that is what they offer. It is also customizable if you would like.

Southern Pulled Pork ($10.90)- Lettuce, Cherry Tomatoes, Carrot, Eggs, Pasta, Cucumber, Pulled Pork with Cajun Firecracker Dressing. The pulled pork was  flavourful and helped add taste to the salad. The spicy cajun firecracker dressing helped add omph to the whole salad although it was a little too spicy for me to finish the entire salad. Luckily gf was there to help me. The lettuce had some that were wilted but only a super small amount of around 2 leaves. Overall it was a tasty salad.  

Seafood Galore ($11.90)- Lettuce, Cherry tomatoes, Onions, Tofu, Cashew Nut, Broccoli, Calamari, Cajun Prawns, with Sambalnaise Dressing. No idea what is sambalnaise dressing but it tasted like some Thai sweet chilli sauce. Overall this gave off vibes of a Thai fusion salad.

Rate:
Southern Pulled Pork: 8/10 ☺
Seafood Galore: 7.5/10 ☺