Menya Shinchan Japanese Noodle Restaurant, Robertson Quay

I've noticed this place (30 Robertson Quay, #01-05 Riverside View, tel: 6732 0114) for quite a while already. I've never really paid it much attention beyond noticing as it's wedged at the back, behind Ryoriya Sangokushi and out of sight often meant out of mind. Until the mentioning by a couple of friends, I probably wouldn't have recalled this ramen place with a name that reminded me of Crayon Shinchan. Lol.

Names aside, the shop created quite an impression due to an incident that I will not mention. Suffice it is to say that the owner belonged to the type who took pride in his food. Which kinda goes along with what is explained of the history of this place that is set up by a Japanese guy living here who likes ramen.


This was something that one probably doesn't see often in our ramen shops called mazesoba. It's essentially a bowl of dry (non soup based) ramen heaped with fried shallots, some toasted and crispy noodle bits, crunchy pieces of cabbages, bean sprouts, shredded pork and sliced pork. Interestingly, there was a also a dollop of mayo and a slice of cheese. I tried this because it didn't look like any other ramen. The presence of cheese helped in that decision too even though it was just of the regular sliced variety. As it turned out, this is pretty damn tasty. There was a nuttish and mildly spicy gravy at the bottom.

The noodle that was used was much thicker than usual and there was an option to choose between soft and hard noodles which was determined by how long the noodles were cooked. This, I really appreciate since I felt that most ramen were too soft. The thicker noodles here were quite firm and I thought it wasn't bad at all. The yolk of those eggs that you see are amazingly soft in spite of their non runny appearances. The sliced pork? Very tender indeed.


There were a couple of options for the strength of the ramen broth here. The choice between rich or thin flavour. The base of the broth included seafood, shio, shoyu and miso. The seafood broth as they explained had sardines in the soup base but I thought it tasted like dried anchovy (ikan bilis). 

Exercised the hard noodle option and the al dente like texture was very agreeable with me. I spied a large bowl of their signature sinjiro ramen sitting in the front of another diner. Something tells me I'll be back to try some of that.

Scones on parade

These were some parmesan/cheddar cheese scones in their virgin incarnations. That meant that they've been baked for the first time by 2 bumbling chef wannabes. It turned out pretty good for a first attempt. In fact, I like them much better than the one that I tried at Sun Moulin which while was more of a traditional scone in terms of texture and hardness, lacked the cheese flavour. The benefit of making them oneself is that you can definitely tailor the ingredients to your preferences.

Hmmmm....yum yum!

What else hasn't been said by me?

Xing Wang Hong Kong Cafe, Anchorpoint

In general, I'm not big on Hong Kong cafes. Not big on their type of food. Not big with the perceived lack of effort in their food preparation. Not big on what they offer. There are a whole lot of them around making them feel like clones of each other. I've eaten couple of times and haven't thought much of the food. Most of them cannot even do a decent luncheon meat and egg noodle. 

This place (370 Alexandra Road, #01-07/08 Anchorpoint, tel: 6474 4498) came by recommendation of a friend who mentioned a good French toast. Needless to say, I was initially rather skeptical about French toasts in such a place, but it turned out to be a good call after all.

French toast arrived with a generous amount of honey drizzled over. This was actually coated with a visible layer of egg. It definitely tasted eggy and request for extra butter and honey was met with a generous response. The staff was also polite to the point that I almost felt that it was a strange thing. I'm picking up good vibes here and I'm encouraged to re-visit.

One of the pleasant surprises here was also the pork rib bee hoon which was again, much better than what I thought I could be getting. I'm not sure if the ribs were of the canned variety, but it was soft and slid off the bone with ease. Not to mention that the bee hoon was flavourful and moist.

Weekend roast at Molly Malone's

It seems that Molly Malone's does a weekend roast which rotates between beef, lamb, chicken and pork for $25 with accompanying soup. It turned out to be a little disappointing for the portions and the taste wasn't impressive either. Didn't think very much at all of the thinly sliced roast in pepper sauce which has got one of the saddest looking (and tasting) Yorkshire pudding I've ever come across. Looked quite shrivelled. Here's a first and a last time for that. Will stick to the regular items from the menu. They're much better.

Another lunch at Paulaners...

This pork loin stuff from the a la carte menu at Paulaners Bräuhaus (9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-01 Millenia Walk, tel: 6883 2572) was pretty good. Well, it was just a tasty piece of salted pork loin on the bone, but in medium well doneness.  Must have helped in preserving the juices in the meat. I'm not too sure why is there a frankfurter in there though. I guess with all the salt in the cooking, the sauerkraut helped take some edge off. The starter of the boiled asparagus and air dried ham on rosti turned out to be pretty tasty as well, especially with the thick creamy mushroom sauce. That sauce was magic!