Waraku

Went to waraku (check out their website)at the central, heard quite a fair bit about the good foor there and so we decided to give it a try. it was quite a while ago, i hope i can still remember about the taste from the photos.

California roll, pizza, udon in cream sauce

sushi and potato mentai

handroll, katsu curry rice and sashimi.

80% of the food ordered were really nice. the rest were just average,. curry rice was quite normal. the items were somehow not very autentically japanese, other cooking styles were injected into the food, esp italian.. and the result was really good, food come out to be slightly less than $40 for each person

address: 6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-89/97/98 The Central (Click to see other outlets)
contact: 63278860
ambience: 8
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Very tasty food, nice place to go once in a while cos quite pricey

Eat

Went to this place called eat at rail mall (upper bukit timah road, hear hillview area) for supper. i always get the fishball noodle, i fell that the fishballs are quite alright, has quite a nice bouncy texture to it.

The noodles are quite good too, generally it's better than the average fish ball noodles you get at hawker centres but the price is nearly double too!! If you stay around that area and looking for something to eat late night, you might wanna try this, they are open 24 hrs..



address: 436 Upper Bukit Timah Road, The Rail Mall
contact: 64623034
ambience: 6
taste: 7
service: 4
value for money: 5
overall rating: Quite expensive for coffeeshop food, but taste is acceptable

Marutama Ramen

Recommended by a friend, we went to try this ramen at central, it's a small but really cozy place, i estimate that it can take up to max 30 plus customers at any one time. nice lighting, comfortable place for a quiet meal with a couple of friends.
An interesting finding, they only serve 3 different kinds of ramen, chicken broth (spicy or non spicy), that makes 2, and one special one with broth made of 7 different kind of nuts. Remember to add on the fried garlic bits and sesame, it's self service, placed on the table. garlic is crispy and tasty! i personally like garlic a lot. on top of the ramen, they do serve some side dishes, a very simple menu but the food were good.
Remember to add an egg for your ramen, as it doesn't come with it if you didn't ask for it specifically, the egg was cooked just nicely, look at the yolk, nicely cooked with a sunny orange colour, unless the over cooked yolk we get at most places. this is a must order.
Seasoned radish, i'm not a fan of radish, dun find this item wonderful, but my friend loved it, so i guess you will have to try it for yourself to know if you like this.
Cha siew. another must order, do not expect it to taste like the usual chinese bbq pork, it's not that sweet, the meat is really tender, even the fatty parts dun seem fatty, they just melt in your mouth, and the sides and charred really nicely. please do not forget this item when you are there.
Dumplings, similar to the wanton we usually have, this one is not bad, but not exceptionally fantastic, if you are on a tight budget, save it fro the charsiew.

Generally, i will definitely go back to this place again, the ramen is simple and nice, although it's priced a little high for a bowl of plain ramen at $15, so going there to indulge in good food once in a while is still worth it, not a place for daily meals.. pocket will be burnt very soon in that case.

address: The Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-90
contact: 6534-8090
ambience: 8
taste: 8
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Food is good, but a little pricey, around $20 a person.

Sakae Teppanyaki

Visited sakae teppanyaki at bugis junction, wasn't planned, just walked past and decided on it. the place wasn't big, but it was quite cozy, and not very smelly, some places stick because cooking is done where you eat.
Seem quite stressful for the chef to cook in front of his customers, cannot make any mistake, must look pro somemore.. our chef did it very well. and the food turned out good.
Garlic fried rice is a must order, top up to change plain rice to garlic rice if you order the set. salad is very appetizing too, interesting chawanmushi, cooked on the hotplate in front of you in a nice round onion shell.
Everything you'll be eating will be brought out in plates like that, sometimes it feels quite weird to see raw meat right beside you when you are eating. usually that happens only at steamboats.
Most of the items are done very nicely, esp the bamboo clams, very nice and juicy.

This place is worth a visit. do try it if you have the time..

address: Bugis Junction, 230 Victoria Street, #B1-05 (Other outlets here)
contact: 63349015
ambience: 7
taste: 7
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: Food was quite good, not that expensive for teppanyaki

Five Star Chicken Rice

They have quite a number of branches, can google for the addresses of the other branch, i went to the one at river valley and 3 of us ordered half a chicken and 2 side dishes.. i find the food so so only... nothing fantastic

Half a chicken, i felt that it wasn't tender enough, the savory sasame and suy sauce they had over the chicken was nice and salty.. goes well with the cucumber.
Baby kailan.. not bad. but nothing special.
Deep fried tofu thai style. the tofu was soft and smooth, the thai style sauce is the same everywhere, nothing special.

This meal costs us around $30, the price was fine for a clean and comfortable dining environment, food was decent. maybe i need to try boon tong kee soon, so i can compare these 2.


address: 417 River Valley Rd
contact: 62356760
ambience: 6
taste: 6
service: 7
value for money: 7
overall rating: not very expensive, but food also not that great

Cold Rock

Heard about this ice cream cafe when it opened up at holland village, but never got the chance to try it out until now. the cafe has got limited seats in side, most of the seats are outside, without air con.. decor is very refreshing, mainly white, quite a wide selection of ice cream flavours and crunches/toppings.

The main speciality is that you can choose your ice cream flavours, and then choose the crunches or candies like mars bar, snickers bar, fudge etc etc, and they'll mix everything up before serving the ice cream to you.
Chocolate with marshmellows and i forgotten what it was which was crunchy. the ice cream itself wasn't very good, the only thing i like is that i can choose the crunches i can have in the ice cream.
Honeycomb ice cream with violet crumble and cookie dough. the cookie dough taste very raw, very floury. should have gotten fudge instead. again ice cream was just so so, the crunchy violet crumble made it much nicer.

Generally speaking, i feel that it was not worth the price, but if you have never tried ice cream with additional items added in like that, you might wanna go take a look, i forgotten to take photos of the staff mixing the stuffs on the cold plate.

address: 24A Lorong Mambong, Holland Village
contact: 67631323
ambience: 7
taste: 4
service: 6
value for money: 4
overall rating: not that fantastic, quite expensive

Kazu Sumiyaki

This place was recommended by nuanda after he read my post on gyu kaku a while back. A small cozy, but a little cramp restaurant in cuppage plaza. as the name suggest, their speciality is grilled items, mostly on skewers, or many of us know them as satay sticks. they have a very comprehensive selection of bbq items, and the boss himself is at the kitchen grilling the food. nuanda thinks that the boss looks like a japanese surfer. so if you see someone fitting this description, that's the boss.

Brown tea is served free, unlimited refill, but if you order the cold brown tea, which is exactly the same thing except that it's chilled, it's $1 per glass.. just a note in case you feel that $1 for tea is too expensive. but since you are there, be prepared to spend. The restaurant has small tables and chairs and you sit very closely to the people on the neighbouring table, very typical of japanese restaurant. but the good food will definitely make up for the squeeze.

Lots of photos.. click on the photo to see a larger version of it.
Asparagus with bacon, australian wagyu beef, bacon with golden mushroom, japanese shitake mushroom, sausages. sausage seems a little out of place although it tasted well, not very jap. i prefer the beef at gyu kaku, the rest of the items above were very good. oh couldn;t comment on shitake mushroom, cos i'm not a mushroom fan.

Chicken skin, quail's eggs and chicken ball (tsukune), foie gras, scallops with prawns, lamb chop. crispy part of the chicken skin was good, but i dun really like to soft part cos it feels very fatty, foie gras was quite good, not very oily, and the taste wasn't too strong, at $6.50 for a stick like that, i think it's worth it, i do not eat foie gras often to know whether this is high quality or not. lamb chop was absolutely delicious.

Squid with bacon, chicken wings, chicken with apple, tako ball with mayonnaise, cod fish. chicken wings were crispy on the outside, warm and tender on the inside. chicken with apple is really very good, you can taste the sweetness from the apple in the chicken cubes, tako balls were unlike the ones we have at pasar malam ot food courts, this one is filled with meat, like a huge delicious meat ball.

Raw cabbage, garlic rice, pot rice (kamameshi), tofu with unagi, cold cha soba. cabbage is served before the food, you eat it raw with the miso sauce provided, squeeze some lemon into the sauce so that it's doesn't taste that salty. 5 of us finished 3 bowls of cabbage! the pot of rice was quite expensive, $22, a little like chinese claypot rice, i dun really fancy this dish. tofu was good esp with the eel.

Containers like this are provided for you to place the "satay sticks" after eating the food. the more sticks you see in there, the more satisfying it feels, but i means a longer and bigger bill.

When we were there, this staff by the name of yingjie was serving us, and i just have to commend on her service, full marks!! explaining the individual items, explaining all the dessert so that we know which one to choose, telling us about the boss, and a little on the history of the restaurant, giving us a feww cabbage cos we really liked it. btw this place has been around for 14 years. so if you happen to be there, you might wanna ask for her, actually the other staffs should be equally good i guess.
We were looking at this funny cutlery places on out table, there was one for each person, and even after thinking for a while, we couldn't figure out with it's for, so we just had to ask. it's for you to remove the items from the skewers without using your bare hands, wah it was quite cool, you can remove the meat and place them on your plate before eating them with a pair of chopsticks.
Finally, it was time for dessert, and we chose the grilled mochi with ice cream. fantastic choice, the presentation was astonishing!! look at it!! it's like an artpiece, the moshi was really soft and chwey with the skin a little charred from the grilling, but inside it the ice cream remains cold and together with the sweet dressing, it was fabulous.. must try..

address: 5 Koek Road #04-05 Cuppage Plaza
contact: 67342492
ambience: 7
taste: 9
service: 9
value for money: 8
overall rating: Wonderful food with equally wonderful service.