Tenshin tenyears later

We first found out about and visited Tenshin about ten years ago. This was us coming back a decade later today because we still remembered that we wanted to come back to try something else from the menu. Prices have gone up since. The entry tempura set at lunch is now $40 - $10 up from 10 years ago. Their uni tempura is now a princely $45 a pop. The rest of the restaurant seemed to have remained the same.

Goma tofu was served as part of the zensai. I don't remember this from the last time. It was nice and nutty though.

This was their tendon from their tokusen tendon set. What was different from the regular tendon was that this came with their ebi kakiage tempura - which could also be ordered separately at $30 a pop. Which we also did because the chopped prawns were so delicious and sweet.

That's the uni tempura...sea urchin sealed in a seaweed packet which is then tempura battered and fried briefly. It's not on the menu, but many people seem to know about it. It's still as good and 50% more expensive compared to the last time I had them.

No uni lover says no to this.

Re-visiting Todamgol (토담골)

That's what it was. A re-visit to Todamgol because we enjoyed the food from the last visit.

Because waiting was needed, I ordered their draught makgeolli. I had the idea that it was made in house since 'draught' was mentioned but apparently, draught came from a plastic bottle which was poured into the urn as part of how it was served.

Banchan for today.

That's the gool jeong - oyster pancakes which weren't much different tasting from the local oyster omelette. This one has less flour, more egg and nicer oysters.

The main item for tonight was their al tang - a spicy fish roe stew. This was nice. There were plenty of fish roe in the stew along with those squiggly parts which were very tasty.

We couldn't get past the rice, especially when there was kimchi to go along.

Kamo ju from Ginza Kamo Soba Kyudaime Keisuke

Did anyone notice that Keisuke has quietly changed the name of the shop to simply Kamo Soba instead of the older longer name? Anyways, this was the kamo ju - the last item and also the most expensive one that I wanted to try from Ginza Kamo Soba Kyudaime Keisuke (there's the older longer name!). Understandably, this could be perceived as a sort of Japanese duck rice which was not so much different from the local variety except for the ingredients and preparation method. Sliced duck, soup and rice.

Those sliced ducks were okay. Tender, chewy and I suppose passable in flavour. I'm pretty sure that was where most of the cost of this set came from. Underneath those duck was a layer of rice with minced meat packing some wasabi. That wasabi was a nice touch. What I found myself liking was the soup that was packed with loads of gamey duck flavour. If not for anything else, Kamo Soba did a ducking good job out of their broth.

Buffet at Kintamani Indonesian Restaurant

The last time I was here was probably a little more than a decade back. Kintamani Indonesian Restaurant (3F Furama Riverfront Hotel, 405 Havelock Road, tel : +65 6739 6463) isn't a high profile location and not so many people talk about them. But these guys are known for their Indonesian food buffet which is pretty expensive if one doesn't take advantage of those one for one credit card deals. There's an a la carte menu which isn't cheap that features some of the stuff that doesn't get put into the buffet variety. Likewise, there are regular buffet items like their sayur lodeh that for some strange reasons is not available on the menu.

I don't think these guys were the standards of Sari Ratu. But the food was decent enough. Some of the more memorable include their curried beef tendon, sayur lodeh, telur balado and a surprisingly savoury laksa which one could assemble from a station. There's satay to be had, gado gado which one could customize, kueh lopis where one could shovel as much shredded coconut and drizzle as much palm sugar as you wanted and unexpectedly tasty goreng pisang at the dessert station. All the food was made with delicious gravies and sauces that one cannot help but help themselves to more servings of the nasi puteh and kuning. It wouldn't be just a pun to say that the food was explosive. Haha!

Re-visiting Blue Ginger

We came back after the encouraging first visit to try more of their dishes. That included the ngoh heong which I had initially felt doubtful about but had turned out to be pretty delicious, packed densely with stuffings of minced pork and shrimp. Not heavy with the five spice powder. I preferred this to the rendition from Violet Onn Satay Bar. 

There was a pretty decent rendition of chap chye which I thought wasn't too bad. What was outstanding on this visit was their udang kuah pedas nanas - a dish of tiger prawns cooked in a pineapple gravy. I'm going by taste here and thinking that this seemed to have a lot more flavour coming from what I thought was assam (tamarind) rather than pineapples. In any case, the gravy was very appetizing and I liked both the meaty prawns and pineapples.

Truffle fried pizza from Da Paolo's Pizza Bar

I didn't realize that it's been four years since I was last here.

We saw that there was pizze fritte on their menu. Well, it was actually a fried calzone that was stuffed with mozzarella, mushrooms and truffled ricotta.

We didn't think it was impressive. The ingredients weren't outstanding. Considering that there weren't so much going on - the quality, or the lack of it showed. Mushrooms weren't particularly flavoursome and the mozzarella tasted flat like those that you could get from Phoon Huat next door. For what they charged, using buffalo mozzarella would have been nice.