Archive for April 2018

Home Archive for April 2018

I love eggs and thankfully it’s a good source of protein although obviously it won’t do you any good if you overeat eggs (and also other type of food). There’s a branch of Hawaiian restaurant, Eggs ‘n Things, located at the extension of Plaza Singapura. This restaurant has kinda piqued an interest in my mind and since bae wanted to watch the Avengers: Infinity Wars, we should fuel ourselves with eggs before fighting Thanos. Hehe.

Eggs ‘n Things has two type of menus. The first one is called the Grand Menu and this menu is available all day. This is where you can find it’s all day brung items such as omeletes, eggs benedicts, waffles and the famous pancakes with towering whipped cream. The dishes offered at Eggs ‘n Things priced in SGD20-ish. I suppose the standard price of restaurant in Singapore increases as time goes by. Coffee is available too here but I shall focus on the food menu this time.

The Dinner Menu is where you can find Hawaiian Loco Foods such as poke, rice, and loco moco (which seems to be hamburger patty served with rice + sunny side up). I am more interested in the eggs-based dishes compared to the rice dishes so I’m gonna stick to the Grand Menu this time.

After placing our order, we have time to check out the restaurant. There are condiments placed at each table which consists of the three pancake sauces and a ketchup bottle. The sauces for the pancakes are strawberry, coconut and maple syrup. Too bad I was not in the mood for something sweet that day. Otherwise, I would have gone for that pancakes with towering whipped cream hehe.

Thankfully we don’t have to wait for long time for our food. We read from other people’s experience that the waiting time can be kinda long sometimes but our food came within reasonable waiting time. Although this is probably because we came here at earlier timing around 5ish since our movie is at 7pm. Bae wanted his eggs to be cooked in “over easy” way. This means the egg gets fried on both sides, but it’s not cooked for very long on the second side, so the yolk doesn’t get cooked through and stays runny. Besides the eggs, the Portuegese sausages served with a bit of salad at the sides and some potato cubes.

Portuegese Sausage & Eggs from Eggs ‘n Things Singapore

My Eggs Benedict are also served with many potato cubes. Is potato one of stapple food in Hawaii? One of the key for a perfect egg benedict is the hollandaise sauce so I tasted a bit of the sauce first. It tastes pretty good so at least that’s one thing checked.

Eggs ‘n Things Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and Avocado

The egg is also poached perfectly although bae I suck at taking picture of a runny poached egg haha. I chose smoked salmon and avocado for the toppings of my eggs ben. The avocado turns out to be in the form of mash instead of slices. I would think slice avocado would be better for eggs ben but that probably make the price go higher since avocado is not cheap in Singapore. Bae tried a bite of my egg benedict and commented that ham is probably a better match to the dish compared to smoked salmon. Smoked salmon has a distinct flavor so it’s kinda hard to mix it with hollandaise sauce. Hmm, I suppose he may have a point there although I admit I still finish the whole thing (except for the potato cubes).

Eggs Benedict from Eggs ‘n Things Singapore

A lot of reviews mention about the blandness of the potato cubes but to be honest with you, sometimes I prefer them to be unsalted (and hence, bland). We are too spoiled with seasoned food here in Singapore so I figure an occasional break from the salt is good too. I would probably come back for the sweet pancakes if I have the chance.

Eggs ‘n Things is located at:

#03-79/83 Plaza Singapura

68 Orchard Road

Singapore

Opening hours:

Daily 10AM - 10PM

At this point of the tour, I feel that I somewhat join an Amazing Race competition instead of leisure tour. Why is that the case? Well, as you may have heard or aware, temples in Kyoto are popular amongst tourists, especially temples like Fushimi Inari and Kiyomise Dera. To be informed that we basically only have 45 minutes top to (1) make our way to the temple (2) take picture of cherry blossom (3) check out stores along the temple street is basically kinda crazy. Especially with this kind of crowd that we were dealing with.

8D Avia Japan Trip: Kiyomisu Dera Temple, Kyoto

But there’s nothing you can do other than quickly follow the tour leader in front to make your way to what I think it’s the entrance gate of Kiyomisu Dera Temple. Once we have reached this point, the tour leader quickly briefed us that we better off not wandering deeper to the temple ground because you have to calculate your way back via the same crowded street. At this point, my main motivation here is that yummy looking matcha soft serve which everyone seems to carry along the temple street. I have to get my hands on that baby.

But it would be a waste not to take picture of at least the main temple building and the cherry blossom since it’s not really easy to make your way to Kiyomisu Dera (I remember you have to take bus here cause there’s no train station nearby). The sakura flowers seem to be at the end of their bloom when we visited the temple but for us who don’t have the opportunity to see sakura at our own country, we enjoy seeing them at whichever stage I suppose. Except when all of them already on the ground I guess. Hahaha.

We finally found a good spot to take picture with the sakura tree. The side under the main temple will be a good photo spot for you to take picture with sakura tree. The good thing is, there are not many people here as well. By the way, I heard spooky history of Kiyomisu Dera before where people used to jump from the temple above to kill themselves. Well, at least it does not look so spooky during the day especially with a number of human spotted in the premise. XD

Cherry blossom at Kiyomisu Dera Temple Kyoto

Peach coca cola is currently the trending stuff in Japan but since they are available in Singapore, I did not grab any. After all, I cut back my coke consumption nowadays. But I am still unable to resist the temptation of bubble tea sometimes back in Singapore. The weather is just too crazy hot and humid there. Oh right, i did not realised that the packaging for the peach coke in Japan is somewhat different though since they have the limited sakura bottle for the peach coke. You may want to get it if you are collecting the bottle.

Peach coke at Kiyomisu Dera Temple Kyoto

The tour leader has warned us not to get matcha ice cream from the stall with long queue. Since my brother and I are pressed for time, we just went for the stall with not-so-long queue. Come on, there is no stall with no queue at all at this popular tourist spot, duh!

Ice cream and crepe kiosk at Kiyomisu Dera Kyoto

We took a glance at the crepe too but Kyoto is well-known for its matcha so we decided to focus on our main objective: buy and eat matcha ice cream. There are three varieties offered for the ice cream: (A) Deep matcha soft ice cream (300 JPY), (B) Deep matcha & vanilla (300 JPY), and (C) Vanilla soft ice cream (300 JPY). I stick to deep matcha soft ice cream while brother decided to mix it with vanilla. Both taste yummy and I love the fact where the spoon that we use to ice cream is actually a kind of snack.

Matcha soft serve from Kiyomisu Dera Kyoto

Mission accomplished although we reached the bus at the nick of time. I think I really did a good job here. Hahaha.

Within 4 hours, our itinerary with Avia tour on Osaka is nearly ended. We are about to make our way to the next city on the itinerary, Kyoto. I thought we were going there by bus (which journey takes 1 hour) but turns out Avia tour has booked us a shinkansen trip (with the most expensive ticket to save time) from Osaka to Kyoto. My mom was pretty surprised that the tour includes this short shinkansen trip but pleased, nonetheless. Without further ado, let’s make our way to Shin-Osaka Station to board our shinkansen.

If you have time to spend, I suggest you to spend it by checking out the stores in the shinkansen station. They are filled with many interesting goodies. The first thing that caught my attention is the pretty train bento. Don’t you think all of them looks so yummy? I am not the only one who think that because as you can see, some of these bentos are already sold out at 3PM in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

Japanese train bento at Shin Osaka Station

The souvenir (i.e. omiyage in Japanese) store is also stocked with some of the area’s specialities although you will definitely able to find Kitkat anywhere you go. Mochi, manju, cookies and biscuits are usually among the usual favorite at these stores as well. If you are looking for a limited edition type of Kitkat which is tied to specific region in Japan, you can get them at the convenience stores located in that region’s train station. This is because the international airport may not have these type of region’s Kitkat. For instance, I did not see Hojicha Kitkat (the one in brown box) at Narita International Airport when I went back to Jakarta.

Japanese omiyage store at Shin Osaka Station

Vending machine with various type of hot and cold drink is definitely also available in the station. Even Brown has difficulty choosing one for the train ride. Uhm Brown, you do know that our shinkansen ride from Shin-Osaka Station to Kyoto Station only takes 15 minutes right?

If you don’t know what to buy for your relatives and friends back home, I strongly recommend buying this green tea cookies (the Japanese named it langue-de-chat) from Malebranche. It’s basically a layer of white chocolate sandwiched between two green tea biscuits. I personally think they’ll make good pairing with bland green tea because they are leaning toward the sweet side. The best thing about them is they are available at various packaging so if you don’t want to buy a box of them, you can go for the small bag instead. There are 5 biscuits inside one small bag for JPY 680. It’s easier to give to people when you buy a box of it though because their box packaging is so nice and you don’t even need to wrap it anymore because the store will have already wrapped it for you. Smalles box costs JPY 1,360 with 8 biscuits inside.

Malebranche green tea cookies from Kyoto

Brown did not have a lot of money so he bought the small bag for Cony. Cony loves it nonetheless. Thank you dear Brown. Hehehe.

Malebrance okoicha langue de chat from Kyoto

After we have finished window-shopping (and shopping), it’s time to board the shinkansen. To be honest with you, we were nearly get left out because our tour leader has left with the other tour participants when we arrived at the meeting point. Geez, why could not he count his group before he board the shinkansen, really? Thankfully Irma picked us up while we were confused at the meeting point and hurried us to board the train within 4 minutes. Well, after living in Singapore for 10 years, 4 minutes is a lot of time to board a train.

Shinkansen platform at Shin-Osaka Station, Japan

The ticket that Avia tour bought for us does not have designated seats so we can only board certain free-seating carriages of the train. This works kinda similar to the High Speed Rail (HSR) in Taiwan. Since the train ride is considered super short at 15 minutes, I did not really have the time to look at the cart selling bento inside the train. Too bad, I kinda wanted to try eating train bento on a train ride. Next time, I guess.

For your information, the ticket with unreserved seats from Osaka to Kyoto costs JPY 1,420 while a reserved seat ticket costs twice as much. Oh boy, convenience does not come cheap in Japan I suppose.

The trickiest part about joining a tour group is the food. While it’s reassuring to know that meal is provided 3x a day, you will not be able to be so choosy about the variety of the food that the tour is providing you. But then again, it’s part and parcel of a tour group so let’s hope that Avia does not feed us Chinese food in Japan. LOL.

Our first meal in Japan came after our visit to Osaka Castle. Avia brought us to a restaurant alley in busy district of Namba. I actually kinda wonder if the tour will manage to find a restaurant big enough to cater for 27 people (25 tour participants + 2 tour leaders). Turns out big restaurants exist in Japan. I feel so noob. Hahaha.

8D Avia Japan Trip: Kushikatsu Lunch at Namba, Osaka

You can’t really blame me for having such worry though. Because from outside, the restaurant that we visited does not look big at all. Turns out, it has three storeys and hence, able to cater so many people including tour groups. It is frequented by many office worker because of its affordable lunch menu. A lot of Japanese office worker spotted inside the restaurant with the chicken karage set (550 JPY) in front of them. Good economical choice which cannot go wrong (cause fried stuff won’t go wrong).

I was kinda expecting similar stuff served to the tour group. But oh boy, I was so shocked with the amount of food that they gave us for each person. The table has been prepared for all of us and in front of each person there lies a place of Japanese fried noodle (a.k.a. Yakisoba), a plate of three fried chicken (a.k.a. Karage), a bowl of rice and a bowl of miso soup. The chicken karage is served with a mushroom spring roll and do you know how the Japanese love to season their fried stuff with? Yupz, a dollop of mayonaisse (which happen to be my fave too although I like to add chili sauce with it thanks to my Indonesian spicy eating culture). Yakisoba is also one of my fave food in Japan mainly because it’s...fried. I’m fried food queen indeed hahaha. Fried noodle in Japan is leaning toward the sweet side though so you probably want to add some chili powder to it if you prefer savory kind of fried noodle.

While I thought these are all that we gonna get for lunch, the lovely lady owner of the restaurant came with pans of Japanese pancakes called okonomiyaki. We thought the okonomiyaki is for sharing for each family but then she informed our tour leader that the okonomiyaki meant to be one for each person. OMG. As you can see, Japanese pancake is by no means a light dish. It’s an egg pancake filled with ingredients (mostly veggies and sometimes meat) and then it’s heavily seasoned with brown sauce (which kinda similar to takoyaki’s sauce), a heavy dose of mayonaisse, furikake and onion leaves, with a portion of ginger aside. It’s yummy but I was already half full from the yakisoba and karage earlier.

That’s not the end of the meal though because the servers came again this time with what-I-feel-was the best dish of the day, Kushikatsu (Japanese dish of deep-fried skewered meat and vegetables). You can pick from chicken to squid to onion and all of them are fried beautifully. The sauce for kushikatsu is provided on every table in a tin box which are meant for sharing. So please take note that hygiene is very important here. You are only supposed to dip your skewer to the sauce once and that’s it. You can’t possibly dip it once, lick it and dip it again to the sauce container which are meant to be for sharing purpose. Cause that’d be simply eww. LOL.

The lady owner asked us which one is our favourite dish while distributing green tea (matcha) ice cream to us. She was somewhat surprised when I pointed to her that I love the kushikatsu so much. I wonder if she expect me to answer okonomiyaki instead? Oh well, kushikatsu is the winner of my heart that day. Hehehe.

Our tour to Japan with Avia started with a long flight from Jakarta to Singapore and Singapore to Kansai International Airport in Osaka (total flight hours spent around 9 hours). I don’t know why but the older I become, the less tolerance I have toward long flights. Thankfully this flight hour to Japan is nothing compared to Europe or even, USA. I reached Kansai International Airport in the morning so without further ado, the tour started immediately after we collected our luggage.

8D Avia Japan Trip Day 1: Osaka in Half a Day

The tour leader for this trip is called Andhy and he seems to be a freelance tour leader specialised in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He collaborated with a tour operator + tour agent in Japan of course to bring us to visit some places in Japan. The local tour guide is named Irma and as you may have known from the sound of the name, she’s Indonesian. She has spent around 17 years in Japan and hence has perfect Japanese to assist us to talk with the locals for certain stuff (including shopping, if needed). The journey from Kansai International Airport to the city centre of Osaka took us around 1 hour on bus. Little Brown is getting hungry as the bus strolled on the highway.

From Kansai International Airport to Osaka Castle

When I visited Osaka Castle before by myself (not by tour), I remembered that I have to walk a pretty good distance from the nearest station to Osaka Castle. I suppose one of the plus points about taking tour is that the bus drop you off convenient location to see Osaka Castle and sakura trees which are in season.

However, the minus thing about joining a tour group is that the allocated timeframe to visit Osaka Castle is so minimum, it’s nearly a joke to be honest with you. But we had no choice other than to adher to the time of 15 - 20 minutes to take picture of the castle, the pretty white sakura flowers, my mum with sakura flowers, my bro with sakura + castle and of course, little Brown with sakura flowers. It’s kinda hectic and I barely had the time to enjoy the view. Geez.

White sakura in Osaka Castle garden Japan

Too bad the sky is not blue when we visited Osaka Castle. But then again, the sombre mood of the castle is also quite nice to enjoy. Somemore, I have been into sombre and melancholic mood lately.

Little Brown is enjoying the blooming white sakura. This is his first trip to Japan by the way and I hope he has a great time in Japan. Hehehe.

How to go to Osaka Castle (if you are not on tour):

1. Take subway to the closest station to Osaka Castle: Osakajokoen Station

2. Follow the road sign which lead you to Osaka Castle

Chances are there will be a lot of tourists making their way to the castle and you just have to follow the crowd.

I did not go inside the castle but I recall that the entrance to the castle may be waived if you purchase certain Osaka tourist pass which come with subway ticket and bus pass. According to a friend who has been there, there was nothing much inside the castle, so I don’t think I will give the castle a visit anytime soon since I’d rather use the 500 yen on ramen. LOL.

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Wandering Fel

Singapore Food Log: Eggs ‘n Things, Plaza Singapura

8D Avia Japan Tour: Express Visit to Kiyomisu Dera Temple, Kyoto

8D Avia Japan Tour: Shinkansen Ride from Osaka to Kyoto

8D Avia Japan Trip: Kushikatsu Lunch from Namba, Osaka

8D Avia Japan Trip: Osaka Castle

8D Avia Japan Trip: Osaka Kyoto Shirakawago Fuji Tokyo