Marutama Ramen, The Central

Yes, it had taken me this very long to come down to Marutama (6 Eu Tong Sen Street, #03-90/91 The Central @ Clarke Quay, tel : +65 6534 8090) and after two separate visits, the verdict is that the ramen here agrees with me. In the earlier days of this ramen-ya, what kept me away were the horrendous queues. Which doesn't seem to be as deterring these days. At least for the weekdays it seemed so.

What made the ramen agreeable with me was the thick chicken broth and thin eggy ramen which had a bite which I liked. Both the charshu and aji tamago had noticeable flavours of soyasauce. The seven nut soup however, tasted just a little spicy (in a Korean kind of way) and with no hints of nuttish-ness I was expecting. The delicious dish of daikon arrived piping hot and there was also a charshu bowl which did featured their some tasty grilled pork; though the latter didn't quite measure up for me as a donburi.

I'll definitely be back

Cinnamon melts from McD

Old man Ronald has tricks up his sleeves. Cames in a form of small, soft and piping hot buns with melted marshmallows and a generous amount of a gooey cinnamon sauce. A single portion is probably much too much sugar for me. In spite of being pretty sweet, I could imagine this greasy snack to go well in the morning with a thick bitter brew.

Sims to me that.....

Here's a look at our local take of the "workmen's lunch" from my favorite economic rice store down at Whampoa Food Centre. I must have been ordering the same items from what I can recall in the past 3 visits I've made. Braised nonya chap chye, greasy fried egg with long beans, battered fried chicken and a steamed triple egg with minced meat. Sticking to a tried and true dishes or am I becoming boring?

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.

The obento box from Nanbantei today...

Been quite a while since my list visit to Nanbantei for lunch and I predictably ended up with their obento set which featured some of their kushiyaki with rice with toppings. I should try something else the next time just to see if the other options are good. Nothing much has changed. The food was still delicious. I still felt hungry afterwards.

Keisuke Tokyo, Parco Marina Bay

Decided to make the trip down after hearing about this place (9 Raffles Boulevard, #P3-02 Parco Marina Bay, Millenia Walk, tel : +65 6337 7919) and their special prawn based broths for their ramen. From what I gathered, Keisuke's ramen shop has a small chain in Tokyo and is apparently the first outlet outside of Japan. I was a little disappointed after trying the ramen.

The word is that owner/chef had been a chef for French cuisine in Japan for a dozen years. And something about him making shrimp consommé is somehow related to that French background and their ebi ramen. The broth of said ebi ramen tasted much like a greasy prawn noodle soup - albeit one with fancier toppings. Like prawn wanton, chilled chicken slices, pickled vegetables plus some thinly shaven shreds of yuzu which added some extra flavours to the relatively flat broth. 

The thing that I thought enjoyable were those chilled slices of chicken which was kinda like a sober drunken chicken if you catch my drift. The straight yellow noodles were chewy but it wasn't the type that I usually liked in ramen.

Doubt I would make the effort just to come back here again.

Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin, ION Orchard

Out of the numerous food outlets that has popped out of ION, this shop (2 Orchard Turn, #B4-39/40 ION Orchard, tel : +65 6509 8101) which originated from the Ginza district of Tokyo was one of those that had caught my attention. It also turned out to be one of the better eats in the overwhelming sea of stalls (Arinco King just dropped out of the map here so they don't count). 

While they don't look to be in the leagues of places like Tonkichi or Tampopo or even Romantic Kobe, I think they're still decent. I might have to come back again (which I probably will) to be sure since the hire katsu that came with my rice bowl option was smothered in the sweet and savoury soy sauce that led to a soggy breaded exterior. Still the filet was quite tender and nicely marinated through. Portions were generous and there was a tasty tonjiru soup on the side that had thinly sliced strips of pork belly in them.

There was also a pork rice bowl which wasn't as small as we were led to believe that was not bad (though not as awesome as the one at Baikohken). Meat was a little dry-ish. And some cheese katsu sandwich which featured very thin slices of cheese that couldn't be tasted. While so, the breaded pork was good and a better sandwich could probably not be found in the building. I'll might come back to try the unagi katsu another time.