Menya Musashi, Raffles City

This (252 North Bridge Road, #01-16 Raffles City Shopping Centre, tel : +65 6336 6500) was another one of numerous ramen-ya that has been making headlines in the past year that I haven't yet had a chance to visit until today. A ramen-ya that originates from the Shinjuku ward in Tokyo. This shop came with a odd story where the shop was named after a certain samurai with a double sword style. Much like a certain Drizzt Do'Urden I guess. Maybe not. I'll explain below.

So here's their black thunder and a Tokyo Akiba curry ramen.

The former was advertised in a poster with a large head of the oni on the back of what seemed to be a potent bowl of spicy ramen. An oni that perhaps Miyamoto Musashi was not skilled enough to defeat in the breath of his mortal existence and now permanently torments his spirit by appearing in bowls of his ramen. Lol! It wasn't as potent as it had looked. If I could break it down, I'm guessing that it's the regular tonkotsu broth that they have in the shop plus a little alchemy with what makes their reds and blacks and a small sprinkle of sliced chilli padi. Am I close? Not such a challenge for us locals. I've had more potent ba chor mee. Not delicious enough to have again too. 

Drizzt would have kicked oni butt. Easily. If not, there's always help from Wulfgar and Aegis-fang.

The latter was probably a little more interesting. I'm thinking the regular broth with Japanese curry. The regular broth being salty takes the sweetness off the curry - resulting in a broth that was still both savoury and flavoured with the curry. Nice portions of those shabu thin slices of pork in there and a half boiled egg to up the ante.

The noodles here are a class of their own aren't they? Needs more bite to gain my nod of approval. 

MexOut, Far East Square

Here's a rice bowl (mess tin actually) and some corn tortilla tacos from MexOut. I'm not sure how American Mexican this place (39 Peking St. #01-01, tel : +65 9770 7441) really is, but I actually quite like the food here. Those chopped up carne asada simply works on the tacos and I liked the heat from their salsa picanto. It's just too bad they were out of lamb today (already on a Wednesday afternoon?!). I'm not sure when's the next time I'll be able to come back. Food like these needs to be a little cheaper too.

Long Phung Vietnamese Restaurant, Joo Chiat Road

Delicious Vietnamese food to be found here (159 Joo Chiat Road, tel : +65 9105 8519).

We had the obligatory goi cuon which was......rustic. The rice paper skin was a little soggy and chewy.

The serving of oc nhay or boiled conch was sweet and fresh tasting. Tasty with and without the accompanying dip of fish sauce, pepper, salt and tamarind with sliced bits of chilli.

Following the snails was a perky green mango salad with strips of pork belly and shrimp flavoured with basil. The tangy notes from the shredded mango was appetizing. I liked this.

And then a bo tai chanh - described as an underdone beef salad. This was basically beef that was cooked to medium doneness enlivened by lemon and some sugar. A little salt would have upped the flavour game but I'm not sure how these are usually had.

My main bowl of a bun thit nuong cha gio. Rice noodles with grilled pork and a fried spring roll. Doused with the fish sauce and lime with peanuts, the rice noodles ended up a lot lighter and much tastier than it appeared. The only thing I didn't take to were the raw bean sprouts.

I forgot what this was called, but it's rice noodles in a light savoury broth that was loaded with ingredients like sliced pork, pork offal and shrimp. Tasty this was.

And to finish in the sweltering humidity of our merciless sun, a milk and egg soda.

Food here tasted authentic Vietnamese and importantly, delicious without being expensive. Would like to come back again.

Yang Gui Fei (羊贵妃), Smith Street

The play of words involved in the name of this shop should bring a smirk or a chuckle at least. Yang Gui Fei (18 Smith Street, tel : +65 6100 0629) does food from the city of Xi'an, a northern region of China that is the home of a large Chinese Muslim population; and I hear too, famed for the discovery of the thousands of buried terracotta soldiers that served standing as sentinels to the soul of the first emperor of China.  The latter point not withstanding, it means there will be lamb! Was it anything like the real McCoy? I can't say because I don't know. But the food was pretty good.

Chilled tofu with with diced century eggs and soy sauce. The equally chilled bits of century eggs had developed an interesting texture akin to cooked mushrooms.

These pickled string beans were an excellent wake up for the taste buds. Boldly sour and packed some heat in the midst of their crunchy textures.

The gui fei deep fried lamb ribs were a signature from this shop. Basically deep fried lamb ribs in a savory cumin (amongst other spices) batter. Cholesterol bomb? Sure. Delicious? Sure as well. Batter was tasty and crispy, wrapped around fatty lamb meat on the bone.

All that grease also meant that it doesn't take very much before you'll want to stop.

Yang rou pao mo was a very nicely done broth, made with broken bits of flatbread that will soak up all the flavour and slices of lamb. The broth was really nice. I meant, it was close to ramen grade broth kind of nice. Like a sort of lamb rendition of tonkotsu. Someone start making that already!

And some sour plum or haw juice to cut through all that grease. Who's kidding whom?

Emerald Green Tonkotsu from Ramen Bar Suzuki

I guess I came back here much faster than I expected. I ordered their Emerald Green which was a powdered Parmesan cheese and basil flavour of their tonkotsu ramen.

In spite of the sodium bomb that it was, I liked it.  Pity that they don't entertain requests for additional cheese. The cheese added a dimension to the broth which was countered by a light touch of basil that skimmered on the surface. Their 'harigane' option for the noodles was not much harder than the previous visit.

Liked it enough to finish up.

A tokusen toroniku shoyu ramen with Iberico pork cheek from Ramen Santouka

It's been quite a long while since my last foray to Ramen Santouka (21 Cuppage Road, Cuppage Terrace, tel : +65 6235 1059) and it seems that they've upgraded their pork cheek ramen, using Iberico pork. While those slices of grilled pork cheeks were still tender and salty and ready to break apart in the mouth, I cannot in honesty tell the difference between this Iberico cut and the one that I had previously. The noodles were exactly as I remember them....not exactly my cup of tea for texture, but I would maintain that this shoyu broth is still my preferred one from this joint. With so many ramen-ya these days, I guess these guys aren't the force to be reckoned with anymore.

Now that I've tried it, time to move on again.