The Skewer Bar, Havelock Road

I found it very difficult to slap the Japanese label onto this post. The food from The Skewer Bar (727 Havelock Road, tel : +65 8933 5992) appears Japanese izakaya inspired with local influences. I wouldn't say that their standards are great. They're not mostly. Food's edible.

But according to some local Japanese guy who got sponsored to do a YouTube video on them, they're delicious and innovative. The lesson learnt to be gleaned here is a) not all Japanese are discerning and b) The Skewer Bar has sub standard quality control as this was not the main outpost that was featured in the video. The two need not necessarily be mutually exclusive.

Major gripe...everything's lukewarm. Most of the food do not feel/taste like they are freshly made.

There's Mandarin Wheat by Beijing's Jing-A Brewing Co. on tap. This was nice - easy drinking brew with some citrus. Like a less complex Hoegaarden. 

There's a four ton chawanmushi. 4 蛋...get it? Aside from the steamed egg custard, there's half a quail's egg, bits of century egg and a smidgeon of salted egg. It's lukewarm.

Scallops with garlic butter. Also strangely lukewarm. Flavours pretty good but the garlic and butter combination has always been an easy score.

I thought the otah tamagoyaki was not bad. The otah inside the egg tasted like Muar otah. Don't think they made them. Don't think the tamagoyaki were made on order as well. I get they feeling that these were pre-made and heated when they needed to serve.

What was unexpectedly nice was their ngoh hiong maki. These tasted much like a regular ngoh hiong with a solid chunk of prawn inside. I could even taste the water chestnuts. Toppings were fried tempura bits and tobiko which they were stingy with. Nicely done this one.

I need to run through these skewers. They don't taste fresh off the grill and sizzling like how I expected them to. I've had enough kushiyaki to know.

• unagi - wouldn't get those again.
• lamb - dry and a little stringy. Meat no fat. Not difficult to find Chinese shops doing 羊肉串儿 that outclasses these.
• hatsu - not bad. Don't know why it has been teriyaki-ed when salt will suffice.
• bacon wrapped quail eggs - okay pretty decent.
• bacon wrapped lychee - not bad, wouldn't mind more of them. Smaller than I imagined though.

Bacon's not very salty or smokey.

Grilled pineapples - barely luke warm. Barely crossed into the threshold of balance between sweet and citrus. It was on the verge of being more overbearing with the acid for their level of sweetness. I can't imagine how sour these might have been before they grilled it.

I was initially curious about their bbq stingray but after a show of their standards, decided against it.

Suju Dining Japanese Restaurant, Ngee Ann City/Takashimaya

Suju can be confusing with their name. This was the new branch at Ngee Ann City. Or Takashimaya as many people refer to it (#02-13 Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road, tel : +65 8796 4650).

I'm not sure if they're officially Suju Dining Japanese Restaurant, Suju Japanese Restaurant or Suju Masayuki. Maybe it's all of them. But henceforth it'll be referred to as just Suju to keep things simple. (Into the Suju-verse... 👉🏼  一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七)

The counter seats are swankier but doesn't face the kitchen like how it is at Mandarin Gallery. Maybe because of the space, the restaurant didn't feel as cosy. Or maybe we're just used to the one at Mandarin Gallery. This one felt a little classier and a bit more expensive. But who are we kidding...Suju has always been pricey.

This was probably just us getting used to the new space and an expanded menu. Saw a lot of things that the original shop didn't have and the initial apprehension soon morphed into anticipation. Menu's digital. Even some of the table service can be requested for from their restaurant's platform via mobile.

That's the tori ume shiso tempura - a tempura of chicken with ume wrapped in shiso leaf. Flavour from the leaf wasn't so prominent. It's mostly the ume. Came with a slice of pumpkin. Sweet!

Not seen before in their main branch was this shinsu salmon - white base is koji fromage blanc sauce and the fish was topped with wasabi oil and ikura. Nice. Also expensive.

Lamb karashi miso yaki. First time ever we've had lamb in Suju. And hell yeah it was good. Meat was reasonably tender with layers of fat. I'm not sure what cut it was but it looked like a saddle. Pretty taken in by the jus which was infused with the flavour from the meat.

This was just known as pork spare ribs on the menu. Ribs according to them had been confited in Suju's black vinegar. And yes, those be grilled pineapples on the side. Sweet and delicious they be. It's not apparent from the picture but there's two ribs in there. The visible one on top was almost as large as the meat knife they provided for this dish. The fat layered meat on the rib was tender had a respectable bite paired with the tangy sweet savoury vinegar sauce thingy. Was easily removed from the bone. Awesome!

Here's where things varied a little with the old. Rice was bottomless, tsukemono refillable once and miso soup is chargeable after the initial serving. There's no option for nama tamago for the rice here. 😞

Dessert was matcha tiramisu. Very nice. Matcha wasn't overbearing and there wasn't contention with the mascarpone. There's also kuromitsu drizzled over. 

Revisiting Ginza Tendon Itsuki

Been some years since we first and last ate at Keisuke's Ginza Tendon Itsuki.

I don't know if any improvements have been made to the ventilation but the shop still leaves the smell from the fryer all over you when you leave.

It's a good place to load up on their lightly pickled vegetables though. A couple of servings before the tendons are served and a couple more during to cut through all the greasy fried food.

Each order of their tendon comes with a miso soup and a small chawanmushi.

Seafood tendon's pretty decent. There's a surprisingly moist chunk of salmon in there which I thought was a better eat than the white fish piece which had the taste/texture of cheap dory. Prawn's nice and so were the scallops. It's all pretty good as long as one doesn't make unrealistic comparisons.

We picked the spicy tendon sauce for the chicken & mushroom tendon. There's a piece of fillet, thigh and breast meat. Mushrooms included eringi, maitake and a shitake cap. That spicy sauce had a prickling heat which paired nicely with the sweetness of the base tendon sauce. 👍🏼

Who could begrudge the molten yolk over rice?

Dragon ramen from Nantsuttei

Haven't eaten at Nantsuttei for a long time. This branch at Orchard Central is the only surviving shop as far as I know.

I wanted to try the Dragon ramen which I've been wondering about for years. It's just spicy minced meat added into their regular black garlic oil tonkotsu bowl. Not very spicy as far as spicy ramen went. I added some shichimi and the chilli oil for a little boost. There're other spicier looking kara miso bowls which I may come back for.

Their fuufu enman gyoza don't seem to be on the menu anymore. We got the sui gyoza instead. Pretty regular tasting boiled rendition.

Alphonso mango tart from Tarte by Cheryl Koh

From Tarte. In season. Nice. Bottom of the tart was filled with coconut-y pulut hitam cream.

Picolino, Shaw Centre

Picolino is formerly Lino Pizza and Pasta Bar which was in its previous incarnation Lino Pasta Bar. Casual-er counterpart to Lino of Binjai Park and Forum The Shopping Mall.

These are fried sprats - they look like sardines but they're smaller and taste similar. The dip on the side tasted of tomatoes and smoke and some other things I couldn't identify. Menu mentioned capers. I couldn't tell but it was good.

This was their longanisa Hawaiian. The meat component is longanisa instead of ham and there's suppose to be pineapple and apple chutney according to the menu which was kinda what interested me. Couldn't taste much of the apple. There's a little bit of sweetness but there's not enough characteristics to tell where or what. Also not enough of the sausages to make a difference for the meat so this was just a poorly designed pizza which might have sounded good on paper.

Which was probably what the Tabasco on the table was for. Food that was boring that you didn't need to worry about upsetting the guy who cooked it by hot saucing it. Shame on Les Amis for such standards.

If anyone's wondering, that's a red wine risoni with a leg of duck. There's Pecorino cheese, drizzle marks of sweet balsamic vinegar and some hazelnuts. Not bad this one.

Milo dinosaur panna cotta - sounded nice on the menu. Tasted cheap. Chocolate sauce was thin and sweet just like those from Hershey's squeeze bottles. I saw them can spray the cream. Coco Crunch was Coco Crunch. Milo powder was Milo powder. Ingredients were pretty much bought off the shelf for assembly. Except the Milo panna cotta. The flavour was so weak, I wouldn't have guessed that it was Milo if I hadn't ordered it.