Back at Tokyo Soba

Has been a while since the last time at Tokyo Soba (一, 二, 三, 四, 五). Today's experience was totally off, triggered by numerous little things that gnawed at me.

The quantity of the sliced beef was kinda measly for $20. But otherwise this was a pretty nice bowl.

Tonkatsu was okay tasting as long as one did not compare with the specialist tonkatsu shops. The pork was flavoured lightly with pepper. Meat was lean and a little dry. Easily remedied with the tonkatsu sauce.

Trying their kaisen kakiage for the first time. I liked it more than I thought I would. Seafood was pleasant, the onion was sweet and the fried batter wasn't bad tasting.

While I enjoyed the kakiage, I also thought it was a little too greasy.

What gnawed at me over this visit?

1) Default payment via mobile. This wasn't a thing for them in the past. Personally, I don't like being forced into it.  

2) The self order workflow had an additional step - some inconspicuous button that was required to be pressed for the order to be submitted after we had submitted the order. We did not realize that and waited for a long time before the shop informed us that our orders did not go through.

3) No freaking way to go back to the order list at the payment page. Good luck here if you had crafted long orders previously because we tried to remember it for 4).

4) We tried to order from a human and the human struggled to work their system to take orders. This step failed. We ended up back with the mobile ordering and mobile payment.

5) The wait was over 25 minutes for a half empty shop after the order had gone through.

6) Food was left on the collection counter for a considerable period. The hot food was cooling and the cold food was warming up. What the fuck is this shit?

7) Orders were incorrectly fulfilled. We never understood how can we were given hot nasu soba when the menu only has cold nasu soba?

Tim Ho Wan (添好運), Great World

Haven't had Tim Ho Wan (#01-139 Great World, 1 Kim Seng Promenade, tel : +65 6483 2000) in a while. I remember they were pretty decent in the past and there was a point where the standards kinda dipped. Gotta say that we were pretty pleased with what we had gotten today.

As fried rice went, their Yang Zhou fried rice passed muster. While the plate was not downright impressive, it was better than many and I guess it checked the boxes of what I thought made Yang Zhou fried rice. Like real prawns, real char siew and how the texture/flavour turned out. I could eat this again.

Edible steamed chicken and cordyceps on rice. What surprised me a little though was that the quality of the steamed rice wasn't even that of what we've had at Victor's Kitchen.

Lemonade espresso from Gyutan-Tan

We stopped at Gyutan-Tan (B2-32 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 8321 3359) for a drink. Got myself a lemonade espresso. Nice one. Citrus-y sweet lemonade in decent coffee with fizz and ice.

Mt. Cheese King from Ramen Nagi

Current limited king at Ramen Nagi - the Mt. Cheese King. It looked disappointing. #disappointed

Because this picture was what got me sold. It's a lot less cheese and I did not expect the base to be the same pesto one as their Green King. My mind was prepared for tonkotsu and powdered cheese. A lot of powdered cheese. And I was definitely not looking forward to pesto in it as well.

This bowl was basically their Green King with a bit more powdered cheese and some toasted pine nuts. Cheese wasn't a dominant flavour in this bowl. I felt lied to but I have only myself to blame for thinking that Ramen Nagi would deliver. They haven't for tonkotsu ramen for a while. Chains like Keisuke and Ippudo have better tasting tonkotsu broth. It's time I had that etched in my brain.

There's cheese gyoza. These were a nicer eat. The crispy skirt tasted like the cheese flavoured version of the usual thing.

The actual gyoza were disturbingly small with mashy fillings which I had difficulty identifying. The shape and size of the gyozas brought up images of silkworm pupa.

Wen Kang Ji (文康記), Food Republic @ Wisma Atria

So this is where Wen Kang Ji has disappeared to (Food Republic Stall 9, Wisma Atria Level 4, 435 Orchard Road). I finally got to try their char siew rice which I've noticed from the menu of their old stall at Joo Chiat.

I liked it. Rice wasn't dry and grainy. Their char siew and sui gao were delicious as I remembered them. What made this plate different from regular char siew rice was a lardy sauce on the side which was the same concoction they use to sauce their wanton mee. The usual order comes with wanton but they were out of wanton today and offered one sui gao. Had to top up a dollar for the second one.

Cakes from Sinpopo

Cakes and tea at Sinpopo.

Mao shan wang cake was not bad. Hard pressed to identify anything that might not have been durian in the durian paste layered in the cake. No artificial sweetness from it too. Nice.

Mango cake's decent. If I had to comment, it looked a little better than it tasted.

I didn't think their pulut hitam cake was bad but it's also one of those that I won't be getting again now that I've tried it. Flavour came through but it's not edging anyway close to being impressive.

Teh tarik's passable. Does not taste like real teh tarik unfortunately. Holding back on the sweetness was probably one of the reasons for that. Like their kopi, it's a name they slapped onto their beverage with little to substantiate that name.

Gagahoho Ox Bone Soup, Burlington Square

Got wind of Gagahoho Ox Bone Soup (#01-57A Burlington Square, 175 Bencoolen Street, tel : +65 6518 4157) recently. Noticed that the sign at their restaurant says Gagahoho Ox Tail Soup. There's no ox tail soup on their menu.

One of the talked about things from them is their kimchi. Pretty young without any flavour from fermentation I could detect. The paste was nutty with a hint of ginger and pretty spicy. Possibly the most spicy one I've ever had.  

My inclination is towards kimchi that's more fermented. I enjoy the tang. This was interesting but not something I'll see myself craving for. 

Peppery gamjatang they have. Also ordinary.

Sliced pork from the gamjatang was pretty good with the kimchi.

This was called mackerel pick and braised kimchi. Don't know what the name means but I reckon it's a jjigae -  similar to the one we've previously had at 88 Pocha. Like that one, the fish tasted like canned sardines. Like that one as well, pretty pricey for the portions. But I am a sucker for these because of the pairing of the sardine-y flavour with a more intense kimchi taste.

Suju in May

Inadvertently, we found ourselves back at Suju ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十). The dishes on their menu appears to rotate these days. Not a bad thing that.

We've been wanting to try their uni crostini since we first noticed it at this branch. It's aosa tempura topped with uni and there's caviar (don't know what kind) and shaved miso foie gras.

Couldn't taste the caviar and miso foie gras. But the uni and fried seaweed was nice. Beware, not cheap!

Sweet corn tempura.

Never noticed that they had grilled herring before. This was much better than I imagined. The fish was good quality and the meat was moist.

The bonus was the fish roe that was in the pregnant herring.

What's that you say? Fish roe!

Fish bloody roe! Look at the amount in one fish. And hell yeah it was delicious! 👍🏼

Pork chop hoba yaki. Miso marinated and baked in banana leaf with leeks and shiitake. Nice miso flavour in the relatively tender slices of pork but it's unfortunately not memorable compared to most of the other things we've had here.

Today's hayashi rice was nicer than I remembered it. There was a luxuriant creaminess to the sauce of red wine that accompanied an appreciable balance of sweet savoury tanginess. And thinly sliced beef. So good.

The matcha tiramisu's back after disappearing for a while.

Keisuke Plus, Funan

Keisuke Plus, or is that K+ (#01-15 Funan, 107 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6320 3456) is the new offshoot from the Keisuke Group, themed as a ramen/gyoza/sake bar and restaurant kind of eatery. The menu sports a selection of ramen that isn't available in any of their other shops. 

Place looks a little more fancy than their usual ramen joints. The tradition of free hard boiled eggs and bean sprouts is continued here.

One of the things Keisuke Plus appears to be doing is showcasing what they can do with wagyu. Which isn't a new thing or uncommon in this era. We had an order of their wagyu gyoza.

It's delicious. Beefy gyoza kind of delicious, seeping with flavourful oils. This blows the more expensive ones from Mashi No Mashi out of the water just by the virtue that we could tell that it was beef.

This - their wagyu mazesoba.

Nice. There's a mixture of flavours from the ingredients which somehow did not overwhelm the intrinsic flavour from the meat. I'm reminded of a beefy bak chor mee.

Mazesoba was also good with the hot sauce they bring to you for it. This one was not that spicy.

The bowl that hit like a punch from Saitama was their Hokkaido oyster broth ramen.👊🏻 Umami, creamy and intensely flavoured with the shellfish. Good on its own and also good with the squeeze of lemon. I recommend some before the lemon and some after. From the point of flavour intensity as an oyster based broth, this was ahead of the oyster paitan bowl from Konjiki Hototogisu. 

Even with splashes of the Lemosco, it was good eating. If anyone was wondering,  that's a lemony/yuzu-y sauce with a bit of heat - like a lemon Tabasco.

We also came across one of the better if not best hamu katsu in town. Thick with a proper panko crust. This was so much better than the one at Hakata Yakitori Batten Yokatoh.