Birthday triology edition 1: Saboten

It's Gracie's birthday again! Being a busy month for her, we finally got to do her belated birthday outing on a fine Saturday. I have cravings (as usual) for Saboten's pork cutlet and ONLY Saboten's pork cutlet, so she has no choice but to satisfy my cravings, we then decided on the Parco Marina Bay branch since its near to our dinner venue.

The mall is extremely quiet for a Saturday afternoon, when walking to Saboten, I saw the receptionist and masseur of a massage place sleeping in the store! Needless to say, we were the only ones in Saboten as well. Without much debate, we decided on the Twin Special set ($46) to share and with an additional order of curry sauce ($3). The Twin Special set consists of Breaded Pork Loin, Asparagus Cheese roll, Breaded Shrimps x2, Crab Cream Croquette x2, with pickles, dessert, free flow of miso soup, cabbage and rice.

Cabbage and Sesame

Sesame sauce and Ponzu sauce

Twin Special Set

Miso soup, Rice, Radish Ponzo Sauce

Although there isn't much crowd, food items are kept fresh, cabbage is crisp and cold, perfect for a Sunny day. I strongly recommend adding the sesame sauce, it's slightly sourish and adds a flavorful and refreshing taste to the cabbage.

The fried items tasted very nice on its own, especially the pork loin, the breaded crust was light and non-oily, locking in the natural juices of the pork loin. For those that prefer a sweeter taste, you can grate the sesame seed and add it to the tonkatsu dipping sauce for more fragrance and flavor. As for me, I prefer my meat to be more saltish so I'll dip it into the curry sauce. Freshly fried shrimps, with the light crust were just perfect, aparagus with cream cheese was good as well. Crab cream croquettes were creamy and warm and fluffy. We noticed that the "crab" was referring to crabstick meat and were greedily hoping for real crab meat. =)

Something worth mentioning is their rice which is pure heavenly! We had an additional serving of white rice, that's how marvelous it is, soft, shiny, bouncy and has a nice chew to it.. with a spoonful of curry sauce on it, hmmmmm.... 幸福！(this is happiness!)

Downside of Saboten, the set came with matcha ice cream that's pure mediocre, sweet and without green tea flavour and I found a short hair in my matcha ice cream and requested for a new serving, server was apologetic and quickly replaced a new one. However, being near the kitchen, I overheard some unhappiness with the kitchen staff replacing the ice cream. Well, I believe it could be a one off incident and most probably I will still be back for their Tonkatsu but there are certain much room for improvements for their service.

Saboten (Parco Marina Bay)

P3-01 

Tel: 63333432

Yakinikutei Ao-Chan

ML and me always get a combined birthday meal, since our birthdays are only 11 days apart. This time round she chose the location, and she stated she wanted Yakinikutei. So the girls made the reservations, and there we are for dinner. Japanese table barbecue. The idea already sounds delicious. And ML's boyfriend seems to know all these hidden small authentic Japanese places. Yakinikutei is run by a Japanese lady boss. Their clientele consists of a lot of Japanese, so it goes to show the authenticity of this joint.

The one thing I minded about here? The tiny saucer we get as a side plate. Each table setting have two saucers, one will be filled with a sauce, the other apparently there for me to eat from. Like really, why can't give me a bigger plate to hold more food? But it's beside the point, since the food are so nice that they don't really spend a whole lot of time on my plate.

As Yakiniku simply translates to grilled meats, you can expect a good selection of meats for you to choose from. They also have a good selection of veggies to go with the meats, and some interesting side dishes, many of which I didn't try.

If you order their sets (beef course or non-beef course), it comes with some small side dishes such as kimunchi and salad. Nothing out of the world, but a good way to kickstart your appetite. We ordered the garlic fried rice to share, and loved it. Fragrant Japanese rice, fried with lots of eggs and garlic. Akin to Din Tai Fung's egg fried rice with extra garlic. If you order their deep fried garlic (no photo, but its a MUST TRY!) alongside, you get double the garlic flavor. Yum! It turned out to be a fantastic vehicle for soaking up all the meat juices left on our dishes, so no wastage!

Kimunchi

Salad

Garlic fried rice

Now to the meats. Yakinikutei have a huge variety of beef, ranging from premium to regular to Australian wagyu to Japanese wagyu. The Japanese wagyu is pricey, and we didn't try them. We tried an order of the Australian wagyu slices. Subsequently on another visit I tried the Australian wagyu kaburi. I prefer the kaburi. Tender beef, mildly marinated, full of the wonderful wagyu flavor. WOW!

Wagyu beef slices

But to me, the star MUST-ORDER item in this joint? The premium beef belly cubes. Oh My God. They are succulent. Even when slightly overcooked, the interior of these cubes remain juicy. Sooooo juicy. You can feel the juice running down your chin as you bite into it. Bliss. A lot of bliss. The kind of bliss that makes you stop talking and close your eyes to enjoy the beef juices and flavors exploding in your mouth.

Premium belly cube

Ok, so on to the pork. We had the ton set, which came with both Iberian and regular ton toro. The Iberian ton toro was soooo well marbled. They look pale pink, with no signs of white streaks. So innocently 'fat free'. Then when you grill them, the fats melt and cause little combustions happening on the grill. And then when you bite into them, your mouth is filled with a mouthful of lard. Lard is flavor, don't you know? Extremely juicy, extremely sinful, but oh so worth it.

Ton set - Iberian and regular ton toro

They have a decent variety of offals too, if it's up your alley. I've tried ox tongue, tripe and liver from two separate visits. I think I'll stick to the meats. Haha! The problem probably lies with us, as we don't really know how well these needs to be cooked. The results were very overcooked offals that were too tough to eat. ML loved their ox-tongue. I didn't really feel a lot of love for them.

Liver and tripe

Ox tongue

The cutest food we ordered was the rice ball. A triangle of rice, which I meticulously grill at a corner, flipping infrequently to make sure every side is charred. Then I brushed on the given sauce, and you there you have a yummy snack. Crunchy outside, salty from the sauce, fluffy and fragrant inside. It's like a savoury rice crispy dumpling.

Rice ball

I've been here 3 times now. And left feeling happy every single time. The lady boss is such a nice lady. On my second visit, I brough Lynn here. We were given a big table for 2 pax reservations. While Lynn was waiting for me, a big group came in and they asked her if it's possible to shift to a smaller table to make way for the big group. Since she haven't started anything, Lynn was ok to shift. The lady boss was so grateful that she thanked Lynn repeatedly and promised our table free drinks. And yes, we did get the free drinks. And even a free upgrade from shiso rice to garlic rice for our set. I had intended to pay for the upgrade but the lady boss generously absorbed the cost. If there's anything I like more than good food, is the 人情味 (human touch) that comes with it. And did I mention they're open til 11pm? Last order is at 10.30pm. How cool is that?! Reservations recommended.

Yakinikutei Ao-Chan
Concorde Hotel Shopping Mall
100 Orchard Road
#02-22/26 (Ground floor)
Tel: 67356457 

40 Hands Coffee

I love breakfast. So does FQ. And after my Antoinette experience, I fell in love with poached eggs. I first visited Forty Hands when we wanted to give XP a treat for his thesis submission, and found out that every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, all-day breakfast is served til 3pm (I think). Since then, we will hike over to Forty Hands on Fridays whenever we have the breakfast food craving.

Forty hands have very good coffee, which can also be found in Tiong Bahru Bakery. They are both under the same management. And what's breakfast without a good coffee or tea? So I got myself a latte.

Latte

XP went for the lamb sandwich. Nicely toasted sandwiches with lamb and vegetables. Their sandwiches looks attractive, but I was always enticed by the breakfast food. Their gourmet hotdogs are also supposed to be signatures but I've never tried them.

Lamb sandwich

So breakfast food. I got their eggs cocotte. I don't think it fits the proper definition of eggs cocotte I found online, which were supposedly eggs cooked in a ramekin of some sort. Theirs is actually beautifully poached eggs served on a bed of truffled sautéed spinach and mushroom in a stone bowl. Toasts are served on the side and I used them as vehicles for bringing the gooey yummy egg yolks into my mouth. This is the one dish I have a biggest weakness for and have ordered at least thrice by now. Poached eggs and truffle, who can resist?

Eggs Cocotte

The Big Boy's breakfast. A generous platter of different breakfast foods. Eggs done your way, sausages, pita, grilled tomato, mesclun salad, and bolognaise sauce. It's a very food coma inducing meal - do take note. They serve it on the very old-school metal plates. East crockery meets west food. Very fusion indeed.

Big Boy's Breakfast

Classic Eggs Benedict. Poached eggs served on bread and Canadian bacon, flooded in Hollandaise sauce. The make or break of this dish is the eggs and the sauce. The eggs I have said earlier are beautiful. J said the sauce was good too.

Eggs Benedict

And I love their truffle fries. We always order a serving to share. Shoestring fries fried to a perfect crisp and served with just the right note of truffle flavor. Ok, maybe I wouldn't mind more truffle flavor. But it's still a good truffle fries. 

Truffle Fries

I've also had their salmon hash which was more of a salmon chowder. Liked it too, but I only had it becos I had reached my eggs quota for that week. Otherwise I'll be automatically drawn to the eggs cocotte.

We still come back frequently whenever the breakfast mood hits. It's quite a hike, but so worth the effort. Do note that they don't have a huge seating capacity so big groups may be a problem.

40 Hands Coffee

78 Yong Siak Street

#01-12

Singapore 163078

Tel: 6225 8545

Tiong Shian Porridge Centre

I walk pass this place every morning to get from my bus drop-off point to my work place. So it became a potential breakfast place along the way. Plus I saw a lot of old folks eating there. That's a good indication right? I love congee for breakfast, so I was awaiting a not-so-hot morning to try it.

I ordered a century egg pork congee. The wait wasn't too long, so I was eating in no time. I was pretty disappointed. I found the porridge lacked depth. It was salty, but otherwise bland. Wasn't what I was looking for in a congee. I prefer Ah Chang's one that we frequent for lunch. So this one was tossed out of the equation in that one-off incident.

Bangkok Jam (Great World City)

It was JH's farewell after her one month stint with us. We decided to bring her to Bangkok Jam, with the idea that she'll probably not get a lot of Thai food back in New York. It was a big group of us, so we decided on ordering a main each, with some side dishes to share.

The decor in Bangkok Jam is nowhere like regular Thai restaurants. It's very hip, with snazzy wall decals, and a menu that looks like newspaper. None of the usual elephants, figurines, woody furnitures and dim lights. At first glance you wouldn't even think you're in a Thai restaurant. But Thai restaurant it is, and we put their food to the test.

Between us, we ordered quite a number of different dishes. Pineapple rice, olive rice, basil chicken with rice, Thai green curry with rice, Thai yellow curry with rice,  and I had a beef noodle. While I can't quite comment on the food others ate, my beef noodle was passable. I wouldn't say it's super authentic, but smooth noodles in hot soup is comfort food for me, so I enjoyed it. I must say the basil chicken looked good.

Pineapple rice

Olive rice

Basil Chicken with rice

Thai green curry with rice

Thai yellow curry with rice

Beef noodle soup

We ordered two tom yam soups - once clear one red to share. The soups are served in cute little lopsided bowls. They were fiery, with a right balance of sour. Nice tom yam soup. Deceivingly clear but secretly loaded with a lot of zest. We also shared a pomelo salad. Refreshing, slightly spicy, good tinge of sour. We enjoyed it. The last side dish was fried chicken wings. Who doesn't like that? It's a foolproof dish and I always say it's very hard to make bad fried chicken wings.

Seafood in red tom yam soup

Seafood in clear tom yam soup

Pomelo salad

Fried chicken wings

Overall the food here isn't the most authentic Thai food you'll find. Still, it was decent Thai food. That said, I didn't try many of the dishes, and we didn't exactly order the Thai mainstays such as Phad Thai so my comments are still limited. But their prices are reasonable, and service staff attentive. Great for people who wants to enjoy Thai food in a more relaxed and chill out environment, where it's ok to chat loudly without fear of disturbing others.

p.s. Ok, I just found out from its website that it's supposed to be a Thai-western fusion cuisine. So that probably explains the lack of 100% authenticity.

Bangkok Jam

Great World City

1 Kim Seng Promenade

#02-26, Singapore 237994Tel: 6732 4523

Fine Cuts

We've actually tried Fine Cuts at the basement of Central years ago, at the start of our steak journey. We weren't impressed, but a subsequent walk pass made us realized 1) they have expanded, a good sign of good business, and 2) we saw Kobe-like beef on the menu. But before we could try it again, it closed down for renovations, and it was a few months before we could go and try it again.

Post renovation, it's now more a bistro than a restaurant. You place order at the counter and food is served to you. But it was pretty empty when we visited, so the staff was nice and came out to take our order. Turned out we couldn't find Kobe-like anything on the menu. The guy pointed to a wagyu ribeye and said that's the one. So we ordered that, plus another steak. I was having a chicken nugget moment, while Lynn was in a Campbell soup mood. Hey, we all have our processed junk food moments!

The soup was, like I said, Campbell's cream of chicken soup. So not much to be said about it. Same for the nuggets, which I didn't bother to snap. Regular juicy fried nuggets, to satisfy my crispy chicken craving.

The steaks were somewhat disappointing. They didn't have the wagyu aroma. Although they weren't bad steaks per se, they weren't satisfying our wagyu love. Sauce was so-so, and fries were regular fries.

We were less than satisfied with the meal, considering we came with high expectations for the Kobe-like beef. Given the lack of crowd, I'm suspecting a change of menu, probably for the worse. I doubt we'll be back. We actually enjoyed our post dinner desserts more at Squee upstairs, but I forgot photos for blogging.

Mai Zhi Su 麥之素

Because my hubby is a vegetarian, and because we stayed in Bishan for a few years, we frequented this joint. And still do. I found this place pretty much by entering 'vegetarian' and checking 'ang mo kio' in HungryGoWhere. Given how rare it is to find vegetarian places serving dinner (most vegetarian hawker stalls operate morning only), you can see why we always return here.

But that's not the main reason. Bishan area actually had a decent number of vegetarian places back then. But what brought us back is the quality of the food here. I love their rendition of sharks fin soup. Starchy soup with glass noodles and mock chicken etc, a dash of vinegar and pepper, and it's almost the real stuff minus the guilt of harming sharks. What's there not to love? 

Their nonya cod fish is also yummy. I know, it's funny when they 'speciate' the fish. Mock fish is mock fish, cod some more? But ignoring that, this is a nice spicy and sour dish. The mock fish used here is tender, not the usual tough ones. The gravy goes really well with rice. And ladies fingers (okra) with chilli gravy is really the best combination.

The hubby's fave - sambal kang kong. I prefer theirs to Zi Zai's, cause unlike the latter's, Mai Zhi Su's version doesn't come flooded in oil. 

We've also discovered and fell in love with their steamed tofu. Whole block of silky tofu covered in crunchy fried preserved turnip (cai po), flooded in a nice gravy, with broccoli on the side. Another dish that goes well with rice. I have yet to take a picture for this.

They also serve a good variety of one dish meals such as chicken rice, duck rice, macaroni soup, Ipoh hor fun etc. All reasonably priced and in the comfort of an air-conditioned setting.