Pappasan

We spotted this deal from Deals.com, for Pappasan at Dorsett. Since Dorsett is within walking distance from our workplace, we decided its a nice idea to have a good lunch. So after asking around for the total number of interested parties, I bought the deals.

The deal was straightforward: A 4-course set lunch at a discounted price ($19.90) from their usual price ($35++). When we were seated we were served by an annoyingly clueless waitress. Her face was blank when we asked anything at all, and the responses she gave suggests she either wasn't listening, or couldn't understand what I was saying. It took me a while to realise that language seemed to be a barrier and I switched to ordering in Mandarin. It got a little less annoying after that. But, it's after all a hotel, so I expect that staff should be well-versed in English for the international guests, so I daresay I'm pretty disappointed in this aspect.

Menu

The soup of the day was pumpkin soup. It was warm and creamy and actually pretty nice. Pity it was only half a bowl. This was followed by a Caesar salad. With it's slices of parmesan and crusty croutons, it was a pretty standard Caesar salad. Blame my laziness to blog nowadays, I can't remember much about the shrimp in the salad.

Pumpkin soup

Shrimp Caesar salad

We were given 4 options of main course. I opted for the grilled salmon because I was too lazy to deal with a half-chicken, and didn't trust their steak. Crispy skin, flakey meat. Actually very nice salmon. The fried angel hair pasta served with the fish is reminiscent of our local fried bee hoon. That single leave of bok chay didn't help. Somehow the very asian 'fried bee hoon' and bok chay didn't match with the very western grilled fish and tomato sauce. Still, I finished them anyway, although separately so that the clash wasn't quite so obvious.

Grilled Salmon

Many of the others went for the ribeye steak or roast half-chicken. I tried a little of each. The chicken was ok. Not dry, well-seasoned. Not bad at all. The steak was pretty average. It wasn't amazing, yet it wasn't horrible. I was in a way glad I didn't opt for it because I think it would have triggered a craving for very good steak. Both the chicken and steak came with little 'fryer meshes' of fries. So for my table of six (we were split into two tables of six), we had four meshes, and 4 not-so-fries people. So despite my salmon didn't come with fries, I think I polished off almost 2 meshes alone. Thank goodness N was there with us and she LOVE fries, so she help polish off the other two. Few places can make BAD fries so it's usually safe to say they are decent.

Roast half chicken

Ribeye steak

The meal comes with two options for desserts. Fruits, or brownie with ice cream. Ever since I start baking regularly, I tend to eschew desserts that are potentially 'instant-mix'. Set lunch brownies falls under that category so I opted for fruit. Turns out it was a good choice, because the brownie was too sweet for my palate. My own fault probably, since I tend to cut ALOT of sugar in my baking, I was getting used to my low levels of sweetness. But sugar level aside, the brownie was a pretty nice textured, not-quite-instant-mix brownie.

Fruits

Brownie with ice cream

The set came with free-flow coffee and tea, so we were all pretty alert after the meal, with little or no food coma. Haaa. But we probably won't be back, because the original price isn't quite so worth it. And the waitress was really annoyingly stupid. I never felt so much urge to knock a server on the head before. And extremely unhelpful. When I asked her for a spoon, she told me to go to the coffee counter to get it myself. Whatever happened to a 4-star hotel service??

Arashi Yakiniku

This was a Groupon deal we came across. Free flow wagyu beef on a charcoal grill sounded great. So we bought it, and went for it. The original cost of the buffet is $78++. With our Groupon, it was $50 or so, so much more manageable.

The charcoals were HOT! I reached the restaurant after a pretty brisk walk and was hoping to cool off in the air conditioned restaurant but fat chance. The heat radiating from the charcoal grill had be hiding at one corner of the table trying to be as far away from the heat as possible. They had some side dishes of marinated cold veggies and mushrooms, which I liked and finished. Lynn did not notice or touch them at all.

Super hot charcoals

Side dishes

It's nice that everyone will have their own tongs for raw meats, so that you can reserve your chopsticks and spoons for the cooked food. Each setting came with a wedge of lemon, soya sauce as well as a sesame dip. I love sesame sauces!!

Table setting

The buffet includes sashimi, so here we are spamming salmon and swordfish sashimi. I actually cannot remember them, so I can't comment whether they were good or bad.

Sashimi

We ordered mushrooms and salmon for grilling, and these came in little aluminium trays with sauces, and we just pop the trays onto the grill. It's fantastic because the food could cook in the delicious sauces and were well flavored. We liked the salmon, and ordered more of it. The mushrooms were yummy too. And the best part is, we kept the trays for cooking our subsequent orders of seafood such as squids, so that we don't drop our squid pieces down the grill. =D

Mushroom and salmon

They had a good variety of veggies too, so I ordered pumpkin, asparagus and capsicums to neutralise the meat we know we will be overdoing.

Veggies

The works. We ordered a huge variety of meats. Pork belly, chicken slices, beef slices, sausages etc. As well as prawns and squids. The pork and the beef were DELICIOUS!! Very fatty (ok, maybe too fatty), we were having a lot of fire start ups. Thankfully the first round was very kindly cooked by the waitress, who showed us how we should hide the fatty meats at the side of the grill, so that less oil drip into the hot charcoals and less fire gets started up. Still, we had a lot of "fireworks" going on.

The works

We actually really enjoyed the meats. The marinates were good, the meats juicy and yummy. Only downside is, they are so fat (hence the juicy), we got very gelat (cloying) very fast. So I guess that's how they limit the food you order. The seafood were nice too. But we got sooo sick of the meat fats, somewhere along the way Lynn started ordering watermelon to eat in the middle of the meal to balance off the fattiness with the refreshing, sweet and cold fruit.

We did like the place, just found the original cost way too hefty. No chance we will come back without a Groupon, but hey, I'll keep a lookout for deals from this restaurant.

Arashi Yaniniku

No. 48 Boatquay

Singapore 049837
Tel: 65352841

Poteato

Ok, so we've visited Forty Hands many times. Poteato is just next door, so of course we've seen it before. Then JP told us he preferred Poteato's food to Forty Hands, then we HAD to try it out. So on a night when J, XP and I were working late (ok, rarity for me but common for them), we decided that it was THE day to try it out. Moreover it was located nearer to the carpark for me. =P

Their menu isn't huge, but as the name suggests, they have a large variety of potatoes. So to start off, we had truffle fries and sweet potato fries. The truffle fries was alright. Not a whole lot of truffle flavor, but its there. Although we liked the sweet potato fries, it had a hint of something. A flavor that was so familiar, yet I couldn't place it. Until XP pointed out it tasted a little like curry puff, then it hit me. Curry powder. They flavored their sweet potato fries with curry powder. Surprising, but not unpleasant. And the way it was served in that paper bag is so rustic.

Lemon tea

Truffle fries

Sweet potato fries

Their menus came with a detailed picture of one dish per menu. So between the three of us, we had three pictures to look at. Other than that one picture, the menu is entirely in words. After some deliberation, we settled for Salmon with roast potato for me, herb grilled chicken with potato salad for J, and bangers and mash for XP. J was initially so interested in the bangers and mash, because in the detailed picture, there was caramelized onions on the plate, and she have a huge weakness for caramelized onions. And it wasn't just there on the picture, there were text pointing it out from the picture. She settled for the chicken in the end because she wasn't big on sausages, and XP assured her he will share the onions.

Turns out, there were no caramelized onions on the bangers and mash, much to her disappointment. Granted, no mention of caramelized onions on the description of the dish in the menu itself. Only in that one picture. But I think the restaurant should not have put that picture highlighting the caramelized onion if it's not going to be on your plate. But that aside, the sausages were juicy, in fact, too juicy. XP accidentally squirted the juices to the next table when he cut his sausage. Thankfully it didn't hit the lady, only the chair. The mashed potato was creamy and yummy.

I liked how the salmon was cooked, moist and flakey. But my complaint was that the roast potatoes were cold. I understand that roast potatoes have to be done ahead because it needs time, but really, they should have heated it up before serving it to me! J was happy with her chicken. Her potato salad, being a salad, is expected to be cold so it was fine.

Salmon with roast potatoes

Herb grilled chicken with potato salad

Bangers and mash

Overall we did enjoy ourselves. The restaurant is cosy, and we were seated next to an indoor window - part of the decor. It was a little weird that there's another table right at the other side of that wall at the window, so you're really sitting side by side with a stranger. I was so tempted to close that panelled window. Thankfully the restaurant wasn't crowded so that seat was vacated pretty fast. The food, though nice, didn't have a wow factor. Not something that I will remember and want very much to return for. 

Poteato

78, Yong Siak Street, 

#01-18, 

Singapore 163078

Tel: 6221 2488

Porky Pork

I needed to collect a free cabin baggage (complimentary from Citibank when I signed up for credit cards) from The Central, and since I didn't fancy lugging it around, I wanted to drive there to pick it up. The opportunity arose when J wanted to check out some serviced apartment at River Valley area. Since Central is along the way, we decided we could stop by The Central, eat lunch, pick up my free gift, then head to River Valley, before returning to office.

We had once spotted Porky Pork while waiting for our Gong Cha previously. So we decided that's where we would go for lunch. Between the five of us, we decided on sharing a Porky Pork platter for 4 pax, and an addition beef brisket. The platter comes with 4 buns or rice, and the brisket 1. We all opted for buns.

The platter consist of roasted pork belly, hungarian sausages, and pulled pork. The roasted pork belly was crispy, and sinfully yummy. The sausage is good as all sausages are. The pulled pork were nicely marinated, and goes really well with the buns. The sides were bland and boring.

Porky Pork Platter

Mac n cheese and mashed potatoes

The beef brisket was tender, but a little on a dry, apparent from the photo. Yet it was flavorful, and and doesn't have the typical overly beefy taste that briskets sometimes have.

Beef brisket

Buns

It wasn't too expensive, coming up to maybe about $10 each. However, sitting capacity in the cafe is pretty small. And upon my googling now, I discovered that they have closed down. This phenomenon is more common to restaurants that Lynn blog. She have a tendency to blog about restaurants that subsequently close down. I think as of now her 'curse rate' is about 20%. Even an unfortunate restaurant, which she intended to write badly about but never got around to, was at the mercy of her curse. Me, 2 out of about 100 posts. Not too bad at all...

Porky Pork

Haramiya Japanese BBQ

Ok, this will be a highly contradictory post. Because although they are supposedly a Japanese BBQ restaurant, I opt to call them a... confused BBQ restaurant. But confusion aside. we love their food. We found this place really by roaming through Clarke Quay Central after gym, and settling for this because we were wanting meat, and what better way to satisfy meat craving than a BBQ buffet.

Buffet menu

The reason I call them confused? I'm seeing the standard Korean BBQ food and sides in a JAPANESE BBQ joint. First confusion: spicy bean paste and lettuce for the BBQ meats, kimchi as starters. Whatever happened to edamame, raw cabbage and non-spicy miso paste?

Bean paste chilli, kimchi and lettuce

Then off the cooked food menu comes the next two confusions: bibimbap and kimchi soup. Mainstays of Korean cuisine, in a supposed Japanese restaurant. Contradictions aside, the bibimbap was actually quite yummy. You may be wondering why we ordered rice in a buffet. It's because we came after gym workout and were ravenous! Moreover two person to a bowl of rice wasn't too bad. The kimchi soup was nice too. Warm and mildly spicy, it was pleasant to slurp while waiting for our other food to cook on the grill.

Bibimbap

Kimchi soup

The meats were less confused, although the few I showed here had western influences. Garlic chicken with cheese - we weren't impressed. Kaburi beef with butter garlic - while the Kaburi beef was yum, the butter garlic was forgettable. We did love the scallop though. It grilled beautifully and was sweet and delicious.

Scallop, garlic chicken with cheese

Kaburi with butter garlic

Food not shown included the salmon in foil pack, which ended up very overcooked by the time the accompanying mushrooms were cooked. We really loved the Kaburi beef and Rosa beef. The Kaburi with bone was also nice. These beef didn't dry out into tough pieces after grilling, but retain their tenderness and juiciness. Pork wise we ordered pork toro and Samgyeopsal (Korean sounding again, doesn't it?). Although as far as I'm concerned they both refer to pork belly in different languages, the pork toro came as rectangular slices of well marbled fatty pork, whereas the Samgyeopsal was an entire length of pork belly in its three layers. Weirdest thing is the Samgyeopsal was served on a bed of kimchi. Really? Did they expect me to eat kimchi that had a piece of raw meat sitting on it? Or did they expect me to grill the kimchi? Between the two we preferred the pork toro and spammed it quite a fair bit, as it grills into a very juicy bite. 

Grilling food

We liked their potato with butter. I think we got corn with butter on a separate occasion and liked it too. Their ginger chicken was bland and hopelessly dry. The pumpkin came as slices, which on our first try were too thick and didn't cook through by the time they burnt on the outside. But on a second occasion it was the perfect thickness and cooked nicely.

Potato with butter

We've been there twice, and both times left stuffed and satisfied. They have a 10 items per order rule which they aren't too stringent about. And their grill is the kind with the ventilation vents at the side, so you don't leave smelling like BBQ. Unfortunately our gym had moved to a new place, so chances is we're less likely to be back for post-gym dinners. But I still like it and may just bring my colleagues back.


Haramiya Japanese BBQ
6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-87

The Central

Singapore 151897

Tel: 6534 9468