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...