Tsukada Nojo, Chinatown Point

We’ve been curious about Tsukada Nojo (#02-37 Chinatown Point, 133 New Bridge Rd, tel : +65 6444 8840) for almost as long as they have set up shop (and subsequently a few outlets). Their success by far has hinged largely on their bijin nabe - a beauty collagen hotpot. Certainly piques more than a little of curiosity.

Anyways, it’s a hotpot that’s done with their “golden collagen chicken stock”. A stock made with free range Jidori chickens from the Miyazaki prefecture in Kyushu. From what I read on their site, the chicken are stewed for 8 hours until their bones are dissolved. Said stock is then cooled into collagen puddings which pretty much forms the base broth.

Those puddings melt with heat from the induction stove built onto the tables. There's some chicken hidden in there as well.

And then a starter we ordered was served. Shredded steamed chicken with julienned cucumber, ume dressing and shiso. This was kinda nice.

The ingredients were pretty much the standard for all their hotpots. It seems that these guys have sourced local organic vegetables here. The only additional protein apart from the chicken are tsukune (chicken meat balls) and some prawns. Those prawns were really sweet by the way. One can of course top up with extras and add-on options. We stuck to the default since it was our first time. 

A cup of the unadulterated broth ladled out for tasting. Good stuff.

Meat is removed from the broth before the rest of the hotpot ingredients are put in. Chicken was pretty tender. Works with their yuzu pepper if you don't know what to eat them with.

Simmer and wait and then eat.

We had a side order of spicy tori nanban. That spicy mayo packed a bit of heat and was pretty good.

Also on the side, they had some large tori shumai which was quite nice too.

Egg noodles were provided for the remaining broth as starch for the hotpot.

You know what? This visit turned out to be better than I had imagined. I certainly don't mind coming back again if I can catch one of those hours when the queue isn't so crazy.