Another lunch at Japanese Restaurant Suju

We sat at the other side of Suju today. Light came from the sun instead of the lamp.

Their beef hayashi was listed in a separate front portion of the menu. I wonder if that meant anything. Anyway, it was good. I detected a good bit of red wine and also tomatoes in the stew. The flavour was robust and texture creamy even though most of that hayashi was beef. I liked this.

There was a tori karaage teishoku on the specials list. It was the same specials list that was available the last time we were here. This was possibly the first time we've ordered a tori karaage set. Or a tori karaage anything. Ever. One of those things up there don't belong. Guess which?

Time's up. It's the egg which we added on to be stirred into the hot rice and eaten. Instead of shoyu, they added fermented soy bean for that aroma and bit of saltiness. This added a richness to the rice. 

The tori karaage? It was good. Fried to a crisp exterior without excessive oil while the meat of the chicken was tender and moist. Strange that this isn't on the regular menu.

Clinton St. Baking Company : The sugar bacon burger and a slice of cherry pie

Guess what? I liked this sugar bacon burger from Clinton Street Baking Company. Rather quietly unassuming with no hype; and of course I wished that there was a bit more of that blue cheese to go along, but this was tastier than I had been expecting. They got the medium doneness for the patty spot on and the seasoning was just right that all the beefiness could be tasted. Even through that bit of blue cheese and sweet bacon. Speaking of which, their sugar bacon is pretty much like bak kwa which also means, blue cheese works with bak kwa!

The apple pie which we saw previously was no longer around, but they had cherry pie. The one that's supposed to put a smile on your face ten miles wide and bring a tear to your eye. The fillings were pretty tart, but that kinda worked out since I didn't need anything that was more sweet.

A martabak from JTown Cafe

I've been meaning to check out this shop (#B1-04/05, Midpoint Orchard, 220 Orchard Road) for their martabak manis - an Indonesian sweet pancake which is quite similar to the Chinese styled peanut pancakes commonly known as ban chang kueh. This was their campur option which had a sprinkle of ground peanuts, shredded cheese, some butter (or perhaps margarine) and chocolate rice. The martabak was made on order - so that freshness spoke some for the moist and springy texture. Yes, it was both sweet and a little salty. Wouldn't mind dropping by once in a while for one of these. Perhaps another time with their bakmie.

Another lunch at Kaiho Sushi

It's been a while since the last time at Kaiho. Their anago don seems to have been taken off the lunch menu. We ordered some hotategai and uni while waiting for their slower than usual table service. A little bit of extras above their regular lunch items. Both were pretty good.

A tonkatsu sandwich from Hoshino Coffee

Hoshino Coffee (#01-651 Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard, tel : +65 6836 9881) is probably the only Japanese coffee place where I actually remember enjoying their coffee. They have a tonkatsu sandwich - which featured freshly fried crisp pork cutlet with a crunch and I liked that they didn't overdo the tonkatsu sauce.

Chinatown Special, Chinatown Food Centre

Dad used to tell me that he had heard that the owner/cook of this stall (#02-12 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) used to come from a hotel kitchen. But I read that it was just a restaurant, not from a hotel. The first time I had heard that was back in the day when the stall was located at People’s Park Food Centre where we had a fairly regular ritual of fried rice along with guo tie from Tian Jin Fong Kee nearby on Saturdays. Back in the day when most people still worked Saturdays and we’d meet dad after his work for family lunch. And strangely like that dumpling stall, we stopped patronizing at a certain point and never really came back again until many many years later.