Aoki, Shaw Centre

Named after the restaurant director Kunio Aoki and designed by a Japanese interior architect, this minimalist designed yet stylish Les Amis restaurant is located alongside the parent Les Amis and sister La Strada along Shaw Centre right beside Pacific Plaza. Fronted by a the sombre dark exterior, the interior furnishing of Aoki is largely done in wood providing a warm sanctuary of zen like enclosures which separates dining booths for the visitors of the restaurant.


The dining areas of Aoki are separated into three main sections. First of which are several alcoves of private space shielded by wooden sliding doors along the main passage after the entrance. The same corridor also leads via a short flight of steps to the bar counter where one can watch the chefs in their dangerous knife art. Behind the bar counter are more private dining rooms which I did not get to explore. The restaurant was manned by a host of very polite and attentive staff, a portion of which are real Japanese. What I had really appreciated about the service in this restaurant was that their wait staffs, while attentively observant and barely out of sight were also not intrusive by keeping a distance. This made the eating experience here a largely pleasant one

I had lunch today in one of the hauntingly peaceful (the weather helps) booths by reservation with courtesy of sinquanon88 of HWZ. These booths were just the alcoves of private dining space which I have mentioned earlier with the shielf of sliding doors that separates the said booths from the main corridor. The walls of the booth facing the sliding doors are of a fogged glass which, when catches daylight creates a ethereal wall of impenetrable mist; the illusion of a permeable backdrop with bamboo silhouettes just behind the wall of opacity.



Aoki does lunch sets and has an accessible menu from their website. Their lunch sets are priced ranging from $30 to $60. We went with the Mazechirashi and the Shokado sets and decided on some add ons. These came in the form of fermented sea slug intestines, spicy cod role and uni sushi.

Fermented sea slug intestines

I didn't have any idea how these things would taste like before today. I didn't even know how a sea slug looks like. I was assuming that they would be small sea cucumber like mollusks and it would hence require quite a few of them just to get sufficient intestines for the dish. The taste we noticed was also strongly masked by the use of very salty soy sauce and a raw quail egg. I could imagine that without the use of those, the long semi-rubbery intestines would have a rather overpowering fishy flavour. Pretty thankful that the portions were tiny.

mentaiko

These spicy cod roe were soft and heavily salted and had noticeable heat. It was with sheets of dried seaweed which was used to wrap the roe along with sliced strips of zucchini; presumably for the offset of the saltiness of the roe. The skin of the mentaiko was soft and the eggs misshapen when pressure is applied to them.

Uni sushi

The uni sushi here costed $24 for two. It was pretty good, but surprisingly not even Akashi good.

Shokado ($38)

Mazechirashi ($35)

Their Mazechirashi came with very generous portions of cubed raw fish toppings. Salmon, mackerel, tuna, tamago, sliced zuchinni and other fish which I've either forgotten or cannot identify. On the side, grated wasabi. Underneath the bed of raw fish were also fine strips of seaweed which blanket the rice at the bottom of the bowl. I was really quite pleased with how this turned out. I had thought that lunch was usually not a good indicator of how good a restaurant could be. Apparently inn Aoki, there was considerable efforts made in their lunch sets. Each of the lunch sets came with a side of pickles, a prawny miso soup and dessert.


I mentioned prawny miso soup earlier because the soup does in fact come with a prawn head. Besides surprising unwary drinkers there is actually a rather robust flavour of prawn in the soup. In fact, that prawn flavoring was probably greater than that of the miso. Another pleasant surprise.


Dessert from lunch came with a delicious pumpkin custard pudding topped with a raspberry, a scoop of melon sorbet and plum jelly. It was so good that I wished there was more, but I suppose these good things are usually better in small portions. Lol. The melon sorbet was very flavourful, but it didn't taste like any melon which I knew of. That plum jelly which was also rich in the flavours.

I was really pleased with this lunch at Aoki. This was probably one of the lengthier write ups I've done on lunches which meant that it left a pretty deep impression for me to say what I had to say. Be advised that it doesn't come cheap.

I visited the washroom before leaving and noticed that they had an interesting wooden basin with dry towels on the side. Nice.

Buko Nero, Tanjong Pagar

Bummer! No photography was permitted by Buko Nero. I was informed that they have in recent months started disallowing photography of the food and the restaurant. What's up with that? I was hoping that since a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words and I could save myself from typing stuff that'll be stinging at your bleary eyes as you read this in the dead of the night.

Consolation was that I had managed to snap a few shots before one of the owners, Tracy came to inform of their policy against photography. I've waited almost a month for this seating after numerous frustrating attempts at calling the place with no one picking up the phone.

iPod Nano mounted onto speakers

A table's eye view

A peek into the kitchen

Pink guava juice

tableware

Buko Nero is a tiny family restaurant helmed (haha!) by it's tonsure baring chef Oscar. The space could seat what I estimated to be about 20 or so. The waiting time for food here was excruciating. Reservations was made at 7.30pm and by the time we hit the main course, it was about 9.30pm. I understand what it is to take the time and enjoy the food and I'm aware that this place isn't exactly well staffed. Still it grated. Be sure to bear in mind that good company is of the utmost importance at Buko Nero.

The menu didn't look particularly interesting and I was not sure what I was expecting either. So I ended up with the set dinner for the night at $38++, swapped the pasta main for a bacon & steak with blueberry sauce with a supplement of $16 (wtf!) and shared their oft mentioned Buko Nero Tau Kwa Tower with fatpig. I was told that it was possible to do dinner here for $40 so that was pretty much what I expected to pay, thinking that it was rather reasonable. My portion of the bill came up to $70. Kinda pricey.

Buko Nero serves a nice bread. It was small, hot and a little oily. But also nice. And free flow. Beats bread from many other places. The starter was a "lemon juiced" beef carpaccio blanketed with pomelo and topped with alfalfa with a smear of balsamic vinegar. It's a smear because the vinegar came literally as a smudge on the bowl, which meant that there wasn't much of it to go round even with such delicate portions. It was ordinary as carpaccios go

Following that was a pumpkin and crab soup with mint. The sweet pumpkin soup was served in a bowl the size of a Chinese teacup and had succulent crab meat. We also had a palate cleanser of a mango and lime sherbet which tasted weak and diluted.

The Tau Kua Tower appeared like a small tau kua pile. For $17, was expensive. If you're familiar with the squares of tau kua that can be bought in wet markets, you'll be getting a slice of that. A slice which was probably a quarter to a third of a whole block of it.


This steak wrapped with bacon was pretty decent. To the credit of the chef, it arrived at a proper medium rare. It however lacked the juiciness which I was hoping for. The blueberry sauce did not have much flavour we ended up tasting more bacon.


Dessert was an impressive chocolate and coconut cake with gula melaka coulis. This was one of the best application of brown sugar I've had. In spite of appearances (yes, the poor photography was to be blamed too), the hot crusty surfaced cake was soul warming. It's on the regular menu apparently and I would recommend it.

In all, a passable meal with very good service. Which still didn't quite make up for the waiting time and the considerably pricey bill. Could have had dinner at a place like Sage. However I just don't see myself going through the trouble of doing another reservation again for the prospect of a really small menu.

Copper Chimney, Race Course Road

Indian food for me has generally been a mixed bag of excitements and disappointments. In general, I do enjoy them. Especially those of the Northern India variety. There are certain commonalities which doesn't agree with me. It has to do with certain overused green herbs, amongst them the vile coriander. There are others, but I do not have the names to them. Suffice it is to say, these are the bane of my eating pleasures.

Copper Chimney at Race Course Road was an example of a mixed bag place. The restaurant is a few units away from Delhi Restaurant which I ate at a couple of months back. The al fresco dining area at the entrance was tiny (just two tables) but had a small measure of the old world charm (and dirt) of the colonial era. An old shop house glazed in weathered whitewash and peeling paint matched with dust coated grey concrete flooring. If not for the lack of shelter from the rain, it would have been a pleasant place to linger after lunch with hot tea and a cigarette which I shouldn't have the luxury of. Lol.

Papads were served at the start. These ones are studded with peppercorn and are quite spicy. Alongside, was a mint chutney which did not have slightest hint of mint in them. After a while, I couldn't decide if the crackers were the main source of the spicy sensation in my tongue or if it was the chutney.

One of the things I enjoy from Indian restaurants is lassi. This one was a mango flavoured one. Good stuff.

Their Murg Malai Tikka was heavy as a starter.  The portions could've made a main course. This was also one of those dishes that didn't altogether agree with me because of the amount of green herbs that was sprinkled all over. The dish was suppose to be chicken marinated with mild spices, yoghurt, cream and cheese. All I could really taste was the herbs and the bitter burnt portions of the chicken. Despite being a Chef's Recommendation on the menu, I'll never eat it again unless my life depended on it.


This Gosht Saag turned out to be an excellent in the rainy weather. It's mutton in spinach gravy as described in the menu. The dish was like a piping hot and mildly spicy mutton and vegetable stew of sorts. It managed to stay warm throughout the whole time I was eating. What impressed me was that mutton was actually tender and not overcooked. Had this with an order of cheese naan. The only complain that I had was that my unerring senses detected sparse bits of coriander. Fortunately, it was in quantities small enough for me to forcibly ignore.

I noticed that there is quite a variety of cheese based dishes on the vegetarian section of the menu besides palak paneer, so it's possible that I may come back again.

The Pied Piper's Pie

I don't recall having a pie which I thought was better than Don's. After today, I still haven't. Lol. I was thinking Piper's looks kinda good, having passed by the stall at the basement of Raffles City on several occasions and catching a waft of the golden brown pastries. I had originally wanted to check out the Beef, Bacon and Cheese but I was there pretty late and they were out. The good news is that if you're there late, all pies (no matter which one) goes for $5. This one up there is....some creamy chicken pie with white wine in the sauce. Couldn't tell from the taste. At all. It's filled with plenty of chunky chicken meat though. Pretty big chunks. What didn't quite cut it was the creamy sauce which I thought was pretty weak. It's not so good, despite how it looked.

A very forgettable Pivdofr

Dinner with Junie. Pivdofr is located along the eatery laden Liang Seah Street, just across the road from Bugis Junction. I was recommended this place by a colleague whom also enjoys eating and told me that the prices of dinner at this place was very reasonable and that the food was not bad. Seeing their claims of serving good food and not serving fast food, I was thought that maybe, this could be another one of those gems in town where affordability meets quality. I'm guess that all of you  would know what assumption is the mother of. While the food at Pivdofr was really quite edible, there was really little beyond it. Their set dinner price of $16.50 did sound like a rather attractive deal. And it would seem that you pay for what you get.

The dinner gets you a small salad, soup of the day with garlic bread, a main of choice and dessert. Customers also are entitled to order their half dozen escargots at $6.50 instead of the usual $8.00 if at least one set dinner is taken. The snails were quite decent, but I thought it was a waste that there wasn't enough bread to soak up all the excess butter left behind. We found it quite laughable that both of us thought that the salad from this place actually tastes better than the circus act of a spinning bowl salad from Lawry's. What was obvious right from the start were the freshness of the vegetables that were used and strangely, I kinda enjoyed the bits of onion which seemed to add more character to the usual monotonous Thousand Island mix. I normally don't like onions. The soup of today was cream of corn and wow, the gods must been smiling because for once, I didn't encounter cream of mushroom for a daily soup. The soup was milky but a relatively unexciting cream of corn. The mains which we picked were the Hungarian Beef Goulash and the Mixed Grill. The goulash was really just beef stew that came with rice. I don't know if there's anything about Hungarian goulash that makes it truly Hungarian, but I'm quite sure this didn't have those elements because it's just a regular stew with potatoes, canned button mushrooms and carrots. On to the mixed grill, I know I've had better in coffeeshop westerns. Better in portions and better in quality. More than significantly better at that. These didn't even come with the bacon and eggs or even lamb. The meats were hard and well done (yeah, the doneness of the beef too) and what I assumed to be the chicken wing could well have been pigeon wings. The dinner finished with an easily guessed scoop of ice cream. I'm so thrilled. Thrilled that now I know and that I will never set foot in here again.

Maybe it's just me expecting too much.

Kazu Sumi-Yaki Restaurant, Cuppage Plaza

The menu for Kazu was astoundingly large for variety. It took a while before we could even register what we had browsed while running through the list of items that were available. Spoilt for choice would be an understatement here while we were momentarily frozen by indecision. That also meant that there was likely still a whole bunch of things which I've have just given cursory glances and did not remember seeing. I suppose that boded well, especially when we liked the food here.

Kazu is located at the fourth story of Cuppage Plaza - which is right behind Orchard Point or just across the Starhub building near Centrepoint. They're one of a few Japanese restaurants in the building that looked to be really crowded during dinner. The atmosphere does get a little noisy from the din of the crowd and wait staff along with the constant background sizzle of the grills in the kitchen which seems to be continuously ongoing without end from the time we stepped into the restaurant. Tables were packed quite closely. Seating arrangements per individual included space that was just slightly bigger than elbow room at the tables. If you're looking for peace and quiet at dinner, this place is not it. Otherwise, you've just landed yourself  good Japanese kushiyaki joint. My observation of vibrant hustle came from a weekend crowd so I've no idea if they're equally crowded during the weekdays.

I'm not sure if this place serves "regular" Japanese food but we were here today for their charcoal grills on skewers which I have been curious about after reading it from D's entry.

Herring roe

This was served in five pieces. Texture was akin to rehydrated fish maw, just more compact. The roe was buoyantly firm and crumbled as you sunk your teeth into them. Each crumbled piece was still firm. I could feel the eggs burst like hundreds of tiny water balloons in between my teeth as I chewed them, releasing their saltiness. On the top are bonito.

Angler fish liver

The smooth creamy angler fish liver was like a chilled foie gras, albeit with a stronger liver taste. I liked this. The orange grated topping was spicy radish. Chilled ponzu sauce had an invigorating citrus flavour that paired well with the spiciness and the spring onions on top. According to the waitress, this liver is seasonal and is only available during the winter season in Japan. Another item she mentioned to be seasonal for winter in the menu was cod sperm.

Horse sashimi

Now that I've tried horse sashimi, I didn't think that it was much out of the ordinary as a meat. The sliced meat wasn't fulling thawed and didn't have much of flavour. Was not sure what to expect of horse meat. Felt like cold and unsalted salami which I thought was rather boring. There was a sesame oil dip on the side which helped but otherwise, I wasn't impressed to any degree.

Oyster in pork belly wrap

Oysters blanketed in pork belly - which were akin to having them wrapped in bacon. These skewers were served piping hot and one should be wary about popping the whole roll into the mouth. Lest the hot juices from the oyster exact their revenge on you.

Golden mushroom(top 2) and asparagus(bottom 2) pork belly wraps

The pork belly wraps for the mushroom and asparagus were sliced very thinly that one can almost not taste them. However I  dug the golden mushrooms and asparagus so this was a must try for us as it was our first time here. They were not bad at all.

Foie gras

Foie gras was another no brainer. At $5.50 a stick, it was affordable. Not as good as the pan fried ones but it came quite close. A slightly crispy grilled surface that enveloped a soft creamy inside which disintegrated as you wedge it between your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

Grilled squid in sweet sauce

I mentioned liking squid before. Kazu's grilled squids were pretty good. The meat was firm with enough bite, yet not rubbery. I did think it would have done better if it were a little more charred. The legs were removed and skewered.

Grilled pork with apple

I was instantly curious about these after reading about them on D's blog. Not surprising, these were pretty damn good and was claimed to be something of a specialty at Kazu by the server. Chunky pieces of tender fatty pork infused with the flavour of the grilled apples wedged between them.

Minced chicken with cheese in zucchini (left 2), grilled cod belly (second from right) and grilled chicken hearts (right)

The minced chicken and cheese in the zucchini wasn't fantastic. I could hardly taste any cheese. Will not order them again the next time. The cod belly was decent but I prefer my cod to be in larger pieces. Grilled chicken hearts were chewy. I'm not sure if I've ever had chicken hearts before today but I found them delicious. The heart is the strongest muscle in our body and I would presume it to be so for chickens as well. I suppose hence, the texture of the hearts were more meaty. But not tough. 

grilled tuna

I'm not usually big on cooked tuna but these were quite good. The insides were slightly rare instead of fully cooked which worked out for me. Didn't touch the leeks though.

ox tongue(left) & Japanese wagyu beef(right 2)

Ox tongue tasted like a chewier beef. The wagyu here was quite well cooked. Despite that, it wasn't tough and the buttery flavour came through courtesy from the heart clogging amount of fat marbled into the meat. We were not sure of what the difference was between the Japanese, Australian or the US version, so we picked Japanese at random. If I remember correctly, it was $10 a stick.

"Snowdrop"

That's a dessert call Snowdrop. The lump in the centre was ice cream (which you can choose between green tea or black sesame) that is wrapped in mochi skin. In the ice cream were some almond pastry and a chunk of milk chocolate in the centre. The golden weave (or hair) on the top was made of sugar. Though nnot a bad dessert, I didn't think too much of it.

Would definitely like to return again someday since I never got to try the crab and pumpkin croquette and pumpkin ice cream - they ran out of pumpkin. I also think that there are items from their menu that could appeal to me. What we've had so far left a pretty good impression.