Akashi, Paragon

So, I'm running out of clever words and cliché phrases to describe my food ventures. Those of you whom have been tickled and secretly enjoyed this literary food soft porn of mine, I'm sorry to have to tell you that all good things must come to an end and you'll have to go else where for your reading fixes. Nah. I'm kidding. If you really wanna go off now, you'll never get to find out (for some of you at least) about the fantastic Japanese place Akashi is.

It's difficult to describe Japanese food that comes in great variety without inevitably having to reuse the same old words. Also, it's a challenge trying to remember all the names in Japanese. In Akashi, it's been so far consistently quality fresh food which really deserves mention. No, there's no overly fanciful presentation or extremely stylish decor in the restaurant. What you get is simple pleasant furnishing and great food. Grated wasabi root fresh!

Fresh ground wasabi

Fish liver

Steaming hot Tamago

Beef ribs

Seaweed?

Salmon skin rolls

One of the noteable practices of Akashi with the sushi is that it is served as how sushi should preferably be. A generous portion of the topping along with a wad of rice that's really smaller than the said topping. This is something which most of the pseudo Japanese restaurants are guilty of not practicing. Just like Pizza Hut is filling people with tonnes of dough, these many other unnamed Japanese restaurants fills their sushi customers with rice.

On the note of exceptionals, I would say that this place serves a very heavenly uni. Comparative with Ten-Jyaku in terms of light and creaminess, the uni from Akashi tops the crops with very noticeable fragrance which the former restaurant didn't fulfill. Also, it's $10 a piece which makes it both cheaper and more delectable.

I highly recommend this place.

Hokkaido Fair at Meidi Ya

Here're some pics from the Hokkaido Fair at Meidi Ya supermarket located at the basement of Liang Court. I have probably missed the interesting part from the first 3 days, but oh well... better late than never.

Helio Cafe, Marina Square

This is not the usual place that you can simply drop by for chow. Some of the food which is served require ardous preparation that includes factors that money cannot buy. Time. Thanks to Junie (and Clement too for your time) for the invite down to this lunch. What makes up Helio Cafe seems to be just 4 or 5 tables outside Prestige Helio Asia Spa. Headed by a very enterprising Chef Clement Ronald Ng who has definitely more than a few tricks up his sleeves in his fusion world of culinary creations.

I cannot remember what this dish is called, but it involves the use of a lemon, seedless grapes, ground rose petals and some other spices that I do not know in the chicken which is then encased in a dense hard pastry to be baked.

If you've noticed from the first picture, the plate was dry. And subsequently, its filled with a brown sauce like liquid. That's the "chicken au jus" as explained, totally natural and delicately accented with the fruits and herbs that are with the bird. Apparently, the pastry shell seals in all the moisture from the chicken so that none of the natural flavoring and juiciness is lost in the process of high heat baking. The result isa very tender and juicy chicken which tasted quite herbal to me. I thought the grapes were really nice.

That's a beef cooked in red wine sauce on a bed of whipped potato. The beef was ok I guess. I do enjoy a good ribeye, so this isn't exactly the kind of style I'd go for in red meat generally. This tastes more like braised beef. What was interesting to me about this dish is the red wine sauce which slowly eroded away at the whipped potato creating a very pleasant cloudy soup like base which actually tasted pretty good

This strawberry yoghurt parfait with brandy snap and strawberry/raspberry sauce is a sort of ice cream like dessert which has raspberries trapped frozen in the cold creamy yoghurt hull. Notably mouth watering (literally) is the brandy snap which brings forth balancing sweetness to the tart flavor of the dessert.

And the strawberry cheese in filo pastry is probably one of best pastry stuff I've ever had. I kid you not. The pictures do no justice to the dessert. The layered crispy pastry shell was pretty awesome. I thought that the filling of the strawberry cheese may have been better served with more cheese. I'm not complaining though.

That's Helio's take on the molten chocolate cake. I'm sure you didn't see that coming. Yeah, molten choc cake and it looks mostly nothing like the other molten chocolate cakes. In fact, it's uniquely different if I may say so. This rendtiion of the cake doesn't really come with molten chocolate, but very warm soft chocolate and topped with apricot that is aged in rum over the duration of two months. There was very pleasant diffusion of the flavor from the alcohol on the tongue and that spreads.

The noticeable thing about the desserts from Helio is that they do not make you feel bloated or sugar saturated after you've had them. According to Clement, there is no sugar in his cooking.

Chicken rice @ My Rice, Balestier Road

My Rice is a chicken rice store with a claim to fame which many others cannot. Apparently as stated on the stall, it's chicken rice from the chef formerly of Chatterbox. I don't really know how many chefs have transited over at Chatterbox, but this one at $5 a plate beats paying $20 at Mandarin Hotel. My Rice is located at the first coffee shop along Balestier road. If it helps, this coffee shop is somewhat renown for another stall that sells frog porridge.

Noticeable in the servings from this store is the fairly generous amount of chicken. It's almost Ming Kee portions. Many chicken rice stores are guilty of flattening the meat of the chicken before chopping them up. I never understood the rationale to this practice. It seems to me that such the purpose is to create an illusion of a larger piece of chicken and literally squeezes the juice out of the meat resulting in a dry chicken. This stall is one of those that doesn't do that.

I am generally a chicken breast person because I don't like to deal with bones. The breast meat of the chicken from this store is also noticeably more tender and succulent than the usual. The rice comes with saucers of ginger, soy sauce and the chilli sauce which is also quite different from the garlicy typess that is commonly seen elsewhere. It seems to have a much stronger taste of ginger. Also, the accompanied soup apart reminds me of french onion soup. I actually finished the bowl of it, so that means, it's pretty good.

Apart from chicken rice, the stall also serves the sides which such stores generally offer like pan fried vegetables and tofu. I didn't get the vegetables on recommendation, however the tofu was quite pleasant.