Old Tiong Bahru Bak Kut Teh

I sincerely apologize for the fact that our blog mainly feature restaurants. It's not that I despise hawker centres or coffeeshops, I do eat at those places very often and in fact, grew up a hawker kid. It's just that usually I reach these places horribly hungry, and proceed to wolf down my food without thinking about blogging about them. And because many of these places are frequent haunts, somehow it become such a normal thing to be there that it really doesn't occur to me that I should take photos to show. Just like how I always forget photos at Chinese restaurants because my natural instinct is to fight with my cousins for the food the moment it is set down on the table (although that is changing these days because of the more polite significant-others that will give way to us uncivilized people). So I decided that this should change. Slowly. I can't promise that I will remember to take photos before I tuck in, but I will try. There are so many hawker food that I love, and do think that they are worth sharing. So here goes the first hawker post.

We were thinking of somewhere to have lunch other than the two usual canteen and coffeeshop - these were ok, but get boring. So J thought of going for a Bak Kut Teh (direct translation: pork rib tea) lunch. Instead of heading out to Song Fa where we usually go when the craving hits and the time permits, he thought that we can hunt out a nearer one. He knew that there's one that's quite renowned in the Tiong Bahru market area, but wasn't sure of the exact location. Nothing Google can't solve, and the location was pinpointed in no time. It didn't have a rave review on HungryGoWhere.com, but neither did Song Fa, which we liked. So no harm giving it a shot.

It was a relatively nice day (how nice can Singapore get anyway), so we decided to walk. Got there in about 15 minutes. The staff were like super speeded Mario, zipping around efficiently. The moment we sat down, our table was set with chilli, chopsticks and spoons, wet towels, and dishes of you tiao (fried fritters - which we didn't ask for actually). We placed orders for a bak kut teh with rice each, and a plate of stir-fried tapioca leaves and preserved vegetables to share. Plus Chinese tea.

The tea set was brought up very quickly, but we found it very dirty. Got the attention of one of the uncles zipping around and tried to tell him that we wanted a cleaner set. In his 'efficiency', he somehow misunderstood us and proceeded to make our tea for us in a jiffy. Ah well, dirty eat dirty grow up (la sap jia la sap tua - a freqently used dialect phrase). The tea was very strong, literally tea-expresso... I think it kept me awake for a good part of the afternoon. Everything else arrived equally quickly. I felt that I was having an accelerated lunch.

The soup here is less aromatic than Song Fa's, less herbal and less peppery I think. J say he remembered their ribs being much more tender before. I guess standards dropped with commercialization. The vegetables were so so. At least so normal that I actually don't remember them. I didn't like how the chilli were so soaked in the soya sauce that they had turned black. Looked super unappetizing and I didn't use them at all. Only ate the chilli padi we requested for and were given without soya sauce. They topped up our soups at our request (for free). It was, however, quite uncomfortable to drink hot soup on a hot day at a somewhat outdoor table under a extension shelter. Didn't know why I signed up for that when I knew I perspire easily...

Zoom in to the lead actor

When the bill came, I was a little surprised. We ended up paying slightly pass $10 each. Considering it was a non-air-conditioned place, the price was a little steep. I tried to calculate how it got to that price, and it seems that the small plate fried tapioca leaves was going at $10 or more... Eek. It wasn't as good as Song Fa, which is priced similarly (maybe a little lower, I think we usually pay about $9, inclusive of cold drinks) but air conditioned. Next time the craving hits, we probably will take the effort to go a little further for more dependable Bak Kut Teh. Lynn told me there's an even better one (but more expensive) at Tanjong Pagar. Wonder if I can kidnap my colleagues there some day?

MEDZS (Orchard Central and Millennia Walk)

It was our company D&D, but since our whole lab managed to miss the deadline for registration, we didn't get to go. So, we planned for our own little D&D. After asking around for suggestions, we finally decided on MEDZS. It is essentially a Marche-style Mediterranean restaurant.

Since we're a pretty big group (about 10 of us agreed to go), I called up for reservations. They had an interesting policy: Friday reservations is only allowed up til 6pm. So I made the reservation for 6pm, and crossed my fingers that at least some of us will be able to get there on time to hold the table. We didn't. The 'advance party' only reached at 6.30pm. Thankfully it was still early enough for the restaurant to be pretty empty, and we still get our seat. The remainder of the party reached about 7.30pm.

When you enter the restaurant, you get a card each. That will be your 'credit card' for the whole meal. At each 'stall', you 'pay' for your order using the card. Total bill will be tabulated at the cashier at the exit. Nice system for big groups going dutch. You only pay for what you ordered.

Of course advance party people were famished. So we hunted for food first. We took awhile to go through all the stalls, look through all the options, before we place our orders. I got a mushroom soup (cos too hungry to wait for other food), a rosti with smoked salmon to share, and a seafood paella. J got a beef with mushroom and cheese kebab with pita bread. YJ got a lamb shank and some vegetable skewers to share, while XP a lamb leg. All beers were going at 1-for-1, so we ordered 2 sets to get 4. The nice thing about MEDZS is their beeper system. When you place your order, you get a beeper. You can then go back to your table and wait peacefully until the beeper rings. Then do you need to go back to collect your food. The reason I say it's a nice system is because at Marche's, I had, on several occasions, had to make a few trips back to the stall to check on my order status, only to see someone who placed order after me get their food first because the stall personnel got confused.

The mushroom soup was pretty good, the creamy kind with lots and lots of mushroom bits. The lamb shank and lamb leg were fork-tender, and did not have the overpowering 'muttony' smell. XP's lamb leg did turn out to have quite a lot of tendon that he had to struggle chewing through. In this aspect, the lamb shank was better, because the tendon had all been cooked to a soft, melty state. The beef kebab was very flavorful, and went well with the pita bread. Only drawback was its portion. Too big for one person, so we had to help Jamie with it. I guess it's better for sharing. On first bite my paella was quite good, with sweetness from the fresh seafood. But it got boring after I'm midway through, because it's the same taste throughout. The rosti here is softer and fluffier than Marche's. While I preferred this one, I understand that different people have different preferences for their rosti. E preferred Marche's one.

The rest arrived and went off to get their orders, and pretty much came back with somewhat similar things. The kebab and pita were definitely the most popular orders. Seeing it was E's birthday two days later, we went to the dessert stall on the pretext of getting desserts for ourselves. We then secretly arranged for a slice of cake to be delivered to our table. We waited and waited, and when we had waited til we stopped looking out for the cake's arrival, we were suddenly surprised shocked by the sudden outburst of a birthday song from a group of waiters walking in our direction. E's back was facing them, and he was mumbling that he hope that it wasn't his. Unfortunately or fortunately, it was. He had to stuff it down on top of his one and a half pita (he helped finished J's) and kebab.

Mushroom soup

Lamb leg

Lab shank

Vegetable and mushroom skewers

Seafood paella

Rosti with smoked salmon

Beef kebab with mushroom and cheese and pita

I actually spotted foie gras at one of the stalls, but it doesn't cut it as a main, yet I don't want my colleagues to feel obliged to satisfy my cravings with me. Will come back with Lynn one day to try that out. Overall I felt that MEDZS is a great place to visit for big groups, because the variety means that everyone can probably find something they like.


UPDATE

This update serves two purpose.

1) Lynn and me went back to try their foie gras so here's updating what we ate

2) I found a few search terms with MEDZS and 'vegetarian option' together arriving at our blog, and realized I actually didn't address that except adding it into the label. So here I'll try to elaborate a little.


So we decided to try their foie gras, and instead of the OC branch, we went to the Millennia Walk one. After taking turns for several trips walking around the restaurant, we settled for too much food as usual. We ordered a foie gras from the Italian appetizers list (I kept looking for mains but couldn't find it. I believe the OC branch had one at the French stall as a main), escargots in cream based sauce from the French stall, rosti with cured salmon, pork belly paella, beef shish kebab and beef hot plate with pita from the Turkish stall, cream of mushroom, and rounded up the meal with a chocolate souffle and a creme brulee.

Since it was a weekday night, the restaurant wasn't very crowded. The result was a very good service. Whenever our beepers go off, a waiter will come and get it from us, collect the food item from the stall, and bring it to us. We rarely have to get up ourselves to get the food. The escargots were served very prettily. The flesh had a perfect chew to it, resistant to the teeth without being overly tough and rubbery. The cream sauce was ok, but we prefer the usual garlic butter sauces served in many other places. The foie gras were two small pieces served on a bed of caramelized apple on a toasted bread. The texture of the foie gras was great - crisp exterior with a melt-in-your-mouth interior. The livery taste was strong and got us both really excited. This was nicely complemented by the sweet apple.

We had a lot of ordering errors that ended up working to our favor. My pork belly paella was heard wrongly as pork belly skewer. And my pita was omitted in the Turkish stall. Thank goodness for these mistakes, as we were too stuffed without all the carbo anyway!! The beef shish kebab was very tough, not sure if all beef shish kebabs are supposed to be like that. This is my second try, (first time being TheButcher's), and I seem to be forming the idea that maybe this is the norm. The souffle served with vanilla ice cream was quite nice. The creme brulee had a too thick and hard burnt sugar topping.

Escargots

Foie gras

Chocolate souffle

Vegetarian food wise, it really depends on how strict a vegetarian you are. There are the rosti, vegetable skewers, vegetarian pastas, pizzas and paellas. And of course most desserts are lacto-ovo-vegetarian friendly. Bear in mind that these are cooked on vessels that probably had contained meat at some point or other, so the reason for me saying its dependent on how strict you are. I'm sure many other restaurants are like, just that their kitchens aren't open to the public eye. If you're ok with that, this is a nice restaurant for vegetarian and non-vegetarians to have a gathering.

Le Bistrot Du Sommelier

This was the last, untried steak place found on Cnngo's best steak in Singapore list. Coincidentally, my boss mentioned that this is the one place in Singapore with 'real tomatoes', as opposed to the 'round red things that are called tomatoes but taste like cardboard' (quoting him). This place's star dish was supposed to be the 1kg bone-in steak. Since 1kg sounds like a lot, Lynn and me decided we need more stomachs. So recruited I and D to join us for this carnivorous dinner. Since most reviews recommended reservations in advance, I placed reservation about 2 weeks early.

Initially we were given a menu to browse. I couldn't find the 1kg steak anywhere and I started wondering whether it was supposed to be an advanced order item. Later, the server came by with a blackboard stand with the meat menu scribbled on it. Was delighted to find the Cote de Boeuf on it. =) On top of a medium rare steak, we ordered chicken liver pate (described on a blog I visited as 'divine'. We gave the foie gras here a miss because we were quite sure it wasn't pan-fried, and Lynn and me really love the ooziness of the pan-fried ones. We also ordered 2 dishes of escargots (6 escargots for 4 person is really inadeaquate), and another main dish of oven roasted chicken with 40 garlic cloves. Since the chicken comes with a herbed potato (I can't remember the name), we chose potato gratin and some kind of salad as sides for the steak. Couldn't find my boss's 'real tomatoes' anywhere on the menu.

The 'divine' chicken liver pate was served with some toasty bread, and some green plant that uneducated me don't recognize. Somehow, I couldn't taste the divine-ness of the pate when I spread it on the bread. Subsequently tried some by itself, and yeah, I think I could understand what that blogger trying to say. Weakly rich, slightly salty, with the livery taste at the back of your throat and a slight spicy kick at the end of it. The bread does cover off the livery taste, which will explain why I failed to detect the divine-ness initially.

Chicken liver pate

The escargots were a little different from the usual butter and garlic ones. Theirs were shell-less ones, completely smothered in a dishful of herby olive oil sauce, with bits of tomatoes. The texture of the snails were just right - good resistance to the teeth without being overly chewy. Nicely complemented by the herbs and tomatoes. We liked it.

Escargots

When the roasted chicken first appeared out of the kitchen, Lynn wondered aloud who in the world will order claypot rice in a French restaurant. When it was delivered to our table, we realized it was us. Haha... But when it was set down, it was sooooooo fragrant that I think all four of us literally drooled. Buttery, with the rich fragrance of garlic. The chicken was tender, and soaked up all the flavors of the butter sauce. I couldn't help thinking it would have been fantastic to go with rice. Maybe bread to soak up the gravy would have been great too. But too much may not be a good thing. Four of us sharing one pot made it memorable. Had it been a main course for one, I think I'll be sick midway through because of the richness.

Oven roasted chicken with 40 garlic cloves

The star arrived finally - our 1 kg bone-in meat. It was sliced out for us and arranged nicely in a circle on the plate. We ordered it medium rare, only to find D prefer medium well. So we started pointing out the not so bloody pieces and reserve those for her, while more bloody the meat that was near the bone were quickly reserved for Lynn. The meat was tender, and because of the bone-in during the cooking process, very well flavored. The sauteed onions piled on it were tender and sweet, and really went well with the meat. Pity is that because of the large size, and the fact that it was sliced up, by the time I got to the third piece, it was cold. It was still a very good piece of meat, a surprise considering this wasn't a steakhouse. The gratin was recommended by the server and was pretty good. I forgot about the other two so I guess were so-so.

Cote du Boeuf

Side dishes of potato gratin, salad and herbed potato

Finally it was dessert time. We ordered creme brulee and a waffle with ice cream. The creme brulee was OH-SO-NICE!! You can see the vanilla beans in them. So light and yet creamy at the same time, and the vanilla taste was subtly rich. The burnt caramel top was crispy and complemented the creaminess totally. It was soo good that we ordered one more.

Creme Brulee

Waffle

The bistrot was quite noisy on the day we went because of a very big group of caucasians a few table away. I think as the night progressed, they had more drinks, and got rowdier. And of course the price here for a 'bistrot' was quite challenging for the pocket. Not a place I will visit regularly for fear of an empty bank account. It was a very nice catch-up session with the two girls though. Next time, I think Lynn and me can do the escargots, the steak, and the creme brulee if we can't find kakis.

Parsley and Thyme

J had recommended this new restaurant along Kampong Bahru Road since last year. We never got around to visiting it until recently. Still, 'recently' is about a month ago, and my memory fails me on the itsy bitsy details such as names and prices. I try my best to be as accurate as possible but I may be a little off.

HY, J and me visited it one fine afternoon when boss was overseas and we had the luxury of a longer lunch. J said we missed their opening promotion where all the lunch set meals were going at $14.90 The current lunch set meals now are split into two category. They have a pasta set lunch, and a more expensive executive set lunch going at $24.90. The pasta set lunch goes at $14.90, and includes a soup, a pasta, a coffee/tea, and a gelato dessert. From what I understand, the items changes everyday. The more expensive set lunch includes almost the same things, but the main course is a fish or meat. And I think it's dessert is more fancy.

All three of us got the pasta set, which had a cream of broccoli soup, a cream based mushroom pasta, and a gelato dessert. I forgot the photo for the soup and dessert. But they were pretty good. The soup was rich, and the serving adequate for lunch. I liked the pasta for the added cherry tomatoes. Cream sauces usually means cloying richness. The tomatoes added a tartness to the cream and balancing the richness. The gelato tasted homemade - blueberry gelato served by the chef himself.

J said the chef always make sure he serves at least one of the courses personally. A rotund Caucasian guy who looks very much the cook. For a small restaurant, their service was pretty immaculate. We probably will make our way back here again when we have the luxury of a long lunch.

Shabuya

I had some errands to run at VivoCity, and thus, Lynn suggested we go for Shabuya's eat-all-you-can shabu shabu buffet. Unfortunately, the buffet is only valid for weekend brunch. Since we were already primed for shabu shabu, we went ahead and order off the menu.

We ordered the set meal for 2, and added an additional plate of mixed sashimi. Lynn doesn't like tuna sashimi (ironically, she enjoyed the tuna belly as much as I did at Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant), so I agreed to finish them for her, and she can have more of something else.

The food all arrived at the same time. We finished the crisp salad quickly, in order to make space for our meats. Lynn didn't care for the Japanese cucumbers, which I finished. The sashimi was cleared quickly too. The scallop sashimi was very sweet, and we both enjoyed it very much. Lynn gave half a slice of tuna a chance, and then pushed the rest to me. I found it ok. We thought it was funny that a two persons' serving of sashimi had 3 slices of each variety of fish. But since all the tuna came to me, Lynn had more of the others.

Our full table

Salad

Mixed sashimi

With the cold food out of the way, we attacked the steamboat with gusto. We ordered two soups - shabu shabu, and regular chicken stock. I was responsible for putting the vegetables in, while Lynn's duty was the meats. Our set comes with fish paste, chicken, pork and wagyu beef. The thinly sliced meats cooked within seconds, and it was so comforting to be swallowing those nice, hot slices of meat. Needless to say, the beef was the best. But the other meats were great too. The shabu shabu soup here is better than Restaurant Hoshigaoka's, less cloying sweet so that we don't get sick of it. By the end of the meal, the soup had became a nice, rich meat stock. We couldn't get enough of it, slurping the soup til we were bloated. The chicken soup was quite normal, I used it more for the vegetables.

The fish paste was interesting. I come from a family of fishball makers - my grandparents operated a fishball stall in the market and my mom and her siblings helped out and picked up the skills. This had resulted in me acquiring an attention to the textures of fishballs and fishcakes. This fish paste had a soft consistency, as if it was mixed with flour. However, the bounciness of the fish paste matched that of a fishball made completely of fish. Wonder if they mixed different kinds of fish to get that texture?

We were given choice of noodles or rice, and we both opted for udon noodles. The noodles went in last, cooking in the rich meat broth at the end. The result was well flavored noodles that had absorbed all the essence of the soup. We really loved it! The meal was ended with a nice cold chocolate mochi.

Three kinds of meats and fish paste

Vegetables, and udon noodles in the background

Mochi

Shabuya's weekend brunch is a much better deal. $39.80 for free flow meats. Lynn have been there and said that the resultant soup is almost too rich to drink. Too bad weekend mornings I'm usually occupied, but will definitely find a chance to go. Til then, I think the weekday set meal works for me.


Update:

We've been back twice for the weekend brunch now, 'brunch' happening at about 2pm and finishing about 4. You get to order food within 100 minutes, but they don't shoo you out after the time is over. So you can order some more at the end of your 100 minutes and take your time to finish. Do take note that there are pretty hefty charges for leftover meats, so don't be greedy.

Sashimi choices were salmon and tuna. Since Lynn don't do tuna, we attacked the sashimi with a gusto. The buffet selection for meat include wagyu beef ribs, premium black angus tenderloin, kurobuta pork belly/loin/collar, and chicken. All are thinly sliced and cooks to perfection very quickly. We love love love the wagyu - fragrant and oh-so-delicious. Black angus was leaner and less satisfying, but still delicious in a different kind of way. We only ordered pork belly and they were droolicious. Chicken was a hit and miss. One time it had the frozen chicken taste, the second time it didn't. Seafood selection includes tiger prawns, squids, dory fish slices, salmon fish slices, fish balls, sotong balls, cheese fish cakes and clams. The balls were normal, but the prawn and fishes were fresh. The cheese fishcake was surprisingly good, but not fantastic. Clams and squids we didn't order.

Vegetables available were chinese white cabbage, xiao bai cai, white radish, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms and pumpkins. Vegetables are usually quite normal, and Lynn isn't quite a fan of chinese cabbage stems and she don't like enoki mushrooms. But we both enjoyed the pumpkin slices, and I went absolutely gaga over the white radish. Cooked long enough, these little gems soak up all the beef flavors from the broth, yet retained their own sweetness. I was gorging myself with these.

Suffice to say we did not stop at one serving of each meat. We were crazy with the sashimi (some 4 servings of three slices each?), had at least 5 servings of wagyu, and I think 4 of the pork belly, and 2 of the remaining meats. Seafood we only had one serving of each. Vegetables we skipped a lot of them, although I did have two servings of radish all by myself. Lynn wasn't keen. Only one serving of udon that we could barely finish. The meal was finished off with a scoop of green tea ice cream each.

Love it so much that we went back again after one try. Second time coincided with the advertisement on Yahoo the day before. The result was a longer wait in line, but for some reason, the restaurant wasn't even full. But maybe because of the expected big crowd and the wish to impress, the meats and seafood was fresher than before. We were stuffed to the brim, and will be back again some day to get stuffed again, when the shabu craving hits.

The Tastings Room

Finally got around to posting this entry. Despite being dated a while back, the opinions are still clearly imprinted in my mind. Here's why...

This restaurant was highlighted to us through a Groupon. Seeing the description sounded like a French fine dining restaurant, and the deal was going at $36 for a 4 course meal, we thought, why not? So we got two vouchers, and Lynn and me decided to try it out. We made reservation for the Friday before CNY, thinking it could be our own little reunion dinner. The reservation was made one week in advance, because I was worried that many who bought the Groupon might have the same idea.

Nevermind that the restaurant didn't call me to remind me. Not all restaurants do that so it didn't bother me at all. What bothered me, ALOT, was when we reached there. My name was no where on the small piece of paper carrying the names of the reservations. It didn't help that the pokerface waitress had a similar poker attitude. She went through the list several times, asking me for my name several times as well. Despite my 5th repetition of 'My name is Gracie', she kept asking me "Is it Nancy? Is it xxx? Is it yyy?" etc. It was beginning to become difficult to hold my annoyance. She finally went to a big notebook beside the phone, and finally found my name and contact number on that book. Apparently the name never got transferred to the 'reservation of the day' slip of paper. After consulting her manager, she came back, still pokerfaced, saying that the only available seats are outdoor. I got mad, and rejected the outdoor seat. We ended up at Hippopotamus for a much happier dinner instead.

However, since I've already paid for the Groupon, we have to return for our meal eventually. So a few days later, I called up, made a feeble complain (chicken-hearted me was afraid that if I kick up too big a fuss, I may end up never getting a reservation and let my voucher go wasted) and remade a reservation for a week later. Turned out Lynn had to go to Malaysia to visit her sick grandma. So I called up and postponed the reservation by another week.

On the day itself, Lynn reached 3 minutes before I did. As I was walking over, I called her and found that my name isn't on the stupid list again. I reached there in a fuming mood, and didn't hide my irritation from the waitress. But this time it's a nice lady, no longer Miss Pokerface. She was more helpful, found my name in the book again, and was able to get us an indoor seat. But it didn't quench my irritation at the management. Come on, what are the odds of losing my name TWICE!!!

The Groupon deal had 2 options per course. Since there were two of us, we told them we want one each of everthing. After flipping through the menu, we also excitedly ordered an additional House Fries, which was described as 'truffle fries served with truffle mayonnaise'.

The appetizers were Tomato Bruschetta with Mozzarella Gratin, and Pan Seared Scallop with Salmon Roe. The scallop paled in comparison to Ember's, but it was still nice. We couldn't figure out what the sauce actually is. The salmon roe was a little on the salty side. The bruschetta had slipped my memory already so I guess nothing to rave about. We did enjoy the wild rocket leaves and balsaemic dressing. The soups were Seafood Smoked Vine Tomato soup, and truffle mushroom puree soup. We preferred the mushroom soup, but I really don't remember any truffle taste or aroma in it. The tomato soup was more like a puree - I felt that it would have made a good pasta sauce. It was nonetheless better than the burnt tomato paste we had in Bedrock's (I'm sorry, I know it was a signature dish, but it really turned both of us off tomato soup for a very long time...). There was a few small pieces of prawn, squid and fish. Thankfully no crabstick that many places like to classify as 'seafood'.

Pan-seared scallop with Salmon Roe

Tomato bruschetta with mozzarella gratin

Truffle mushroom puree soup

Seafood smoked vine tomato soup

Our fries was another joke. A waiter came with a sauce, and told us it was the dip for the house fries. I looked at it, and felt that it looked like Tartar sauce. I tasted it, and told Lynn it tasted like McDonald's tartar sauce. She tried it and agreed. So we flagged down a passing waitress, and asked her if that was supposed to be the 'truffle mayonnaise', cause it really look and taste like a tartar sauce. She said she think her colleague made a mistake, apologized, and took the sauce away. The first waiter then came back with our fries. When we pointed out that our 'truffle mayonnaise' haven't been brought, he looked surprised, and asked us where was the sauce he brought us. I told him that was tartar sauce, and his colleague had brought it back to change. He subsequently returned with a dish of mayonnaise, said that what he brought me earlier was the correct dip, but since we didn't like it (I never said that I didn't like anything), he brought us regular mayonnaise instead. Lynn sarcastically told me she didn't know truffle mayonnaise comes from Mcdonald's, and I even more sarcastically added "的 filet o' fish". The fries are actually pretty decent thick cut fries. If they had called it 'US fries' or something, it will fit the description nicely. However, we could only taste faint wisp of truffle every 5 fries or something. And to have that with tartar sauce, well....... It really doesn't live up to the 'Truffle fries' name.

Truffle fries

The mains are the biggest disappointments. Pesto Cream Fettucine with 'Sous Vide' Chicken Breast, and Squid Ink Linguine with Fresh Calamari. The pesto cream was actually quite nice, and we did finish up the fettucine. I just googled and found that 'Sous Vide' is a method of cooking food sealed in a water-tight plastic bag dunked in less than usual cooking temperature (typically about 60 degrees celsius) for extended period of time. It's supposed to give more evenly cooked food with correct doneness throughout. But I thought the chicken slices tasted medium well or something. It was still a little pink. Not being comfortable with eating uncooked chicken, we left those aside. The squid ink pasta was the worst of all the dishes. I have no problem with squid ink. I grew up eating my mom's recipe of squid cooked in its own ink, and I love it. But this squid ink pasta tasted like plastic. I gave up after 1 mouth. Lynn actually managed a few more mouths before she too gave up. The calamari were quite tasteless. First time in a very long time that I returned an almost full plate of food. The waitress either didn't notice, or didn't care to ask why. That had to be the worst pasta I've ever eaten in my entire life.

Squid ink linguine with fresh calamari

Pesto cream fettucine with sous vide chicken breast

The desserts were Earl Grey Creme Brulee, and Warm Banana Cake with Ice Cream. This was the only part that made an impression. The earl grey creme brulee was very nice. Creamy creme brulee with a good, strong, but not overpowering flavor of earl grey tea. We liked it. The banana cake must have been passable because I don't have any recollection of it at all. Oh, I vaguely remember something about it being too sweet.

Earl grey creme brulee

Warm banana cake with ice cream

Given the bad service I received even before I dined there, I already knew that the food have to be super fantastic in order to convince me to return. Of course, the food failed. The only thing we found that could differentiate it from other restaurants was the earl grey creme brulee. Not likely we'll return just for desserts. Even at $36, I didn't think it was worth the money. I definitely will not pay the original $72 for that quality of food. I noticed that they have put up a Groupon again. Warning to those interested - do not take it up!

Restaurant Hoshigaoka (Shaw House)

I was on the way home when Lynn called me for dinner. Since I had no dinner plans, we decided to have dinner together. My bus goes through Orchard, and she had some errands to run there. So we arranged to meet at Isetan Scotts. After roaming around a little, we decided to have dinner at Restaurant Hosihgaoka because there was an ongoing promotion for Hokkaido Wagyu beef.

We were both hungry and tired and ordered pretty quickly. Salmon belly sashimi, Wagyu shabu shabu, BBQ Wagyu slices, mixed tempura, Cha Soba for her, and Katsu Don for me. Our table was almost too small the the numerous things ordered by two seemingly harmless girls. I think the servers must have been shocked at the amount of food we ordered.

The sashimi was quite fresh and we enjoyed it. The tempura wasn't too oily, but we couldn't help comparing it to Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant. We liked the Hokkaido's one better. The shabu shabu was pretty ok, but the soup got too cloyingly sweet towards the end. The BBQ Wagyu was better between the two. She liked her cha soba, I found the katsu don pretty normal. 

Salmon sashimi

Mixed tempura

Wagyu shabu shabu

The Wagyu slices

BBQ wagyu set

Cha Soba

Katsu Don

Much better Japanese food than the usual chain stores such as Sakae, but of course, more painful on the pocket. Seeing there's better shabu shabu elsewhere, and the other things were okay, it's quite unlikely we'll intentionally return here. But if we are in the area and looking for dinner, sure, it's a nice place to dine in.