Ichiban Boshi @ Esplanade Mall

Had a delicious lunch Ichiban Boshi at Esplanade prior to watching a performance with a friend.   My friend ordered this Fried Dory with garlic sauce on hotplate set. See the chunky pieces of dory meat… yum yum.   I had this before and told him it’s gonna be delicious

I ordered this Gindara with black pepper sauce on hotplate set. The gindara tasted so soft and the black pepper sauce complemented it really well.

 

The set comes with Chawanmushi, fruits, soup and a mushroom don set. Cost $20.90 ++.

 

It’s delicious and value for $$

 

Gindara with Black Pepper Sauce on Hotplate. Gindara means Cod Fish in Japanese

 

 

This mushroom don is part of the Gindara Set. It’s very delicious. Mushrooms and eggs are some of my fav

 

8 Raffles Avenue #02-14, Esplanade Mall, Singapore 039802
Tel: 6423 1151

Botan Japanese Restaurant @ Far East Square

Decided to bring my colleague to this Japanese Restaurant (at Far East Square) which Audrey and I usually go to for lunch. I love their bento sets as the the variety of appetitisers are pretty varied. This place was recommended to me by Audrey and I fell in love with their food immediately

My colleague commented that the sauce bottle looks really really cute. So, I decided to snap a pic of it

Both of us ordered the grilled fish with steamed egg bento set. Each set comes with rice, appetisiers, side dish, raw fish, soup, steamed egg and fruits.

I replaced my raw fish with agedashi tofu cos I do not take raw stuff. My colleague commented that the raw fish were pretty good.

The raw fish were replaced with 4 pcs of Agedashi Tofu (which is alot to me)

The Grilled Saba and the different types of appetitisers. My colleague and I loved this side dish. It’s smashed tofu mixed with chopped black fungus and carrots bits and then deep fried to golden brown. And you eat this with some sauce that comes with it. Nice. Loved the Chawanmushi too. The steamed egg is so smooth it basically glided down my throat. Yummy Here’s the total cost for 2 grilled fish bentos Botan Japanese Restaurant Pte Ltd 36/37 Pekin Street #01-01 Far East Square Singapore 048766 Read more on the discussions of Botan Restaurant here

Ju-Ju Hokkaido Hotpot

ED treated me to lunch at Ju-Ju Hokkaido Hotpot @ Paradiz Centre to celebrate my birthday. Ju-Ju is under the same management as Tao’s and Dozo.

ED commented that it’s such a hot day and asked if I still want to have hotpot for lunch. I told him I would still love to as I simply love steamboats and hotpot

We arrived at 1.20 pm and the restaurant was empty except for the 2 of us. The waitress was very friendly and asked if we would like her to explain the menu for us. There is the starter which comprised of kimchi, braised egg with special sauce & Jap seaweed. The waitress told us that the egg is 70% cooked and recommend to eat it with the special sweet soya sauce.

The egg tasted really yummy especially when you dipped it in the sweet soya sauce. I gave the kimchi and seaweed a miss as I don’t really like eating them.

There are 2 types of soup base to choose from – Ju Ju special soup base that is non-spicy and the Sichuan Spicy Hotpot soup base. I chose the non-spicy one while ED had the spicy one. One thing I like about this place is that individuals get their personalized hotpot. It’s not the usual type of steamboat where everyone share from a single pot.

For Main Course, there are 7 hotpot sets to choose from. I choose the Fish set while ED selected the Pork one.

This fish set comes with 2 types of sliced fishes nicely arranged on a boat. It comes with assorted mushrooms and vegetables and some dumplings.

The pork set comes with paper-thin pork slices, tau pok, tau kwa, yam and eggplant slices, assorted mushrooms and vegetables.

Some condiments to go with the food.

There are 4 types of carbos to choose from to go with the hotpot. ED selected Dong Fen (dried vermicilin) and I had cold soba. Other types of carbo are white rice and thin hor fun.

Dong Fen (Dried Vermicilin)

Cold Soba

The meal also include a glass of plum vinegar drink to aid in digestion. It tasted like those preserved plum juice drink you get from hawker centre but this is a more concentrated version. And it tasted a little sweet and salty too. I love it but not ED. He said he would had preferred some fruit juice or something sweet.

The set lunch includes dessert too. We had 4 different types of dessert to choose from. ED ordered Honey Dew & Mango Sago (Cold Dessert) while I had Black Glutinous Rice sweet soup with Orh Nee (Yam Paste) – Warm Dessert.

Honey Dew & Mango Sago (Cold Dessert)

This warm dessert has a very beautiful name called Purple Dreams.

The waitress promptly replaced ED’s dessert after we feedback to her that it tasted a bit sourish. ED’s dessert was replaced with Ju-Ju’s handmade coffee ice-cream. ED said the ice-cream is very smooth and it’s not too sweet. The chopped peanuts and special cracker bits that were sprinkled on top of the ice-cream complement it very nicely.

Halfway through our dessert, the chef came out to clarify that the Honey Dew & Mango Sago dessert tasted a little sourish due to the mango slices and also they used yogurt mixed with coconut milk. He explained that he had tasted ED’s dessert and that it is not spoilt. He further explained that the mango and yogurt might had contributed to the sourish taste of the dessert.

Total cost of the lunch came up to approx $42 (inclusive of service charge and 7% GST and after 10% discount for UOB cardholders). The lunch set is much cheaper compared to the dinner set. Would recommend that you go for their lunch instead since the difference between the two is a plain of rainbow dumplings for the dinner set only.

Ju-Ju Hokkaido Hot Pot
1 Selegie Road #B1-18
Paradiz Centre S188306
Tel/fax: 6336 6689
email: admin@juju-restaurant.com

Dinner at Akashi Japanese Restaurant @ Vivo City

Had dinner with my family at Akashi Japanese Restaurant at Vivo City. We were totally famished and decided to order some side dishes to eat first.

We ordered pan-fried gyoza (8 pcs/ plate), a plate of spider-crab maki and grilled king prawns with miso sauce.

The gyoza had quite a thin skin with lots of fillings inside. It is nicely pan-fried till brown on its bottom and tasted great when you dipped it in a plate of vinegar.

Want some soya sauce and chilli powder for your food?

The Spider-crab maki was very delicious too. The inside was crispy and full of bite. Simply yummy.

We also ordered 2 grilled King prawns with miso paste. When grilled, the miso melted and turned golden brown giving it a sort of a bbq with tangy miso taste. This used to be my personal fav until I developed allergies to seafood. Each plate of Grilled King Prawn comes in 2 halves. The restaurant is very nice to place each half of a prawn on a plate so that the 4 of us would have half a prawn each. I gave mine to my SO.

The 4 of us ordered 4 set dinners each. I had the grilled gindara with miso paste set dinner. It is actually cod fish grilled with miso sauce. Each set dinner comes with rice, miso soup, pickles and fruits.

Grilled Gindara Miso Sauce Set Dinner $20

Grilled Gindara with Miso Paste

Tori Karage Dinner Set $18

Gyu Teriyaki Dinner Set $18

This dish is not on the menu. We asked for it separately. It’s stired fried pork with onions on hotplate. It’s also a set dinner and the price is $25 per set.

Soft Fluffy Jap Rice

Miso Soup

Also order a bowl of chawanmushi too. It’s very smooth and really glide down your throat.

Total Bill came up to approx $147 (include 7% GST and service charge) for 4 persons.

Akashi Japanese Restaurant have 3 outlets. Do call to make reservations as it can get pretty crowded in the evenings and during weekends.

Tanglin
19 Tanglin Road, #B1-09,
Tanglin Shopping Centre, Singapore 247909
Tel: 6732 4438

Orchard
290 Orchard Road, #B1-01,
Paragon Shopping Centre, Singapore 238859
Tel: 6735 8887

Vivo City
1 HarbourFront Walk, #B2-07,
Vivo City, Singapore 098585
Tel: 6376 9972

Dinner At Jap Restaurant @ Food Republic (Suntec)

Had a nice dinner at this Jap Restaurant located in Food Republic at Suntec yesterday. Went there to have dinner before heading off to watch the fireworks.

Salmon Maki. Very nice and delicious. A bit crispy inside when u bite in and then the bursting of the roe in your mouth when you chew the whole thing… simply delicious.

Order this big pot of pork sukiyaki. The pork belly is so tiny sliced that the meat simply melt in your mouth. So tender and nice. The soup is really tasty too.

Ordered this Saba and Chicken Bento. The set comes with Chawanmushi and rice. The Saba is grilled nicely with taste of bbq smell and the meat was just tender and not too hard. Not too fishy too.

 

This sidedish was highly recommended by the waitress. It’s grilled eggplant with miso. The miso melted on top of the eggplant and looks like cheese to me. The taste is very nice. The eggplant moist and soft and the miso added a salty taste to it.

Pork cooked with Miso, ginger, spring onion and carrots strips. The chef uses pork belly that is also so thinly sliced that it melted in your mouth when you chewed it.