Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Ken Japanese Noodles House


Ken Japanese Noodles House is one of my favourite ramen shop that I frequent. They are the only ramen shop in Singapore that allow you to customise your salt intake. You can request them to reduce salt if u prefer a lighter taste. Among the ramen type served in Ken Noodles House, I personally obsessed Ken's Kimichi ramen highly appealing as it is robustly flavoured with pork bone soup mixed with miso coupled with generous chunks of hand-made kimchi cabbage.

For those who avoid those fatty charsiew that are commonly serve in Ramen shop, rest assure Ken's charsiew will not add extra calories to your diet as Ken use lean shoulder pork for their charsiew. For ramen purist, they might find the charsiew not succulent enough as it lack those fatty meat portion.

Ken use straight noodle instead of those curly noodle. The straight noodle tend to be more "soggy" resistant in the ramen soup, so you can slowly take your time enjoy the ramen. I highly recommend those who haven't try it give it a go since it is located at Orchard Plaza which is at the heart of Singapore shopping district Orchard and within walking distance from Somerset MRT.



Thursday, February 14, 2008

Sanma Kabayaki Rice

Ever since the year of rat begins, it is like hell break loose at workplace. By the end of the day, you hardly left with any energy to cook something nutritious. If you considering dining out, be prepared to fork out at least $10.00++ for a more decent filling meal considering Singapore inflation caused all those local delicacies sold in foodcourt to shrink drastically in size. I still vividly remember an occasion I paid $6.90 for tomyam fish soup at one of Ang Mo Kio foodcourts and shocked to find there is only 3 small pieces of thin sliced fried fish in it while the base was lined heavily with veggies and fried egg (kinda like those tauhu telor kind).

Therefore, I'm stuck between eating something that you paying more that its worth or cooking your own meal which can be tedious especially after you're so shag after work. Lately, I found a solution at local supermart Tay Sanma Kabayaki that is pre-cooked, vacuum packed and frozen for your last minute culinary adventure.



Sanma Kabayaki Rice

  1. Tay's Sanma Kabayaki ($5.60 at local supermartket, currently on promotion buy 2 get 1 free at NTUC)
  2. Furikake ($2.00 at Daiso)
  3. Rice
  4. Chopped Cherry Tomato Garnish ($1.95 at NTUC Fairprice)

Tay's Sanma Kabayaki comes in a pack of 5 enough for 2 meals. Get a bowl of rice depends on your rice comsumption as shown above. Sprinkle a teaspoon of Daiso's furikake (rice topping) or more on the rice and ensure the rice is even coated not too much as it will be too salty. Take out the Sanma Kabayaki frozen, take note do not thaw it. The reason for not thawing is you want the teriyaki sauce in the Sanama Kabayaki to coat the rice when you microwave it. Use a knife and cut the Sanma into pieces so that you can easy line the bowl filled with rice. Next, use a microwaveable glad wrap (you can get it cheaply at $2.00 at Daiso) and cover the bowl but leave a vent. Pop in microwave oven and microwave it at high power for 3 minutes and it is ready for hearty meal. Then, you can garnish the top with some chopped cherry tomato as shown above.

Monday, February 11, 2008

New Japan F&B Craze - Shokoku


A new kind of Japanese Craze F&B - Shokoku or Shokuko hit Singapore F&B scene. It is opened recently in the new section at Raffles City Basement - MarketPlace. Pardon me if I got the name wrong as I was amazed by the queue than take note of the restaurant name when I took the picture with my PSP camera. It is open concept similar to Marche where a lot of mini stalls inside selling Japanese cuisine whereby you pay what you order. I personally haven't try it out but from the surface it looked similar to Marche.

I guess Singaporean find this F&B concept refreshing considering it is Marche cross Japanese. I personally find it is nothing new just a concept being rehash with another country cuisine. I will give it a go once the fad die down bit or after a year with reference to donut craze that rock Singapore last year. Seem like Donut bandwagon didn't die down much as compared to RotiBoy craze few years back, Bread Talk owner also decide to join in the Donut war and opened a donut concept cafe at the MarketPlace with ample media coverage by local news.

Singaporean tastebuds is ever changing as today fad might become yesterday news. Even the donut shop that rock Singapore at Raffles City - MarketPlace for a year also showing wan in popularity. As for whether another Shokoku or Shokuku will be opening another outlet remains to be seen.

Sapporo Ramen Bishamon


After being bedridden with flu for the whole Chinese New Year, I finally fully recovered and met up with colleagues today for simple coffee chit chat at Gloria Jeans Marina Square. We left early around 6pm and I decide to take walk at Raffles City Basement - MarketPlace which housed a collective of F&B restaurant and retail outlets as it been 3 months since my last visit.



I chance upon this small ramen shop - Sapporo Ramen Bishamon in the MarketPlace which opened quite a while back just that I was either full or not up for ramen when I passed by. I decided to give it to try. I was recommended by the floor manager of the restaurant to try the Special Miso Ramen $13.40 SGD as the pork bone broth is mixed with 3 special miso to give it a robust flavour and the egg that goes along with it is full cooked on the outside while the yolk is not. I decided to take up on the manager's recommendation.



The Special Miso Ramen served with generously with corn, wakame, 2 sliced of kakuni and egg pre-soaked in shoyu as shown. When comes to ramen, I always taste the ramen soup base before anything else as the ramen soup base is the soul of ramen follow by the noodle. The soup base is pork bone based pleasantly flavored with miso (not your average miso you get off the shelf) but it hard to discern if it is a mixture of 3 miso blend. The soup base is slightly quite salty for local singaporean taste but I had tried a few authentic japanese ramen the saltiness is similar to Bishamon. It would be best Bishamon have reduce salt option upon customer request similar to Ken's Ramen Shop.

If Bishamon's Ramen is to compare with another Ramen Restaurant - Miharu offering Sapporo Ramen, Miharu Sapporo ramen's miso ramen left me with a deeper impression due to it unique miso flavor. Nevertheless, Bishamon Sapporo Ramen has it own ramen fan base. The ramen noodles used in Bishamon is similar to Miharu - thick, curly cooked to pretty el dente but you need to consume fast as the noodle tend to soften after a while. The soup base actually complement the noodle quite well without the feeling of being overpowered like marutama's ramen.

Next, I moved on to the Char Siew or Kakuni, the pork is stew similar to Marutama's Kakuni it is stewed to very tender but it is the most saltiest of ramen condiment in the miso ramen. Bishamon's ramen half boiled egg - the egg white is fully cooked while the yolk is liquid unlike other ramen shop whereby the yolk is only 75% cooked with a creamy aftertaste. I 'm not sure if Bishamon's ramen egg uniqueness is because the egg yolk is raw but I would prefer if the yolk is at least 75% or 50% cooked.

Overall, Bishamon ramen is pretty okay but with many areas need to looked into. Sodium intake conscious ramen fanatics might want to avoid Bishamon as for those who find current Singapore ramen shops lack the saltiness flavour that some Japanese liked might want to give it a shot.