The Lord of Terror returns!

[fanboy mode]ZOMG!! Blizzard is releasing Diablo 3!!! [/fanboy mode]

I was thrillingly and unexpectedly usurped by this piece of news, strangely, on Camemberu's blog. Seriously, I haven't been so excited in a while. Having been entrenched deep in the predecessors, I admit to being a huge fan of the game and have wasted countless hours into the ungodly hours of the night button mashing my mouse to death and risking permanent injury to my wrists for it. This is something to look forward to apart from eating, lol! Oh, for those of you initiated Diablolites, remember the theme song at Tristram? It's gotten loads sexier.

Comically Lovecraftian

One of the curious sights that I was greeted with as I walked into this Hokkaido Fair at Isetan was a half man, half scallop in the midst of the bustling crowd promoting the dried and seasoned scallops that was one of the signature items of the fair. After numerous attendance, the boil of enthusiasm has somewhat simmered down for me. The offerings have somewhat become quite expected and very little is new. There's still a thing that they have against photography during the fair itself but "scallopman" obliged for a couple of shots.


Here's more of some of the stuff/loot I managed this time round.


Hotate pachi balls which had whole small scallops in them. These are better made than the usual ones that you find in outside. They're actually creamier and I find that scallions is a much tastier topping compared to bonito flakes.


A Hokkaido curry bun. Just as you may surmise, it's a breaded bun filled with curry.


There you go.


I forgot what these are called, but they're like Japanese pancakes and this one has a creamy custard filling in it. It's actually pretty good when you eat them hot.


As usual, some economically priced otoro from the sushi section. They tend to be better when there are Japanese fairs about. The usual ones that come up normally don't deserve to be called otoro.


These are sliced katsuo. I don't remember having had them before and the taste was a little fishy.


Ikura and sake sushis. As with the otoro, the salmon and their eggs seems better during the fairs.


This egg was from the croquette store. I got one of them because they reminded me of scotch eggs and true enough, the wrappings surrounding the egg were minced meat. They're so very tasty...


My favourite squido rice.


These otaru sweet potato are regular Japanese sweet potatoes that have been halved. The insides are scraped out to be mashed with custard leaving the the skin with some of the flesh behind like a shell. The shell is then filled with some custard and then topped over with the sweet potato and custard mixture. After that, baked. They're supposed to be eaten chilled and if you know of Japanese sweet potatoes, it's nothing surprising in terms of taste. They're quite good.

Bishan 504 Boneless Chicken Rice

I had heard that this chicken rice shop wasn't too bad.

In retrospect, they were a bit pricey and it wasn't impressive to boot. Rice was quite bland, lacking in chicken oil and garlic. The chilli sauce was decently spicy (this was sadly the best item of it all) and was put into good use because of the rice. Their roast chicken lacked that "roasted fragrance". Chicken skin felt limp and was it felt like eating brown steamed chicken. 

Was surprised that bean sprouts came cold instead of hot which made me assume that it has been blanched before and left for serving rather then cooked upon order. There was a generous smothering of pepper on the said bean sprouts but no much flavour from the pepper. Brings to question the quality of their ingredients.

Needless to say, I won't be returning.

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?