Saturday, September 06, 2008
Unatakyu Maki:Unagi inside out with cucumber and tamago... Pretty good I say. This is interesting and tastes pretty good. This was the only other rice dish of the evening, the other being the Unagi Temaki. Tempura Moriwase:I'm anal when it comes to Ebi Tempura. The epitome of good Ebi tempura comes from the batter and of course the amount of transparency you see on the finished item. I grade good Ebi tempura based on the crispiness of the batter, even when left to stand for awhile, and on first glance the amount of orange you can discern through the batter. This passed with flying colours. 'Nuff said.The sweet potato was delicious. No pretentious frou-frou words for this. I don't eat lady's fingers, but darling polished them off... Then again, he likes his fried foods heh. Unagi Temaki:Yummy Yummy, this was chosen because there was no Unagi Kabayaki. Oh yes did I mention I'm an Unagi monster? This had a miserable slab of unagi in it. Sorry la, I must have LOTS of Unagi only then I'll not complain... _________________________________________________ I have a wish list: 1. 2nd Degustation at Les Amis - RESERVED - 2. Indulgz at Tan Quee Lan -RESERVED - 3. One Rochester 4. Dragon Pheonix Restaurant 5. Inakaya-Robatayaki @ Orchard Parade hotel - RESERVED- 6. Akashi @ Orchard Parade hotel - RESERVED - 7. Garden @ Sentosa 8. Whitebait and Kale 9. Les Brasseries 10. Villa Seafood Galleria 月楼海鲜 11. Santaro @ Amara Hotel 12. Rakuzen @ Millenia Walk 13. Tampopo (YUMMY SOUP!) Who wants to be my dinner date?
Enough of these whinny sob stories, let me delve into the now familiar blog roll of foodie reviews. I'm not the regular All-my-blog is about food types. So here's one that I absolutely find worth going to:
Darling's Pre-birthday Dinner at Hokkaido Japanese Restaurant 200 Turf City, #01-20
WAH PICOTIN NEARBY IS LIKE SO DAMN PACKED! Anyway, that's not the diner of the night. It's a quaint little place inside turf city duh.....Is that old man we see standing near the bar counter the owner or something? He has that distinctive Japanese uncle look. But once he open his mouth, he just sounds like some regular Chinese uncle from some neighbourhood.... Hmmm...Anyway, we reached the place at around 8:30pm and settled down to get some grub. No one thrust the drinks menu at us for chargable drinks though. We both went for Green Tea. I would say some of the wait staff were over zealous, like the one who die-die wanted to clear our plates before we could finish eating... And they also over-zealously re-filled our tea even before we finished 3/4 of it. Is this good service or a bit over doing it? Yes darling is sitting beside me while I'm writing this review and giving me pointers. Heh.
Food:Salmon Sashimi:Wah, I must say I'm quite sua gu. Both the darling and I went WAH when they set the dish in front of us. See the pictures... I know. I'm realy sua gu =.=It was damn fresh man. I think this has got to be a choice cut? Too thick for me though, I prefer those super thin slices. But darling digs the thick pieces so it was pretty good for him. Nice rifts of the fish meat that just slides down your throat with a dip of Shoyu and wasabi. I didn't really like their wasabi I must say. It's quite powdery for me... 
Cheese Chawanmushi:This is pretty nice but I still prefer the regular ones. I'm fine with the water bubbles at the top unless it's inside, spoiling it's smoothness. This cheesy chawanmushi was quite a refreshing change from the regular. We had 1 cup of this and a cup of the regular one, just to compare. I am ok with both I guess. It was rather nice to have the smooth regular chawanmushi sliding down ur throat and a nice melted cheesy one that made me feel like I was having some sort of mozzie dish, with egg =) 
Agedashi Tofu:I never fail to order this at Japanese restaurants but this disapointed me. It came in a nice small transparent bowl nonetheless, but it wasn't crispy, it was just... Okay... talking more about this would be just giving it too much credit. Blergh, this is one of the bad tofu's I had. 
Kani Karaage (soft shell Crab):I'm quite anal when it comes to soft shell crab. If it's abit chao tah, I end up digging for gold inside my crab even if it has a soft shell. This came a little bit charred and was a little to dry for my liking. The waitress doesn't know what MAYONNAISE was and had to ask around before this ENGLISH-educated one came along. No guesses who it was I asked. Someone please tell me what mayo is in chinese? Even when I described it to her she went off with a blank look. Gee...Darling didn't have any of this cause of his allergy =( 
Age Gyoza:This is done really differently from what we usually see. I didn't like it. Not even with mayo. 
Tori Teriyaki:This had a nice smokey flavour to it. A little on the tough side tho. Breast meat? Eurrgh! 
They missed out our Yakitori and our Salmon Tempura, but they gave us Salmon skin, which was passable. (We were damn full already so it was ok!)I must say that this place reminds me of some quaint diner in old Japan.... Not a bad thought.Friendly people overall. It deserves another visit. With my mom. The other Jap foodie.
They're having an exclusive 2 person buffet promo now. Don't miss it.
After this dinner, we had the opportunity of exploring the area. We drove deep into Green Fairways where there were foreboding abandoned houses and stables. Someone should clear this place up. Very nice unused wild space good for a nature hike... N Parks should come in here. We drove all the way to the back of Picotin and almost ended up in this creepy wilderness. Wow! Anyone up for hiking in there???
Must Tries: It's buffet? Up to you lor!
Diary of the Lost Guardian.[11:54 am]