Showing posts with label Japanese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japanese. Show all posts

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Just Acia

Stranded in the East of Singapore not knowing where to eat?


Just Acia may not be the best but it is definitely value for money.


Simply get a set meal and you get to enjoy free flow drinks and ice cream!


Make your own root beer float and hot chocolate to drink all night long.





First set is Korean stir fry chicken with rice.


huge plate of chicken, with some kimchi by the side. served steaming hot. not so much on quality but quantity.

See, effort put in. Sesame seeds. :)




Yummy hot chocolate with foam some more.....




Breaded prawns by the side. cheap and good. not coated with thick batter but light and crispy bread crumbs.






not as impressive as compared to the rest. tom yam was not authentic in taste. dont even taste like maggi tom yam. ingredients were generous but simply just dump and cook. not recommended.

crispy seafood rolls. as the name suggest. crispy. the seafood filling was succulent, not too dry, not too salty with some 'real flesh' texture.






soft shell crab was slightly softer i guess due to the size of the crab. slightly too big to be deep fried. but overall the taste was up to standard. better than some of the budget japanese restaurants.



total bill :)







Auntie note: cheap food, free flow drinks and ice cream. be very hungry so that you can eat the ice cream after the meal.

1 Pasir Ris Close #01-40
Downtown East Singapore




















Sunday, November 21, 2010

Ramen is love

Top 10 ramen bar in HGW webbie. And off we go to try it!

Location.... In Mandarin gallery, shop is recognised by long queues and the atas looking shop front.

approximately 4-5 different kind of soup base and 3 different combi for each soup.
1. with tamago
2. with simmered pork belly
3. with simmered pork cubes

What is best is....... EXTRA SERVING OF NOODLES! for just $2!

Some special dishes that i didnt try becos noodles is the best thing there

Special miso paste and fragrant garlic soup, with pork cubes. Plus extra tamago on the side.
See the miso paste? Looks like chilli but its not. The dark sauce is mysteriously tasty and i got no idea what is it. The spring onions from Japan is also different from those we get in Singapore, its not as strong but still the onions goes well and blended with the garlic to be a perfect match!

Boy had spicy miso soup with tamago, i prefered mine better. He's lacked the garlic fragrance but had an extra tinge of spice and more onions to lift the taste.

Generous portions of pork belly and pork cubes. Very well marinated and soft, pork belly has balanced ratio of fats and meat, making it melt in your mouth with the oil infused into the meat.
Pork cubes is tender and moist, the size is just nice to absorb all the juicy marinate.

Noodles for the two kinds of noodles is different. Mine is thicker and softer while boy's is thinner more chewy and a bit curly.... For all noodles, you can choose the "doneness" of your noodles. Hard, medium and soft. I chose medium. It was good.

Tamago can be slightly better. Even thou it was well marinated the yolk can be more runny.


This is not comparable to Marutama ramen even though it is as authentic. The origin and tradition of this ramen is different from Marutama's. So it is dependent on your taste buds to make a choice.
Auntie note: Please be prepared to queue up for about half an hour at least. Ramen is slightly expensive but they do offer ice water. Desert was expensive. Saw the table beside us ordering mini sized desert. For the price, there are better choices out there.
Ippudo
333A Orchard RoadSingapore 238897
Mandarin Gallery
6235 2797
Open Mon-Sat 11am-11pm; Sun 11am-10pm

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The coooking show

Time for some cooking before school starts. This meal isn't the cheap kind and requires some sourcing of ingredients. But fret not because its not too difficult. There will be 2 parts to the cooking procedures as there are 2 dishes.

Cold soba with Japanese vegetables soup
Soba noodles
2 cups Soba concentrated sauce
Soba noodles
Soup
1 Dashi stock in tea bag form
2 packets Mushrooms
5 bowls of water
1 Carrot
1 piece Tofu
1 plain Fish Cake
Japanese Seaweed
4 tablespoon of soya sauce
Chawanmushi
4 Eggs
2 cups of water
Half cup of Dashi stock
50g Chicken cubes
Half teaspoon of salt to taste



Soba noodles
Firstly, Boil a pot of water deep enough for you to cook the soba noodles.

After boiling till soft put it under cold water. After it cools, place it in the fridge covered.



Before serving, use the ratio of 1:7 of soba sauce to water and put them into the fridge.
Soba sauce is quite expensive, 1litre cost 27SGD
Noodles done.



Japanese Soup
While waiting for the water to boil, prepare all the ingredients. Sliced them into any cute shapes you like.


Boil the dashi stock tea bags.

You can find similar brands in Cold storage. They are really good and super seafoody fresh. For mums who don't have enough time to cook just add in a tea bag and let it boil while you bath and it'll be ready real soon.

Take out half a cup of stock for the chawanmushi and the rest works as your soup base. For 5 bowls worth of soup.


This is how my dashi stock lookes like.


I also used organic japanese seaweed for healthier choice. These are dried and will "bloom" once it touches water. This small little pack can cook for an army


Soak all the different mushrooms of your choice to get rid of the dirt.

Add in all the ingredients to the pot and boil. Simmer for 20 minutes to allow the flavours to be sweeter.
Add in 4 table spoons of soya sauce to taste.

Chawanmushi

Crack the eggs and add in 2 cups of water.
Add half a teaspoon of salt to taste


Cut the chicken fillet into cubes, chicken cubes should be small to place into the chawanmushi.

Marinate it with some soya sauce, pepper and corn flour.

Place the ingredients in the bowl.


Distribute the half cup of dashi stock evenly into 5 bowls. Make sure it is not too hot, or else eggs will be cooked once you pour it into the bowl.
Distribute the egg mixture and now it is ready to be steamed.


Steam it under big fire for 5 minutes then simmer for 5 minutes.
Ensure that the time is not exceeded or else your eggs will harden.

Good luck!
Auntie note: you can use ikan bilis stock cubes if you find the dashi stock tea bags too exp. :)

Sakae sushi with boy

Out with boy for some japanese food is love......

Was planning for sushi buffet at Suki sushi hougang mall but.......... woke up too late and sakae was the nearest solution.

Wanted sushi off the conveyor, but the selection was limited and the sushi looked the least appetizing.

We ordered 2 mains, the first is the Chicken Kaminabe Set. It comes along with rice, miso, fruits, chawanmushi, and ageshi tofu.


Ageshi tofu is not like the usual one. The name is also different. The tofu was coated with tiny shrimps and fried till crispy. Topped with the bonito flakes and dashi stock. Nice and innovative. Flavour was distinct. The shrimps gave a better texture but was a bit messy. The bonito flakes was generous.



Rice was springingly good. Topped with all the sesame and seaweed. Good effort!

Soup isn't. It was rather tasteless, the chicken wasn't marinated and it was totally bland. The vegetables werent simmered before they serve it. The inari has mochi filings ( i dont know the exact name) and it is totally yucky. The mochi was not chewy but soft and had inconsistent texture.


Chawanmushi was finished up by Boy, his comments: you can cook better.


Grilled salmon was tender juicy, and blended well with the terriyaki sauce. Brings out the fragrant "salmon fats" taste. For those who don't know, the fats of salmon is good and the more expensive parts of the salmon is the belly where there's the most fats.




But runny yoke tamago was a failure. Totally far from authentic. Not runny. Looks are deceiving. The sauce totally spoilt the taste and the egg was not cooked in shoyu.



2nd main was terriyaki and hotate bento.

Hotate was delicious, with generous amount of fish roe, and cream sauce baked with cheese, it was moist and oozing with much flavour. There was 3 so overall Sakae is still not too stingy.

The best we had for the day was terriyaki chicken. Well marinated with each and every piece tasting a tinge of sweetness. Yet it was tender and chewy with the skin coated with the sauce that makes it extra succulent. Fried with onions, it was fragrant and had an additional unique taste.


We ordered some sides to go along. Plus some sushi.
Jelly fish the all time favourite, was QQ and bouncy well marinated and in the right thickness to sink your teeth into.


Sushi was ok, the green thing on the left is slightly not well flavoured. The jelly fish on the sushi was chopped up making it lose its QQ ness as they are now minced.


Last but not least soft shell crab roll. The soft shell crab was crispy and match well with the cucumber shreds, you can go crunch crunch with it. But one thing not perfect was the size of the crab. Very ultimately small. Its like 1/6 of the length of the role.


Century Square
^ Tampines MRT Station
2 Tampines Central 5
#B1-02 / 03 Singapore 529509
Tel: 6787 3887
Opening Hours:
11:30am - 10:00pm daily

My second visit to Wasabi san

Was at Wasabi San again because of the hot hot weather. Plus bedok only has a few other air conditioned place excluding fast food. So it became the first on the list. Budget eat too!



Miss Loong had Fried Sakana fish don. The set is only $3.90 before GST. Comes with side veg plus miso soup and fruits!!!!!



Fish was well fried, not too dry and tough yet its batter was fried till super crispy. Although its not the very like and flaky kind its still considered alright....
Comes along with the egg that i thought was kind of overcooked. Normally we have it slightly runny to stir in with the rice so that every grain will be coated with the egg, but for wasabi san i guess they scared bird flu? The don had some sauce for the rice which is covered by the egg. Slighly on the salty side, not very much layering of taste, just tasted a lot like shoyu.



Miss Loong thought the rice will be dry so she added on mayonaise. This small little thing for 50cents was totally not worth it and barely touched at all. Wasted. We had a small debate over the mayo thou; the red coloured stuff is carrot or fish roe?



Miss Chua had udon with chicken! This is slightly more expensive but affordable "still".
Chicken was slightly dry but only on the outer skin layer. Most probably re fried over and over. But the soup managed to soften it a bit. Udon was ok, not too much flour taste. Chewy but can be slighly bouncier. The soup was good, not too oily and was smooth to the throat. The taste reminds me of vegetable soup that my mum makes.




It was still good after all. For the price what else can you ask for?

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Expensive Jap in town that is totally not worth going

Made a bad decision going to Kamado.

The menu definitely looks good. So me and boy looked at each other and nodded. Upon seated, we looked thru the menu again. Only to realise how little variety they do serve. Each dish was served with choice of chicken or pork. With fingers counting, only abt 10 types? Some bamboo rice, some rice bento sets. The rest are all the skewers that is super overpriced.


We very mian qiang ordered 2 sets which is almost identical only the choice of meat different.

Boy's order. The sauce was almost similar to Chako's only that it was more watery, had huge chunks of onions. plus slightly sweet. look at the ratio of area of Chicken: Plate. this is how big the serving was.



Was served in a set with miso soup. Look at the clear soup? obviously, no nothing. no tofu, no seaweed.


The veggie given was pumpkin or sweet potato? This is like the cheapest thing you can get from the market. Sauce used seemed to taste like Dashi stock plus Shoyu. Nothing special.



My order was almost similar. only it was served with pork. The meat for i-don't-know what reason was pink. ? Not juicy, Not pipping hot. Nothing to rave over.



No auntie note at all because this place is NOT WORTH GOING


Kamado

313 Orchard Road#01-14 313 @ Somerset
Tel: +65 6735 5725