My foodblog is getting messy! Dates are not in order of posts... I guess I have way too many food to document and too little time to write on everything. I shall backdate the posts to the exact date eaten when I have more time.
I didn't realise how much food I've consumed upon touching down in Singapore! Everyday... it's either a restaurant or some good hawker gem. It's no wonder I am always broke. An undergraduate acting like someone who has the means to squander her money away on food.
I really wanted to blog about this 2 Japanese restaurants that Z, A, my sister L and I went to last Friday. They were both really good!
We went to Tonkichi Japanese Restaurant located at Suntec basement, #B1-009, upon Z’s recommendation. Her friend had told her that the Tonkatsu served here was very good and that it was the restaurant’s specialty. Of course that’s quite evident from the name of the restaurant.
Z ordered this Tonkatsu dish that was served with egg while A ordered the curry dish. I on the other hand ordered the fried prawn dish which was really excellent. Shall elaborate more on that later. Unfortunately I do not have the names of the dishes as Z and A were rather hungry and thought I was mad when I began snapping pictures of the food! They laughed when I told them I might set up a food blog, saying that food blogs usually use professional cameras, not off-the-market cameras like mine. Now now, there might be this fad about blogs and popularity issues… which blog is the best or has the higher ranking. But this food blog is not to be like that. Instead it is my collection of food memories to share with friends and everyone else. Thus off-the-market cameras are good enough. :)
It’s a relatively new restaurant, so perhaps the chinks in the chain have not been ironed out yet. The ambiance was of a minimalist one (rather common in Japanese restaurants I’ve been too). It’s a good place to catch a meal with friends, though not to stay there long to chitchat as firstly, there’s really a lot of customers and secondly, privacy and noise is of issue here.
The service was really bad though. If I ever decided to use any ratings for service, it would be 2/5. The staff was not rude or anything. However they were really unprofessional and ill-trained. When asked for recommendations, the waitress (who looked 15 years old) stared at us and hesitated for a long time before admitting that she did not know what was good. When pressed again for a recommendation, she did the most unthinkable thing! She hid behind the menu and started giggling nervously and then she muttered a shy “I don’t know”. She only could repeat the same 2 basic points when queried on the different Tonkatsu offered. Why, this was an above-average restaurant we were sitting in. The cheapest set meal was $18 SGD (average meals were about $25, pay more if you want to add other ala-carte items) and we were being served by a giggling school girl! We thought it might be a one-off event, but when we asked another seemingly more senior water, he too kept repeating the 2 basic points when asked the difference between 2 types of Tonkatsu meat we were looking at. Apparently, their knowledge of the menu is very limited. To make things worst, another greenhorn came along later hoping to clear the table, and ended up tipping the glass over and almost spilling water on my friends!
I would say the food was really very good. Very very good. Portions were very generous. Look at my prawns! Sauce was really good too… unlike some Japanese restaurants which served really sweet and artificial tasting sauces, this place tasted really authentic and delicious! The prawns were very fresh and the sauce went down really well with the crispiness and the tenderness of the fried prawns. I would give it a
4/5 for the dish!
A close up of my prawn dish...
For Z and A’s dish, it was really good too. I won’t be rating their dishes as I only took a bite out of it, but the tonkatsu served was really top notch! I seldom like to eat Pork Cutlets because they are really dry. But the tonkatsu here was so good, you could eat it without the sauce and still find it very moist and tender (despite it being fried!). It’s so good I want to eat it again!
L was very late (as usual) so she didn’t order anything. I left her a portion of my prawns as I was too full from eating Chippy’s earlier on in a greedy moment at Raffles City. Though it was long cold, L still found it very delicious. Amazing how it still remains fresh and crispy after being left in the open for so long. As some of you might know, fried crispy items tend to go soggy after a while, especially if it’s immersed in sauce for such a long time.
We headed over to Azabusabo for desserts after that. It was a rather long walk from Suntec and A was rather tired as his knee was still recovering from a torn ligament (I think!). We finally found the place and were promptly shown our seats.
The ambiance here was good, very much like the previous Japanese Rest. Z pointed out that the restaurant was lined with antiques- paintings from different Japanese eras (eg from the Meiji period etc etc). I wonder if they were real but it must be!
This restaurant is different from other Japanese restaurants. Its specialty is in desserts!! Yummy! My favourite! It serves Japanese eats, sweets and tea. But if you think that’s all it is, you are wrong! Because they serve set meals here too!
Apparently this restaurant is very popular in Japan, Taiwan and even Hongkong! As its first stop in Singapore, this is the first time that Hokkaido ice cream is being served in Singapore (according to them)! Read about the Hokkaido ice cream
here, used in the restaurant.
Service here was good too. I like how the waiter that served us was really courteous, and attentive. Pity at times they forgot our requests- like when L wanted her dessert to be served, it took them some 10 min and a reminder before it got to us.
L was hungry so she finally decided to order a Tonkatsu here (Wrong restaurant girl!!) but it wasn’t too bad. See picture below. I didn’t try it but according to L she says it’s quite average Tonkatsu.
A was too full to order any dessert so Z ordered the Japanese Rice Cake in country style Sweet Red Bean soup (because she hates milk and green tea, the top 2 ingredients used in this place!) and I ordered Soft ice cream with green tea sauce and red bean paste. L wasn’t going to miss out on the famous desserts so she settled for a Green Tea sauce and Red bean paste dessert (I can’t believe this is its name because there is no mention of the sweet potato it’s sitting on!)
The funny thing about Z’s Red bean dessert was that when it was hot, it didn’t taste too sweet but upon cooling down, the dessert seemingly turned sweeter! Strange but true! The rice cakes really went well with the red bean. Nice smooth consistent texture for the rice cakes, while the red bean was sweet, appetizing and yummy. I’m not a dieheart fan of red bean though… :) but this was good.
3.5/5
My Soft ice cream seemed to be sitting on some ice-kachang like dessert that was drenched with green tea sauce. The red bean paste adorned the ice well and on the whole it was a nice pretty presentation. I was very greedy that day and was yearning for some green tea ice cream so I decided on a top-up of $2 for it. I was really full by the end of the day! I shouldn’t have gotten the extra scoop because the green tea sauce that was poured atop the ice really tasted like green tea ice cream and it was really good. The green tea ice cream though was very milky and creamy and the green tea taste was just right. Not too overpowering and strong but just enough to give you that bittersweet green tea flavour. I really like how the redbean paste provided another type of texture for the dessert. While it was sweet too, the green tea, ice cream and red bean were of different types of sweetness. Shall elaborate more on this tonight though.
4/5! 
I really liked Lena’s dessert though… it was really a nice match between the two- soft ice cream and sweet potato. Cold and hot. :) Yummy. Absolutely delicious. The ice cream would melt in your mouth when put alongside the hot sweet potato and the two would blend in to give a rich sweet consistency. Yummy Yummy Yummy Yummy. Another 4/5
While I’m not a fan of green tea or red bean paste or sweet potato, I must say that this restaurant has managed to work its magic with the ingredients turning them into appetizing and mouth-watering desserts!! Ultimately this tastes good, looks good and feels really good!!
Absolutely heaven in my tummy!!
SH ordered his with chicken slices, sausage, vegetables and fish slices (I think).
The most important part of a Nasi Lemak would be the chili! The rice is very important as well, but the chili is what differentiates a Grade A dish from a Grade B!
But the portions of our serving were rather generous. The prawns, "hum" (sea cockles??), and fishcakes, were adequate and the noodles and Laksa soup went down pretty well in my stomach. Though it wasn't "wow, mmmmm...", it was "uh huh....ok...". Laksa: 2.5/5
I think I shall pay a visit to Katong again one day and eat the Laksa that J, W and I were pining for so much in Canada! I realised one thing also while in Canada... Singaporean Laksa is really very different from other countries Laksas, including Malaysia's! Our Laksa tend to be thicker, spicer, with more seafood, and with fatter noodles, and we tend to use alot of coconut milk in our dish! Yet I wouldn't say that our Laksa is much better, instead, the different tastes of each unique Laksa in the varying countries all have their own highlights. 
We ordered the Lavande Chocolate Cake. I have always like Bakerzin's presentation. Pretty gorgeous cakes. It was a dark chocolate cake with a white chocolate piece set atop it. Bakerzin prizes presentation so much that once when the ice cream toppled off the pastry upon being set on the table by the waitress, we were given a complementary dessert for the "mis-representation"! haha.... That's why we ought to hope for more careless waitresses each time we go there!
