食客 Ssikkek Korean Grill BBQ (Oriental Plaza)

Had seen this Korean BBQ place at Chinatown when my bus went pass before. Noted that This Fashion had finally closed down and seems to be replaced by something more useful. And then I walked pass it once and smelled the grilling meats. So did Lynn on a separate occasion. This aroma prompted us to arrange for a dinner there.

It's a buffet only restaurant. We reached pretty early about 6.30pm, before the crowd started. Our table was set up, and we headed for the buffet table. I picked up a full plate of meat - various parts and marinates of chicken, pork and beef. Also got lots and lots of lettuce. And kimchi. And some kind of braised chicken and fried Korean vermicelli to stave our hunger while our meats cooked.

Lettuce and kimchi

The meats

Meat cooking... woo hoo!!

We were so stuffing ourselves with the pork belly. And some random parts of beef. I couldn't quite remember which is which by the time I got back to the table. Because the meats were just left out at the buffet table, we didn't feel too good about not cooking the beef through. This resulted in many pieces of tough beef. Pork and chicken were doing much better. And I think we were too hungry and just kept putting things on the grill. Ended up accumulating a big plate of cooked food. Because we didn't eat as fast as we cooked, some got cold and became tougher...

Cooked meats

Subsequently a cooked food counter started, and we got ourselves a wrap. Don't ask me what this is doing in a Korean BBQ restaurant. All I can say is its actually quite yummy.

Beef wrap

The buffet also includes free-flow white rice (which we obviously skipped), and two kinds of soup. A seaweed clear soup, as well as a kimchi soup. I really liked the seaweed one and had two bowls. It was very light, and nicely counters the meat overdose I was doing to myself. Forgot to take pictures of those. Later part of the evening, fried rice cakes also appeared on the cooked food section. Since we were getting full, we only took one each to sample. Yummy.

Drinks were free flow, and this area had iced water, an overly sweet lemonade we diluted with water, and a selection of soft drinks. There's also a variety of salads and sides and some fruits available.

Overall I think the spread is pretty good, for the price ($26 ish maybe?). The place did get quite crowded later part, so better to go early if possible. Lynn's comment was that the Kpop songs playing in the background was quite mismatched with the Kpop concerts showing on the TVs. Think a fast song playing while the person on TV obviously looked like he is serenading to a love song....

The food is actually quite nice, but we prefer the Korean BBQ at City Square. Mainly because there's that really nice cold noodles available there, and that the meats there are brought out from the fridge only when you order them. Gives you a fresher, less fly-fed feel. But this one may be more value-for-money to some, since drinks is included. We are fine with iced water so that's not an issue to us. In both cases, you leave the restaurant really really smelling like BBQ... They really need to do something about the ventilation...

Kitagawa Restaurant

Another Groupon place. This caught my attention because firstly, the name of the restaurant is the last name of someone I know. Secondly, because it's at Orchid Country Club at Yishun, just minutes walk away from home. Lynn didn't want to try it out with me because it's too far for her. I asked PE instead, because she also stays in Yishun. 

The deal was at $35 for a Shabu Shabu Buffet. If you compare it to Shabuya, it sounds somewhat on par value-wise. This was another reason why Lynn didn't want to try. She feels that if it's going to cost the same, she rather go back to the tried and trusted place. The deal's only limitation is that only one portion of seafood is allowed. But when we saw the portion of the given seafood, it is actually more than enough.

The restaurant was pretty quiet, probably because of its out-of-the-way location. We started off with trying the soup base. It was the sweet kind of broth, which we liked actually. We were then very quickly served with a portion of beef, a portion of pork, a huge plate of seafood and another huge plate of veggies. The seafood platter contained prawns, scallops, chunks of fish and imitation crab claws. The vegetable platter included carrots, tofu, white cabbage, leeks, broccoli, vermicelli, and shitake, straw, oyster and golden mushrooms.

The thing I liked most here is that they actually cut the white cabbage stalk region into thin strips. This meant that they cooked very fast. I love well-cooked white cabbage stalk, but it usually takes forever to soften, so this was a plus for them. The meats were sliced less thinly than some other places, so took a little longer than the usual swish-swish to cook. This resulted in slightly tougher meat. Moreover the beef was just regular beef and not wagyu, another reason why Lynn shunned this deal. Still, it was pretty ok. The prawns were pretty fresh, and the scallops were very sweet too. The imitation crab claws weren't quite the usual crab sticks. Their's were sweeter, but tend to disintegrate after too long in the soup. I liked it initially, but found it too cloyingly sweet towards the end. The fish was the annoying part. The chunks were bony and huge. Wasn't nice at all.

Towards the end we found even the soup overly cloying. Had to request for iced water on top of the tea to balance out the sweetness. But we threw in the vermicelli at the end. The glassy noodles soaked up the essence of the soup, and was a nice touch to the meal. We very stupidly asked for an additional serving of vegetables. On hindsight, we should have ordered the meats which would have been less filling and more worth the money... But we liked the white cabbage and vermicelli so much!!

Shabu soup

Beef

Pork

Seafood

Veggies

Overall the meal was so-so, but it was such great fun to catch up with PE, and we left really stuffed to the brim. Lynn was right about Shabuya being a better place to visit for the same price, since food quality is better. But I have to applause Kitagawa for one thing. We actually overstayed pass their closing time, and the service staff was so polite that they didn't shoo us out. We kept thinking that there was this other table of patrons in the restaurant, so didn't feel the pressure to leave. However, when we finally left and walked pass that said table, the whole table said 'thank you and come again' to us. They were the kitchen staff!! That was when I saw some of the waitresses already changed out of their uniforms and were ready to leave...  Felt so bad that we were delaying their knock-off time...

Love it that I got home very quickly after the meal, a rarity for me, staying so out of the way. However, not likely I'll be back here since the food wasn't fantastic. And without a groupon, wasn't cheap too...

Da Lian Traditional Noodles

Came by this corner little eatery quite by chance. It was one of those Friday evenings which W and me were both hubby-less. I needed to pick up something I bought from Deals.com, and she agreed to accompany me.

We collected my purchase quickly enough near Lavender, and then proceeded to walk vaguely in the direction towards Jalan Besar in hope of finding to place to eat. Saw this small corner shop selling noodles and BBQ chicken, and we decided that it will do. Upon closer inspection, we saw that they had scalded cockles too. So our dinner was two bowls of dry traditional fishball noodles, two BBQ wings and a plate of scalded cockles.

The whole 小吃店 (directly translated to snack shop, but actually is a loose term for these little shophouse eateries that doesn't fit the description of neither kopitiam nor hawker centre) seemed to be under the same management. We placed our orders for food from apparently different stalls all with the fishball noodle uncle. And payment was made in total.

View from across the road

The wings came first and we were pretty happy. It was nicely done, and the tangy chilli provided matched the chicken nicely. The noodles were pretty good too, springy with bits of chilli flakes in them, suggesting a homemade chilli. The fishballs were alright. The cockles were fresh and cooked just nicely, so that they weren't over bloody, yet weren't overcooked to rubbery. However, the chilli provided were the ones for the chicken. Even though that went with the chicken perfectly, I prefer my cockles with more garlicky chilli. So that part was a miss. But given we both hadn't had cockles for some time, we enjoyed it nonetheless.

BBQ chicken wings

Fishball minced meat noodle

Scalded cockles

Overall we did enjoy our simple little dinner in this accidental find. Not entirely likely I'll find myself in that area again and not likely I'll make an intentional trip there to eat either. BUT if I ever happen to be in the area close to mealtime, I'll definitely find my way back there for some yum.

Akari Japanese Dining and Bar

Another fine dining place that went on our radar through Groupon. Lynn noticed it because of the words "A4 grade wagyu beef". Sounds promising. And the rest of the menu looked good too, so we bought it. After the beef-wise unsatisfying 7Adam dinner, we were pretty quick to arrange for dinner at Akari. This restaurant is tucked away at Marina Bay Link Mall. I found myself walking against the homebound crowd while walking there from the MRT station.

Menu

There was a one-for-one promotion for their Sapporo beer, so we ordered that. The first appetizer was beautifully served in a martini glass. It was a cold Somen - shredded mountain yam served with a lime sauce. That's the little glass at the side that we poured over the yam. It was cold and refreshing, and the seaweed added a nice touch to it. The second appetizer was minced saba fish. The fish was nicely done without being overly 'fishy', and we really like those crunchy little stuff at the side, though we haven't got the faintest clue what they were.

Nagaimo Somen

Minced Saba Fish with Japanese Green Pepper

This was followed by a tuna salad. The tuna was actually a thick piece of sashimi, lightly grilled on the outside before being sliced into thick pieces. Lynn isn't huge on tuna sashimi. The grilled part she handled ok. The internal raw part she struggled a little. I couldn't quite help her as I already had three thick slices of my own. I liked it actually. The grilling added a depth to the tuna. The accompanying salad was pretty nice, though somewhat limited in amount, as you can see.

Lightly Grilled Tuna Salad with Ginger Sauce

Next came the chawan-mushi (steamed egg). Their's had a generous layer of salmon roe on top of the egg. I found the roe, and the accompanying liquid, a little on the salty side. But if you have it together with the egg, it was ok. A pretty normal chawan-mushi I guess.

Ikura Chawan-Mushi

Finally we arrived at the main course. The options was either pan-fried Kagoshima A4 grade wagyu beef, or pan-fried hamburger patty-style Kagoshima wagyu beef. We both agreed that patty-style is a waste of good wagyu beef, and decided to order the A4 grade beef. That came with two options for sauces, and we ordered one of each - garlic sauce and sesame sauce.

Both beef had the wagyu wow aroma we loved, however, one of it (I can't remember which) had a blander piece of meat - inadequate seasoning probably. Between the sauces, I preferred the garlic sauce, probably because it was more saltish and able to cover the blandness of the meat. But the beef just wasn't as impressive as some other wagyu we had tried. Still, it hit the spot much better than 7Adam did. We did have some blissful moments of pausing to savor the aroma of the fats.

Pan-fried A4 grade Kagoshima wagyu beef with sesame sauce

Pan-fried A4 grade Kagoshima wagyu beef with garlic sauce

The last savory dish was a minced wagyu beef fried rice. This one had both hits and misses. The hit was definitely the beef. Although the description said minced, they were in reality cubed wagyu beef. And there were several pieces with good amount of marbling in them. Both of us went into the blissful mode quite a few times. The miss? It's the seasoning. It was very one-dimensionally seasoned with salt. Just a single flavor permeating the entire dish. No sweetness or spiciness to counter it. In the end we both didn't finish our rice, just picked through to make sure no beef were missed.

Wagyu beef fried rice

Generous portions of beef cubes

Look at the marbling on the meat...

Another one with marbling

The meal was completed with dessert, a Yuzu sherbet. I've always liked yuzu, opting for yuzu tea whenever I spot it on menus. I liked this sherbet of course - cold, sweet, sour and tangy all at the same time. A really refreshing end to the meal.

Overall the dining experience was pretty enjoyable. The food was good, and the service prompt. We doubt we will come back, mainly because it really didn't impress us the way some places does. It's price doesn't really help too. I doubt I would have visited it ever, without a Groupon. With so many restaurants putting up promotions on Groupon, we are generating a really long list of places to go. Not to mention places we've already visited and liked. To make us return, I guess these places really have to impress us. So far I must admit few had managed that.