More eats at Tampopo

Been a little while since we were last at Tampopo.

Sweet corn from Hokkaido was in season so we got ourselves some of them in tempura. These ones here were a lot tastier than the ones we had at Keria Japanese Restaurant not a couple of months back.

Tampopo's wafu steak has always been a welcomed sight. While we don't order it every single time we're here, we've had it enough times that it's possibly the most ordered beef item that we do.

Their beef and potato croquette was lacklustre. Not quite getting that beef.

While it can be argued that we have enjoyed their negitoro don, I think I've figured out what has changed. The negi is still there but there's not much toro anymore. The portions of the minced tuna have increased, but it's no longer so fatty. Once upon a time, it used to be good.

White peach is in season and there's a chilled and refreshing salad on the menu currently which was delicious. Most of it because of the sweetness and aroma coming from the peach.

Remember their hon maguro don at a good deal? It's still available.  

Ramen and Tonkatsu Fair at Tampopo

Hear ye, I'm back at Tampopo. They seem to be holding up some sort of Ramen and Tonkatsu Fair with a bunch of new items on the menu probably for a limited period. This visit actually came about through tip off from a little bird about a certain foie gras tonkatsu that they had.

For a start, we ordered a serving of their steamed black pig dumplings which tasted very much like the Chinese renditions (hong you chao shou) with the moderated splashes of black vinegar and chilli oil. The smooth skinned dumplings were a little smaller than I had expected but they were pretty juicy and flavourful from the fatty pork fillings that we were rather tempted to go for seconds.

The kani ramen was the only ramen item from this fair that looked interesting. Basically a bowl of squiggly yellow noodles soaked in a starchy crab flavoured broth that was filled with a pretty generous amount of shredded Japanese crab meat and shimeiji mushrooms. The extra portions of added vinegar and La Yu on the side made it tastier and easier to go down. That in effect turned it to something akin to Taiwanese mee sua.

The foie gras from their tonkatsu was subjected to enough of the heat that the fat from the livers had seeped into the pork creating an almost subtle heady aroma into the fatty pork from the first mouthful. I was initially hoping for the flavour of the fatty liver to be more prominent, but it turned out to be a balanced equilibrium between the savoury deep fried crust and the foie.

If such a thing could be described by the word 'equilibrium'.

We wrapped up with their innocuous looking chocolate chiffon cake which tasted more strongly of chocolate than the milky hue of the cream suggested. If I had to describe, it was both light and not excessively sweet.

More items from Tampopo again!

I found myself back at Tampopo again. I credit the draw back to the place to their seasonal menu which features things items on rotation. I'm a sucker for it.

I was pretty excited after having discovered that they actually had a wagyu ribeye katsu on the katsu section of their menu a few weeks back and had been trying to return to try it. It was out of supplies for a while and this week, they've managed to get their meat back again. Despite being a little wary, I was still bent on trying them out. My only recollection of deep fried beef was from a country fried steak from Seah Street Deli quite a few years back. 

The katsu was sadly unexciting. Flavour from the batter contented with the thin slice of beef inside resulting in a very lacklustre flavour from the meat. While it did arrive pink and filled with rendered fat from the marbling, the flavour of wagyu were almost imperceptible, dashing my hopes of a good discovery.

Stick to the wafu steak I shall.

Another item from their specials menu was an anago temdon - which was a tempura donburi that featured a generous piece of fried congo eel. It was actually quite decent if not spectacular. Didn't give me the same kind of satisfaction from the anago don from Kaiho Sushi. There was a deep fried mushroom, sweet potato and pumpkin in the bowl as well.

Craving ramen, I inquired about their black pig spare rib ramen. It happened to be made with my favourite tonkotsu broth and the Hakata styled noodles. Tasted to me like a sort of Chinese inspired creation as the braised spare rib was much like a sweeter version of the dark soy sauce braised pork that my grandmother cooks every new year. There was even a few stalks of vegetables on the side that helped deepen the impression. The meat was well cooked, firm yet fell off the bone with ease. Interestingly, a good pairing with that smidgeon of mustard. The noodles were as expected, firm in the milky savoury pork bone broth that for some odd reasons, seemed to intermittently exude a very faint aroma of yuzu.

And for dessert, we passed on the usual orders of cream cakes for their delicious negitoro don. Another item in danger of getting into the regular order option.

A first visit to Tampopo this year

It's been a while since the last time. This was a quick dinner. One of the items that wasn't around the last time we were here was the Sakura tori paitan ramen. There was a mini-bowl option which was really perfect if you wanted to test drive for flavour. It turned out to be good. I'm getting the regular bowl the next time. Broth was creamy, savoury and had a hint of yuzu. Marutama it seems has a real competitor now.

There was an expensive seasonal menu premium barachirashi which had crab legs and little blobs of uni amongst the usual suspects. The rice was unfortunately not vinegared. But one cannot argue against the generosity of the seafood they piled on top of the bowl. The quantity of those seafood was at least that of the rice.

Tampopo's negitoro don is an old favourite of ours. Seems like it will remain an old favourite still in the foreseeable future. The price of the bowl has gone up by about a dollar since I last remember.

But look at the amount of chopped toro versus the rice. Though I remember a time when there was a lot more negi to go along with the tuna. In retrospect, the ones from the past did seem like they were also fattier than the ones they served today.

Sawagani from Tampopo

Tampopo often has affordable seasonal items on their menu. So far, they've been doing a pretty good job of luring us back again and again. Lately, it seems that they have brought in some sawagani and so there we were again!

These little river crabs here tasted a little bit more greasy than the ones I remember having at Chikuwa Tei. They were also handled with a little less finesse as seen from a broken claw and some legs. Otherwise, these lightly salted deep fried river crabs tastes pretty much the same everywhere. The squeeze of lemon was a good idea even though the juice pretty much flowed off the crabs.

Seeing numerous orders of their tonkatsu ramen from various neighbouring tables, we decided to give it a go. The tonkotsu broth was heavily masked by the chilli oil. Wasn't bad at all if rather non indicative of tonkotsu broths. The fried tonkatsu however was disappointing. The battered surface was laden with oil. It was a greasy fried piece of pork but not in a way that I would have liked.

We had cake. Their matcha chiffon cake wasn't bad. I guess the appeal for me was the light milky cream that they use. That same cream that makes me want to get their scoop cake every time.

More from dandelions...

This was an unplanned visit to Tampopo. We were walking by and glancing at the picture menus at the entrance of the restaurant and suddenly, we found ourselves seated and preparing to make our orders.

Was pleasantly surprised by the freshness of the minced fatty tuna of their negitoro don. Not that I've had a lot of them prior to this. The meat looked like it had been hand chopped to order just before it was served. It was still a little chilled and very fresh tasting on top of the warm rice.

This be their wafu steak. Looked and tasted much better than what was depicted on the menu. Meat was quite fatty but a little chewy in some pieces. The natural flavour of the beef was robust. This one is good for returns.

This plate of stir fried liver, chives and bean sprouts was so good with rice.

That's a light cheese chiffon cake. Ventured off from the usual scoop cake we usually get. The name would lead one to believe that this was a light cheesecake of sorts but there was no cheese in the cake nor the cream. There was grated Parmesan cheese at the top though. A little dry but was actually not too bad.

Whole pork fillet tonkatsu and tempura asari from Tampopo

It seems that every time we visit Tampopo, these guys would come up with something new on their tonkatsu menu. The foie gras stuffed rendition which I had from the last time seemed to have become a permanent item on menu now. There's been so much items on the menu that I haven't actually ordered anything twice from their selection of fried pork cutlets. This time round, they have come up with what appeared to be the whole tenderloin for a small pig!

 

The katsu was covered in a golden brown breading. The lean meat didn't have much flavour but was quite tender and juicy. Sauces and dips on the side made up for for the taste. Nothing that a little squeeze of lemon or a dip of shoyu or ponzu dressing couldn't fix.

We got an order of the asari tempura for novelty's sake. Never had tempura clams with the shell on before. They tasted much like how they looked. The tempura batter was nothing to write home about. For those few clams that arrived, the dish didn't represent good value from what the restaurant charged for them.

Kyushu ramen and apple yoghurt salad from Tampopo

I've had my first taste of Kyushu styled ramen from Tampopo. It's always been a sort of reference for me for tonkotsu based bowls because I liked their creamy but thin broth and it was about the time I started learning more about ramen and their broth. These days we have plenty of other options for tonkotsu. I can't even differentiate if they're Kyushu, Hakata or Fukuoka styled these days. Or even if there's a difference.

There's an apple yoghurt salad in season now. Personally, yoghurt's much nicer than most other creamy salad dressing.

But back to this. I don't think much has changed for their Kyushu styled bowl. Charshu's thin sliced and flavoured with fat. As much as these guys aren't a ramen-ya, I like theirs. Still not getting much of the mentaiko until the end of the broth though.

Triple Black Ramen from Tampopo

Steadily and surely, Tampopo unleashes more of their seasonal or limited run items onto the world. It has become difficult for me to revisit the stuff from the regular menu that I like.

I ordered this Triple Black Ramen because it looked badass. Like Darth Vader badass that's obsidian and reflects the abyss back to the approach.

It's triple black because of black broth, black noodles and black pig. The broth as I could gather, was a light vegetable and pork broth with squid ink. It came with noodles that were shaped like none of the variety that they're currently serving on the menu. Its a little like tagliatelle.

What wasn't so obvious was within the inky broth, were fat laced minced pork and scattered bits of fish roe that provided abundant bursty texture (as fish roe does) and more chew to the textural medley. The orange stuff was a scallop with a really large coral and hidden just behind the shredded lettuce was an ajitama. Bleached white colour in contrast. Molten yolked and no less.

Beef bone broth ramen from Tampopo

This was a a beef bone broth ramen that Tampopo (391 Orchard Road, B2-33 Takashimaya Shopping Centre, tel : +65 6235 2318) is currently having on a limited run.

Curiously, the original broth had the inclusion of sesame oil which kinda detracted the mild beefy flavour while the wasabi version didn't have the faintest hint of wasabi. It was instead cleaner tasting because of the lack of sesame oil. I'm not too sure what to make out of this new ramen but I suppose I wouldn't mind having them if they made it to the regular menu. They should probably do away with the sweet and spicy marinate for the slice of overcooked yakiniku which really didn't do much.

From dandelions...

This was our first visit actually to the current location of Tampopo (177 River Valley Road, #01-23/24 Liang Court Shopping Centre, tel : +65 6338 3186). It was previously located at the basement in Liang Court. If you didn't know already, this family restaurant is quite well known for their fried kurobuta pork cutlets. Those are not bad but also tend to be overrated. 

The thing that caught my attention was a maguro head don that they had on the specials menu. According to them, they're on a limited serving each day. Probably because there's only so much meat in the head of a tuna. Sounds like Santouka. We were here for dinner and managed to snag a bowl.

The bowl included slices of shoyu marinated tuna. Those were nice. What was strange was that the bowl also came with two pieces of sushi - both of which aren't tuna.

A serving of the pan fried pork livers with chives. This was one of those Japanese dishes that bore much similarity to Chinese cooking. The combination of ingredients for this particular dish made it tough to go wrong. Unsophisticatedly, if there's such a word, good.

Felt like having ramen because I had one recently that I didn't enjoy. The basic kyushu ramen with creamy tonkotsu broth did the job. I also much prefer the slim straight noodles in this than the other types. What I wondered about kyushu ramen is, how much mentaiko was there suppose to be to flavour the broth?

The raw and the cooked at Tampopo

I'm thinking the cooked food is pretty much what works for me at Tampopo rather than the uncooked ones. Beside from a couple of rice bowls (special mentions to the negitoro don). This pricey chunky cut sashimi turned out to be quite mundane and did nothing to satiate what I missed from the chunky elegance of the late Wasabi Tei. The "toro" quality of the tuna was lacking and instead, a little too sinewy.

On the other hand, the BBQ charshu tonkotsu ramen was almost deeply satisfying. Despite the fact that it didn't taste very much different from their standard Kyushu, black pork rib or their shabu pork renditions. 

End of ramble.

Cold ramen from Tampopo

I've eaten a cold ramen from Tampopo years ago. This one is a bit different. No kurobuta ham and no mustard. Looked a lot less impressive and truth to be told, the experience was not even on par with the ones from Baikohken or even Ohsho. Serviceable but definitely not getting them again. Chilled food doesn't survive delivery well.

Foie gras tonkatsu with truffle from Tampopo

It seems that Tampopo has just upped the ante of their own game by introducing truffle paste into their foie gras stuffed tonkatsu. This item has already made it into their regular tonkatsu menu if anyone's wondering. If anything could be described as indulgent, this would be one of them. Needless to ask, I was sold. How did that taste? It was exactly like what I had in mind with both the flavour of the black truffle and the fatty melting liver coming through like butter across those tender layered pork beneath a crispy breaded crust.

Mentaiko katsudon set from Tampopo

This was a tonkatsu that featured mentaiko stuffings within the cutlet. As good as the idea might have sounded, the execution fell short in the department of flavour. That was not to say that this wasn't a piece of enjoyable tonkatsu. I thought that the flavour from the roe was insufficiently pronounced. Truth was that there was more of that leek/onion aroma while the mentaiko was barely discernible. Even though it looked like there was quite a bit of them between the layers of sliced pork. That being said, this layered tonkatsu was pretty tasty. The meat was more tender than the usual hire katsu.

Hotaru ika and negitoro don from Tampopo

Firefly squids......they're in season now and they're sharing real estate with negitoro in a bowl at Tampopo. Actually, they taste very much like they way they look. With a little bite just like squids should and a burst with the taste of brine. It's really more for curiosity that I ordered them. I rather enjoyed these.