Kebabs and kunefe

Valentine's Day

Sandaime Bunji, Millenia Walk

Sandaime Bunji's (9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-14/15 Millenia Walk, tel : +65 6333 1516) models on teishoku set and a la carte options of the mains dishes from said sets. The focus of the menu are their grilled gyutan and oden.

We hit up the small gyutan set which came with a variety of the items from the menu in small portions. That included the mugimeshi (barley rice), tororo, an unexpectedly clear and flavourful ox tail soup, flame grilled gyutan, salad, tofu and some very forgettable salmon sashimi.

The grilled tongue was fragrant and delicious but a little chewy.

I thought the oden was pretty good as well. The taste was both savoury and clear with what I thought to be comforting warm soup. Will want to order this again the next time.

Sandaime Bunji's mugimeshi can be had with their tororo which is flavoured with what I thought was shoyu. Tasted like shoyu.

Ginza Kuroson, Robertson Quay

I guess this place (30 Robertson Quay, #01-10/11 Riverside View, tel : +65 6737 5547) is trying to be quite a bit of things altogether which resulted in hits and misses in my opinion. To elaborate on that, I couldn't say that the food was bad. It was probably not as good as it could have been since these guys were trying to whip up sashimi, sushi, kushiage, kushiyaki, cooked food, French food and it was also a robatayaki to boot; all it seems in a open kitchen that seemed to value a sort of zen aesthetics over function.

What I thought was well done were the squid beaks that were actually knobby circumference of the mouth of squids sans the actual beaks. It was the predictably chewy and squidy flavors melded with a nice browning from the grill. Predictably tasty too. Would definitely order this again. Along with the comforting steamed potatoes with kanimiso.

umaki

sashimi platter

ika "beak"

tuna & leeks

steamed potatoes with butter and kanimiso

richly flavored oyster cream risotto (<--that's what they think!)

bitter chocolate brownie

an alcoholic yuzu drink

Tambuah Mas, Paragon

Yet another place which I've been meaning to mention for a while and have somehow neglected to. Tambuah Mas (290 Orchard Road, #B1-44 The Paragon, tel : +65 6733 2220) serves Indonesian styled food. This was my first visit to this outlet at Paragon after finding out that the other branch which I've been eating for the past few times at Marina Square was no longer in business.

There are more than a few dishes which I enjoyed here, but the laws of physics are pretty much absolute and sometimes, unforgiving.

The chicken satays were a first time order. What really shone for me was the rich and viscous peanut gravy that accompanied the skewers of chunky marinated chicken. I did think that they could have been improved with a bit more char.

The gravy from the sayur lodeh was a little on the thin side, but it still made a good accompaniment with their less than fluffy nasi putih.

Sauces and gravies are really one of the mainstays for me here. Their chicken korma was another order of choice that featured rich coconut laden gravy with a savoury bent and a very mild measure of heat. It certainly made me wolf down more rice than I would normally do.

The other item for us that's somewhat become a regular was their paru goreng. Those savoury deep fried cow lungs have light crisp on the outside and a beefy chew.

We ended this meal with a es buah atap which was essentially a glass of atap seeds in a bandung configuration to wash down the grill and spices.

Nothing earth shaking or mind blowing around here, just down to earth and hearty food to be had.

The crime of crabsticks and truffle paste

Totally home made sandwich of mild cheddar, shredded crab sticks and a Porcini with white truffle puree between sliced bread pan toasted in butter. And introducing, Unique Eats.