Hanare by Takayama, Ngee Ann City

I was mostly drawn to Hanare by Takayama (#03-07, Takashimaya Shopping Centre Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road, tel  : +65 8298 9369) from the pictures of their kamameshi I've seen online. Knew next to nothing about the original Takayama by the chef Taro Takayama. Except that it's kinda expensive and Hanare instead would possibly be an introduction to his food.

Their house made ginger ale is not bad. Fruity and while I wished it had a bit more spice from the ginger, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wagyu dashimaki tamago. Could taste the beef in it.

Ordered the fish cartilage because it sounded interesting and we've never had it before. Texture was kinda cartilage-y. 😂 There's a lot of crunch if you hadn't had them before. The umeboshi and shiso flavours packed a perky punch. I can see this going superbly with white rice. *brain cues flashbacks of Suju* 

Food took a while to arrive so a glass of Suntory to help with the wait.

Sakura ebi pasta was part of the warm appetizer menu. There's little bits of kombu in there as well so the flavour was expectedly seafood-y and umami.

That's the awabi kamameshi. I think the flavour in the rice came mostly from dashi and the abalone liver sauce. Maybe there was also a little bit from the mushrooms and hijiki as well. Noticed that the menu had options for additional liver sauce. Could understand why that. Will remember to do that if I ever come back to eat this again. Anyways, I liked it. The flavour not as intense as I had imagined though.

There's more texture and taste from the kinmedai kamameshi. Probably because of the vegetables and tsukemono in it. Flavour profile is more tangy because of the latter but substantially, it still fell on the kinmedai, mushrooms and dashi.

Got their matcha financier to end. These took a while to be served and I'm pretty sure they were baked to order. The exterior was light and crusty while the insides were dense, moist and filled with a buttery matcha bitter. So good this one. Would love to eat this again.

Ramen Champion in the last quarter of 2022

Ramen Champion appears to be a shadow of its former self. What used to be individual stalls look like they're operating a centralized kitchen with a common collection point - unlike the past where each had their own space with their identity. I don't even know from which some of the ramen are from. 

Updates on their sites are inconsistent and often inadequate. Their social media looks sad. You know it's sad when it's largely filled with influencer posts. 

Is it even still a championship of any sort anymore or are they just a ramen food court these days? 

Anyways, came to try the tsukemen from Taishoken. Not bad. The broth wasn't as thick as I had imagined but it was filled with bonito smokiness and the noodles were respectably chewy. No overpowering flavour from the menma and sadly no molten yolk in the ajitama as well. I recall thinking better of Tetsu from the past though.

Tried a pork fat stamina ramen. Liked this. Garlicky, salty and full of textures from the cabbage, bean sprouts and the chewy noodles. I think I like the Megamen from Brothers Ramen a bit more. Not to mention that Brothers Ramen has superior pork belly which was importantly more tender. No molten yolk from this ajitama as well. Now which one was this supposed to be from?

 Mentai-mayo gyozas were okay tasting. 

Revisiting Xing Hua (兴化) at Chinatown Point

More food from this branch of Xing Hua. The more we eat here, the more we notice how these guys fall short compared to Putien. 😬

This was described as stir fried long beans (四季豆) with XO sauce. Not sure if this was with any XO sauce at all. Those bits were kinda like spicy dried shrimp/hae bee hiam. Lightly spicy, salted with a light sweetness. Nice. I thought this was a pretty competent rendition of the dish. 

We ordered the salted egg Duotou clams because we hadn't had them in this style before. I wouldn't recommend these. These weren't worth half of what they charged. Most of the plate were shells and batter for the salted egg. Those clams were also small and pretty tasteless. Nothing like the quality one gets at Putien.

Ordered their claypot seafood tofu. Tofu's not bad. There's a couple of slices of fish in there that's pretty muddy tasting and also a couple of sad looking scallops besides those prawns. The dish looked and felt like a obligatory item that was on the menu because someone felt that it needed to be there. Nothing outstanding about this.

Tried their claypot drunken duck because we've never had drunken duck before. Remember those boiled to death chicken in chicken soup where the meat has become hard and/or stringy and tasteless. That's what these duck tasted like. Not like duck. The braising soup/broth thingy was delicious though.

The chicken from this double boiled red mushroom chicken soup was actually pretty good eating. Tender, salted and easily slurped off the bone. Not dry and stringy like the duck. Not a bad one.

Charshu ramen with lemon from Marutama

Encouraged by the previous episode, we came back to Marutama. They charged a dollar for some lemon I asked for and gave me a whole half instead of a just wedge. Why the lemon? I wanted to see if I could somehow replicate the tori paitan bowl that I had at Uma Uma Ramen.

I'm don't think it tasted the same but I liked this anyways. There was quite a lot of juice from the lemon so the creamy broth got zested up much. I wouldn't mind doing this again. 

Yakiniku Like, VivoCity

Yakiniku Like (#02-60 VivoCity, 1 HarbourFront Walk, tel : +65 6974 9954) from Japan opened their first restaurant about a year before Yakiniku-GO which we've been to a couple of times. The former claimed to be Singapore's first restaurant to offer individual electric smokeless grills. And solo yaikiniku.

This was the main driver behind this trip. Suckered by a misleading ad on their social media. I should have been clued in by tsukimi but......

They have a bunch of sauces, something that didn't seem to be available in Yakiniku-GO. Tried the original, sea salt and garlic soy. Just salt and pepper were still the best for us.

The only truffle thing in their Truffle Tsukimi Wagyu & Karubi Set was the onsen tamago which had some sort of truffle sauce. Nada on the beef. We thought that there would be. 

It was clear that they wanted to give the impression that the truffle tamago was a separate item and I thought it was also outright misleading for the pictures not to include them as part of the set because they were. We didn't get the impression that it was, so we ordered them separately and ended up with two truffle tamagos per set.

A double whammy of misdirection.

Kimchi's nice with the rice. Wished the portions were bigger.

I'm more favourably inclined towards Yakiniku-GO at this point. They have lamb. But when I feel like yakiniku, whichever of them available is going to be as good.

Economy bee hoon (经济米粉) from Toa Payoh Vista Market

Don't know what the name of this stall (#01-10 Toa Payoh Vista Market, 74 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh) was but they have pretty decent bee hoon (经济米粉). Loved those molten yolked fried eggs. Their chilli sauce was a little too sweet for my liking though. Nobody does chilli like Ivan's Porridge for their bee hoon.