Tokyo Sundubu, Raffles City

I gathered that Tokyo Sundubu (#B1-16 Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6252 2425) is Japanese Korean. Meaning that they're a Japanese chain doing sundubu jjigae which is Korean. They have a number of toppings for their soft tofu stew here. We ordered the one with oysters and another with mentaiko cheese. They were both pretty good.

I liked that the pot with the oyster had oyster flavour infused in the spicy broth. There were like five oysters in there, pretty fat ones and also had a pretty hefty price tag for the bowl. Between that and the other, I liked the mentaiko cheese better because of how much more savoury it was. 

There's namuru on the side - a vegetable side dish. Made an almost passable bibimbap with the bowl of rice. Almost. They also gave a pittance of gochujang when I asked for some so the better way is to dump the vegetables and rice into the jjigae when you're ready and eat.

More food from Xi'an Famous Food (西安名吃)

We're back at Xi'an Famous Food (西安名吃). I ordered their pao mo thinking that I'd be getting 羊肉泡馍. It was indeed a 泡馍 but not specifically the 羊肉 rendition because the menu indicated one could choose between beef or lamb. So what they were serving was a generic 泡馍 where the broth didn't have any distinct flavour from the meat that was in it. Didn't taste bad but I'm probably not getting it again. The pickled garlic and fermented bean chilli on the side were awesome though.

This was their carb-y Xinjiang chicken noodle (大盘鸡拌面) - possibly spun off from the 新疆大盘鸡 dish with the same flat noodles as their biang biang mian. With potatoes, chicken and what I thought was a more moreish sauce than their biang biang mian. The potatoes and chicken were fried before they were stewed in that mildly spicy sauce. I could see myself coming back for this again.

A Suju lunch before the lunar new year

(一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五)

Our peaceful lunch at Suju before this Chinese New Year. The restaurant was opened till 3.30pm on the CNY's eve. So there's a head's up on where else one could eat out on that particular holiday's eve.

Got a couple of their ooebi tempura.

Sake harasu was a special on their lunch menu. Don't recall ever seeing them on their menu before. The fat laced belly meat nicely done without being excessively sweet with the teriyaki glaze. Now that I'm thinking of it again, was that miso or teriyaki...

Their Iberico pork misozuke was on the lunch special as well - this dish as I recall is normally available during dinner only.

Did not get the nama tamago today. Next time.

Kotobuki, One Raffles Place

These guys are just next door to Healthy Soba IKI. We've seen them for a while and well, we're here. Getting to the point, I thought this place is overpriced and wouldn't recommend it. That deluxe bakumori don up there didn't feel very deluxe for $40. It was small. Didn't have the minced toro the menu mentioned. The yellowtail (buri or hamachi I don't know) was omitted and they quietly replaced with mekajiki. Uni was so so. Kinda mediocre there without quantity nor quality.

Their aburi sake bakumori don was not bad. For some cubed salmon and mentai mayo over rice, $28 was expensive. To add on, the rice from both bakumori dons were stiff and dry. I get the feeling that these guys simply didn't give a flying f......

Unagi shirayaki was no good. The eel was dry-ish and burnt. While some may think it unfair to compare with shops like say Man Man, I'm pretty sure one can find better than this place. Will not be back.

Nasi padang from the Food Hub at Oxley Bizhub

Got this plate for $7.80 at the Malay food stall in the food court at Oxley Bizhub (61 Ubi Road 1). Not cheap at all but it was also tasty. Lots of flavour going on in this plate of rice - gravy from the umami sotong hitam, opor ayam and the limey heat from the sambal. They were also pretty generous with the paru goreng which were sliced a bit thicker. Those were fortunately properly cooked that the well seasoned lungs were still pretty tender and yet slightly chewy.

Kopifellas, Toa Payoh Central

I've gotten coffee from the branch of Kopifellas at Beauty World a few times and for local coffee, they were competent. Their brew was sufficiently aromatic and wasn't diluted at all. Especially if you ordered them di lo. This other outlet was in the Food Alley at Toa Payoh Central (#01-532, 190 Toa Payoh Lorong 6, tel : +65 6902 7105). Coffee's pretty good here too.

There's some food on their menu. Bak chor mee was pretty decent. The lady prepping the bowls looked like she knew what she was doing. Without comparing to the popular names out there, this was a competent basic bowl with generous amount of ingredients. Liked it spruced with chilli and vinegar.

They have toast with Earl Grey jam. Erm...not bad tasting. I thought this would have butter as well but it didn't.