Takeaway Review: Nishiki Tako, ION Orchard

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 There is new takoyaki stall in town. Ever since Gindaco Takoyaki has left Singapore, I’ve been deprived of good takoyaki so when I saw that there is a new takoyaki stall in town, I quickly checked it out. Nishiki Tako is located at level B4 of ION Orchard. It’s located in the stretch where Dunkin Donuts is located. There was only one person in front of me at 12+ on Friday afternoon so I figured why not giving it a try. 

Unfortunately, there is no seats/ eating area at Nishiki Tako so you can only order takeaway and eat it somewhere else. But no worry,  there are a few eating areas at level B4 of ION Orchard so I’m sure I could get one later on. I’m not sure if it’s because it takes a while to cook tako, but every order requires you to wait for 5 minutes. Not every customers are willing to wait because I saw some of them decided not to order after knowing about the waiting time. 

Five minutes, later my cheese bacon takoyaki (SGD 5.80) is finally ready for me to nom. But first, I needed to walk over for a few steps to the seating area in front of Watsons at the same level at ION Orchard. There are a few seats where people can sit for a quick break or quick meal like I did and good thing there is space for me to sit and consume my takoyaki. The paper bag that Nishiki Tako use is so nicely design, I feel like collecting it but I know it’s gonna be garbage in my room anyway. Okay, let’s focus on the takoyaki. Nishiki Tako is generous in the bonito flakes, seaweed and mayonaisse sauce. While I could not really taste the bacon, the cheese bacon takoyaki is pretty good, definitely better than WOW Tako (but then it’s also priced higher than the latter). Every order comes with 6 pieces of takoyaki. I’m curious about their premium aburi cheese and lava egg takoyaki which are both priced at SGD 6.50. Maybe I will try them out next time. 

Singapore Food Log: Set Lunch at Pollen, Garden by the Bay

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 If you have this fantasy of having a garden tea party in Singapore, you may want to check out Pollen. Located at one corner of Flower Dome, the largest glass greenhouse in the world (oh wow, I didn’t know it before I did research for this post) recorded on 2015 Guinness Book of World Records, Pollen is easy to miss if you wander around from the Flower Dome section. Since the entrance to Pollen is not easily spotted, it’ll be better off to make reservation prior to dining at Pollen. Upon making reservation, an email will be sent to you to inform that someone will pick you up near the taxi stand at flower dome’s entrance area. You should really take this offer because walking to Pollen is not near especially if you have kids/ elders tagging alone. 

Once you are driven safely to Pollen’s entrance, you will be directed to the dining area depending on what you have booked e.g. lunch/ afternoon tea. If you are taking lunch, you will be led to the dining area at level 1 where I was directed to. On the other hand, the afternoon tea which starts at 3PM will be held at the terrace at level 2. When I was making my way to the our table, I could not help but glancing toward that table full of cheese. I kinda wonder how to enjoy those cheese platter in the right way because I just simply did not understand how to enjoy it when I went for cheese tasting in Yarra Valley two years ago. Maybe I am just not posh enough. LOL. 

Anyway, enough about cheese and let’s go into the menu. Pollen has course lunches and you can choose between 3-courses or 5-courses lunch. Our team budget has only enough $ for the 3-courses lunch so I only focus my decision making on that particular lunch menu XD. The good part about eating together in a team is that there will be enough people to order different kind of food and we eventually will be able to taste 90% of what Pollen offers in their 3-courses lunch (because nobody is vegan and hence, nobody wanted to order the pumpkin risotto). Do you know what people usually do after they finish ordering? They either stare into their phone, make some comments about the restaurant setting and take picture of the plate because the plate happens to be kinda nice. 

The 3-course lunch includes 2 appetisers which the waiter/ waitress will explain about how to eat, what is it made for, etc etc. Not sure if I got this correct but the first appetiser taste a bit like cheesy puree on top of crackers which then garnished with bits of spring onion. If that is not confusing enough, the second appetiser is even harder to understand because it seems to have something like yoghurt, with biscotti and drenched in wine sauce. Oh gosh, I feel so apologetic toward Pollen’s chefs because I am so lousy at explanation but anyway, I don’t think they care. I like the first appetizer because it’s salty and crusty while the second one hmm, I don’t know, I just don’t understand despite finishing the biscotti. 

 One of our team member was absent on that day, so we kinda used up his portion of the budget to order the ham and a basket of bread. But we ended up with so many bread because the course lunch also includes complimentary bread. The team seems to have many bread-eater though so I suppose that’s a good surplus of bread. I don’t think I have anything memorable to share except for the fact that olive + butter + bread + ham overall gives your tastebud a salty sensation. Some of the bread is crunchy though and I live crunchy bread hehe. If you ask me, I’d rather order a basket of calamari rather than ham and bread but oh boy, isn’t that so not befitting of the place? Such an ignorant brat, me. 

 While I was still munching my crunchy bread, my choice of appetizer has finally arrived on the table. I did not feel like eating cold appetizer so I could only order Sweet Potato and Salted Egg Tart. I love sweet potato although I don’t think it goes well with salted egg. I don’t know if I ate too much bread + sweet potato tart, I kinda feel halfway full at this point before even having my main dish. Oh no, this is not a good tummy management. 

 There are three choices of main courses (oh wait, four actually if you consider the risotto) to choose from: seabass, lamb or beef. I was kinda torn between the beef and seabass but eventually decided to go with the Pan fried seabass. The dish is quite good and the portion of the fish given is pretty generous but what enticed me the most is the basil spatzle. I thought spatzle is some kind of pasta but it turns out to be soft egg noodle found in the cuisines of Southern Germany and Austria region (thanks Wikipedia). That’s pretty unique and I kinda love it because it’s kinda similar to pasta and it works well with the white sauce used to garnish the seabass. I tried a piece of the beef tenderloin but I found it to be too raw. I did not recall the wairess ask about how does my colleague want the tenderloin to be cooked though. Hmm, maybe it’s defaulted to be medium-rare. The NZ lamb does not look a lot so I was kinda shy to ask for a bite. Hahaha. I do have some manners, after all. 

 At last, it’s dessert time and Pollen has three kind of desserts in the 3-course lunch menu (uhh, no cheese is not dessert in my book): frozen strawberry sponge, lamington cake and apple tarte tartin. The apple tarte tartin is however for two person portion. Geez, why can’t they create a smaller one for individual portion? Since someone else has ordered this dessert and it seems to be huge, I opted for the frozen strawberry sponge instead. It looks so instragrammable in pink although taste wise, I think the lamington cakes (which is hidden underneath the white meringue dome) taste the best for me. The apple tart was too sweet for my liking and the ice cream makes it even sweeter. Sweetness overload I suppose. But that did not stop us from eating the complimentary lavender chocolates and passionfruit chocolate coins though. Chocolate is always a good closing act for every dining moment, don’t you agree?

While the cost of the 3-course lunch seem to be on par with hotel lunch buffet, I feel it’s worth the cost because in addition to the fulfilling meal, you still have free access to the Flower Dome (otherwise, you need to pay for SGD 12 if you are Singapore resident, and even maybe SGD 16 if you are not resident). And it’ll be good to walk off what you have eaten at Pollen while enjoying the view of the beautiful flowers. 

Singapore Food Log: Tempura Ten Ten, Raffles City

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I am totally not a morning person so leaving house early is a rare occurence in my daily life. The problem is when there is something wrong with the MRT system in Singapore, my day is bound to start with a lot of hassle. Burned up more energy and wasted more time than usual to commute to office make me has to rush my work all the way to lunch time and oh gosh, it’s totally draining my energy (and probably my soul) to work like that. 

 

So it’s very important to have a meaningful lunch with someone to rant your day with, so here we are having our tendon bowl at Tempura Ten Ten at Raffles City. Thankfully the morning train fault did not affect CBD area during lunch hour so we could still commute to City Hall to have lunch at Tempura Ten Ten. There were no queue yet when we reached the restaurant around 12pm but the restaurant is slowly getting packed after 12.15-ish. 

 

Tempura Ten Ten does not have a wide variety of dishes in their menu because after all their main selling point is tempura. So either, you can have your tempura with rice or ramen. Alternatively, you can also go for their chashu ramen and even, unagi don but every unagi don in Singapore costs like a bomb. So I don’t really fancy having unagi-don here in Singapore. I opted for their Special Tendon because since we had made all the way to Tempura Ten Ten, we should try out its speciality. I don’t dare to order the spicy version because I remember the one from Kogane Yama can be pretty much spicy. 

 

The Special Tendon (SGD 13.80) is packed with a lot of fried ingredients from mushroom, seaweed, kabocha (i.e. Japanese pumpkin), sweet potato, meatball and two pieces of shrimp tempura. The meatball tempura is the best item amongst them all because it’s flavourful + filled with melted cheese. Whoo~

 

It can get pretty filling for one lady to finish although I got very greedy after the meal and went ahead with my desire to order brown sugar bubble milk tea from Muyoo. I ended up disappointed with the bubble tea though. Thank goodness the tendon was good. If you are Favepay-user, you can use the app to get 10% cashback for your next dining here. Quite a good deal if you frequently visit a certain restaurant. 

8D Avia Japan Trip: Shinhotaka Ropeway

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 One hour distance away on the road from Takayama, we finally made our way to the next destination Shin Hotaka. Shin Hotaka is where you can take ropeway journey up to the Northern Alps of Japan. As it is located pretty near to Takayama, there are a lot of bus services going to Shin Hotaka for the onsen and ropeway but I suppose you need more research to figure out the route, especially if you are not Japanese-speaker. 

 

Alternatively, you can join a day tour and you just need to be ready at the point where the bus will pick you up and the tour guide would have already bought your ropeway ticket and book your lunch meal up in the mountain. There are many stations along the ropeway but if I’m not wrong, you need to alight at the earliest stop to have your meal. The lunch set provided to us at the restaurant is pretty standard and I can probably conclude that the lunch is healthy since the tofu pieces seem to be bigger than the beef. You are supposed to cook the beef at the hot plate where the tofu is plated. The soup that the waitress instructed us to use for cooking, though, is not meant to be eaten. It tastes weirdly salty if you slurp the soup. Sp, I just obeyed the instruction and slurp the miso soup instead. I randomly spotted gacha slot machines there and oh boy, did I just get Pikachu and its poke ball? So cute! 

 

After we finish eating, we are back to the ropeway to continue our journey further up the Northern Alps. So what’s so special about this ropeway? Based on www.japan-guide.com, Shinhotaka ropeway apparently has one of the largest elevation gains in Japan as it climbs over 1000 meters up the side of the Hotake Mountain Range, which includes Oku-Hotakedake (Japan’s third highest peak. It’s also the first double decker gondola cars ropeway. While I’m not a pro about cable car and ropeway car, I think the view from Shin Hotaka ropeway is so beautiful with the combination of forest, snowy ground, mountain, snowy mountain peak and blue sky. It also offers breathtaking view of the Okuhida region. Make sure you stand near the glass if you want to catch the view but be careful if you are scared of height okay.  If you did not manage to get the window spot in the ropeway car, don’t worry, you can make your way to the viewing dock and take picture with the mailbox to prove that you have conquered the top. 

 

Shinhotaka Ropeway operating hours:

 

8.30 to 16.45 (April to November)

9.00 to 16.15 (December to March)

 

Admission:

 

From the bottom: 2,900 JPY (roundtrip), 1,600 JPY (one way)

 

Singapore Food Log: Tampopo, Ngee Ann City

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 It has been raining lately and the weather in Singapore finally become a bit cooler. That means it’s the right time to eat the soupy stuff. However, instead of cream soup or herbal soup, I feel like eating a bowl of ramen. A bowl of ramen from Tampopo to be exact. I still remember the first time I tried Tampopo. I see a lot of pork-based ramen out there but Tampopo elevates this basic ramen staple by using black pork instead of ordinary pork. The picture menu from Tampopo shows a sign of chili in front of some of its ramen choices. This is because their soup broth has a subtle flavor of chili and not-so-subtle look of spiciness. Don’t worry, they are not that spicy unless you see many chili signs in front of the dish but I did not recall seeing one. 

 

The outlet at Ngee Ann City tends to have long queue everytime I pass by during dining peak hour. However, if you reach slightly earlier like 6PM on Saturday, you won’t have to wait for a table for a long time. I usually order Tampopo’s famous dish, its black pork shabu ramen. However, this time I wanted to try something else so I ordered Tampopo Black Pork Tonkatsu Ramen (SGD 16.80). The black pork tonkatsu is served on a mini steel tray lodged on top of the ramen bowl to keep it safe from getting soaked in the ramen broth. However, I intentionally let some small pieces of the tonkatsu to soak in the broth and then slurp it together with the ramen. I’m not sure why but Tampopo’s ramen seem to be loaded with veggies. Good for those who usually don’t really eat their greens. 

 

It was my dining buddy’s first time at Tampopo so he ordered Tampopo’s black pork shabu ramen. He slurped the whole bowl so I suppose he loves it too. There are a lot of condiments available but I realise I did not use any, except to take picture with Brown. The ramen is already so full of flavour you don’t really have to add any condiments to it. The good thing about it being located in shopping mall is that the restaurant opens everyday from 11AM to 10PM, following the operating hours of the mall I figure. Go try it out if you have the chance, ok! 

I Eat Alone at Comnam Vietnamese Street Eats, Raffles City

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 The blazing sun recently does not make me feel like going to have lunch at hawker centre or the famous fish soup stall at Arcade (although it’s air-conditioned but you won’t feel it because of the heat from the kitchen + crowd). So when I have no lunch appointment, I ended up wandering in the shopping mall because oh boy, I think all the shopping malls in Singapore blast their air-conditioning system to the max because I really feel comfortably cool inside the mall. So with the blast of air-conditioner in Raffles City, I am deciding what to have for lunch by myself. I’ve been spending me-time so often at Saboten Express, so I decided today is not the day to go to Saboten Express. 

That’s when I saw that there is no queue line at Comnam. I quickly scanned the eatery to see if it can be considered friendly enough for a solo diner and ohh, there’s a guy who’s eating alone there. Comnam has table for two/ section with high chair/ communal table which I feel will not make solo diners feel uncomfortable. Since seating seems to be no problemo, I just walked inside and reserve a small table while thinking of what to order. There’s ordering chit and menu on each table so you can take your time to decide what to eat if you manage to reserve a table beforehand. 

Comnam has a variety of rice and noodle dishes in its menu. You can order small plates to go as side dishes for your main noodle/ rice too. But since its sister restaurant Nam Nam (which is located right beside Comnam) specialises in pho, which is a form of noodle, I would think that Comnam should be better with its rice dishes. So with this way of thinking, I chose lemongrass chili chicken fragrant rice for my lunch. It costs SGD 9.90 so I suppose it’s still within my SGD 10 budget for lunch in shopping mall. I left my cute Cony to guard the table while I made my way to the counter to make order and in return, the cashier gave me a buzzer. That’s good since I don’t have to stand there forever to wait for my order. 

The lemongrass chili chicken fragrant rice comes with onsen egg which I don’t think it’s delicacy in Vietnam, so I suppose this dish must have been touched with an element of fusion-ism. But the lemongrass and chili sauce that they use to marinate the chicken soak into the meats perfectly. The rice that Comnam serve is not normal white rice. It seems to have a bit of quinoa texture although I don’t think they are quinoa (because quinoa would make the price of the dish increase exorbitantly). I quite like the whole dish and polish it together with Cony (ok kidding, I polish it all by myself). 

Atmosphere wise, since there are many solo diners having lunch there, I don’t feel awkward at all to eat alone here at Comnam. So I think I would probably come back again for another visit here when I’m by myself. 

8D Avia Japan Trip: Hida beef fest at Takayama Old Town

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I am getting a bit lazy to write lately because the burden of daily life has make me losing my inspiration. But I forced myself to write tonight no matter what it takes. Anyway, I feel it’s easier to write about past travel story because it somehow motivates you to earn dollars to fund your next travel plan. So let’s continue our walk in Takayama Old Town, shall we?

 

If you are not keen to go for sake tasting with empty stomach, you may want to take a deeper stroll to the alleys in Takayama Old Town because you don’t know what you will find out here. For instance, the road will lead you to a food store selling Hida beef skewer. Hida beef is so popular here in Takayama but it doesn’t come with cheap pricetag so in order to make it more affordable (and hence, attracting cheapo tourists’ attention like us), shops in Takayama Old Town sells Hida beef at various sizes. One skewer of Hida beef costs 500 JPY. Considering you can get a bowl of ramen at that price, oh well you know it’s not really a cheap delicacy but don’t leave this place without trying it, okay?

 

A few steps later we stumbled into a fried beef Croquette shop. I suppose all the shops here claim to sell Hida beef so let’s just believe them since there’s no way for us to proof them otherwise. I love this traditional croquette, it’s so crispy and the taste of the hot beef in curry sauce just burst at your mouth when you bite it. Yummy. Best to eat it hot so devour it straight away upon getting your hand on it. 

 

Next, on the way back to the meeting point with the tour group, we saw a shop selling Hida beef buns. Since we are not going to see anymore Hida beef after leaving Takayama Old Town, we decided to say goodbye to this lovely old town by buying this beef bun. Same with the croquette, it’s best to consume this bun immediately because it won’t be so nice when it’s cold. I wish I have more time to explore Takayama Old Town but there is not much you can do when you join a tour group. At least, I had the chance to munch a lot of Hida beef that day. Oops, must not forget to take Brown after some photo-taking hehe. 

 

Singapore Food Log: Chulove Cafe, Vivo City

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I initiated to spend Friday night at Vivo City thinking to take pictures of those cute Tsum Tsum mid-autumn lanterns. But I did not know school holiday break has started and hence, Vivo City was swarmed with people, mostly families with kids. I don’t like super crowded areas and squeezing my way in with I don’t know how many other people kinda made me lose interest to check the cute lanterns. So I ended up chilling with my TGIF buddy at the new cafe in Vivo City, Chulove Cafe. 

 

The “chu” part of chulove seems to refer to Churros instead of kissing sound. And just like what the name refers, Chulove Cafe sells churros, cakes and drinks (coffee/ tea). I skip the drinks part because there’s no way I’m consuming caffeine at 8PM+. I will end up like an owl cuckoo-ing for the whole night until morning. There are three types of churros offered by Chulove Cafe: one is mini churros in a cup, the other two are round and long churros. Round churros kinda look like a donut made from churros while long churros is one straight long stick of churros. Both long and round churros are laced with sauce and toppings. The starting price of the churros seem to be 3 SGD. 

 

We tried a big cup of mini churros with dark chocolate sauce and one long Pistachio churros for our first visit to Chulove Cafe. The long pistachio churros is immediately served but since it has been laid at the display counter for I don’t know how long, the churros become a bit hard and cold. Meanwhile the mini churros need a bit of a waiting time before you can collect them at the counter. However, they taste nicer because they are fresh from the fryer. I prefer the mini churros to the long churros just because of the hot/ cold comparison I suppose but it’s important to eat churros fresh. I suppose Chulove Cafe will give people more option to rest their tired legs after wandering around Vivo City carrying their shopping bags. 

 

Chulove Cafe has replaced the now defunct Serenity. But since it sells churros which is a popular Spanish dessert, probably both F&B outlets are owned by the same people. Hope they can last in the fierce F&B competition in Singapore.