Birthday Celebration @ Ootoya Japanese Restaurant

 We had Fei's birthday celebration few weeks back. Luckily for me as this time round I am not the last person who reached. It's such a rare case as i always the last one or second last person to reach for the gathering. So, there is improvement though!hehe! Initially we wanted to have our dinner at a korean restaurant at Orchard Central recommended by YL but in the end we sat for like 15-30 minutes, we decided to go for other options. 

In the end, we choose Ootoya Japanese restaurant for celebration. It's my all time favourite choice for homely made feel japanese cuisine. We managed to get a place for 8 pax and the servings are quite promptly. 

Photos of the foods that we ordered that night:-

Sumibutadon set meal @ S$23.50 

Rice bowl with charcoal grilled pork and sweet sauce. Love the charcoal grilled style which makes the whole meal more appertizing!

Shogayaki Set meal @ S$23.50

It's sauteed ginger pork with a set of refillable rice, miso soup and side dishes. 

My friend commented too much of ginger slices but overall was nice.

My Torisalad set! 

You can read my post here and here for Ootoya post.

Yap's order from Shio Koji Menu.

Buta Shio Koji jyu @S$23.50 for set meal. The combination of grilled pork loin marinated with shio koji sauce and served with potatoes and vegetables. Absolutely lovely combination. The pork loin is tender and the meat is juicy as well. Totally worth value for a homely set meal.

It's birthday celebration so a birthday cake is a must. Fei's healthy conscious guy so we got him non-sugar green tea cheesecake. The cake is ordered online from a website. It was yummy and sweet though without any sugar except the green tea powder from the top topping a bit bitter. 

The cake is a bit pricey though around S$60 plus.

Definitely a good choice and try for the cake.

Most of the photos are at Fei's camera so not uploaded here. 

So here I have the instax photos taken that night which round up the post for the day :)

It has been a yearly event in our list for every single pax birthday celebration. 

It's the effort to be together and gather together for a purpose. It is really rare as everyone starts to have their own family and partners. Glad that my friends still are in to such bonding sessions.

Ichiban Boshi @ NEX, Serangoon

Impromptu dinner happened once in a while. It just happened two weeks ago and colleagues and I decided to go for dinner after work for bonding sessions. Bonding sessions with new colleagues from design & sales department. So we ended up at Ichiban Boshi @ NEX, Serangoon. It has been quite sometime since my last visit to Ichiban outlets. I miss having Japanese foods for food tasting.

We ordered sashimi which consists of fresh salmon, scallop, yellowtail, maguro, mekajiki, ebi and also tako. Simply enlarge my appertizer for the night and the freshness of the dishes. The scallop taste sweet and i love the colours of the sashimi!!

We also ordered ala carte and also the chef recommendation to share. The portion for chef recommendation was generous as usual and luckily we all shared the foods and managed to finish everything.

Ended the dinner with matcha ice-cream with red bean and dumpling. It is the usual choice when i visit Ichiban outlets as this is the yummy dessert for me. Simple but filling! I miss having foods at Ichiban outlets as it taught me from zero knowledge on japanese foods to basic knowledge on japanese foods. 

Just a random post on dinning experience with colleagues @ Ichiban outlets. The staffs are friendly but slow to respond though. Perhaps we are seated far behind corner of the restaurant and we have difficulties being seen by the staffs. Overall dinning experience was nice though.Looking forward for dinning with colleagues for bonding sessions as we able to share our different views and thoughts other than work stuffs :)

A Day Without Work

It has been quite sometime since i patronize Ootoya. So I decided to head over for quick lunch during Singapore National Day. Ya i know this is outdated post. I have lotsa backlog posts to share. Anyway, this is one of my favourite restaurant and this time round Justin & Daphne joined me for the lunch. The menu has changed but the chef recommendation dishes still remain and i presume that there are new dishes as well. 

My favourite Torisalad which never fail to fill up my craving and empty stomach. I love the meat tenderness and the nicely grilled smell of the dish. Check out my post about this dish here and here.

Justin with his choice of the day. it's also chicken set meal. 

Forget the actual name of the dish. But he certainly finish up the set meal and even refill rice to finish up the dishes.

It is actually a day for my insurance agent to meet J&D for discussion. So we waited for her almost 2 hours as she was held up with her last minute work issues. She treated us coffee as a token of apologies for being late. We had a good chat and everyone get to know each other and share stories together. Glad that afternoon was well-spent with information input to our knowledge.

Just a short post on how i spend my holiday during Singapore national day. It was casual meeting and makan session only. It is also my sister's birthday but we had our pre-celebration the day before. 

Gonna post about our family bonding cum celebration for both my sister and I soon.

Till then..

Itacho Sushi @ Bugis

Finally after reading many reviews of Itacho Sushi, I had the chance to dine here. It was a mini gathering with ex-colleagues and we knock off around 7 plus instead of 10pm on one of the weekdays for the dinner. It's super tough to get to knock off that early on usual time :)

We decided to queue for this japanese restaurant. The queue is approximately 15-20 minutes before we were given a place to dine. The restaurant seems to be short handed of staff as the staffs are not prompt to react to customers' needs. We keep putting up our hands but nobody came to attend us. My friend has to go to their counter and get the tablespoon.One of the reason is because the restaurant is full house.

We ordered handroll as I was craving for salmon sashimi.

 I still prefer salmon avocado with mayonnaise and ebbiko handroll. 

Nevertheless the handroll seaweed is crispy and the salmon is quite fresh as well.

Crab meat salad @ S$4.80

Good start as an appetizer before the main course. It's quite refreshing and the crab meat, cucumbers are nicely sliced into thin layers and mixed well with the mayonnaise sauce with the ebbiko topping on top of it.

Salmon with soy sauce @ S$0.40 per pc.

Roasted squid leg sushi @ S$2.30 per pc

Since this is a special offer, every customer is only applicable to 2 pieces for the sushi.

Taste wise is acceptable.

 Squid leg is chewy when we bite.Salmon with soy sauce taste fine for me but i would prefer to go for salmon sashimi.

Roasted scallop with flying fish salad @ S$1.50 per pc.

Roasted scallop is nice. The scallop is quite thick and you able to taste the sweetness of the scallop. The flying fish salad sauce added flavor onto the taste and also the colour of the sushi.

Binchou Tuna with Citrus Sauce @ S@2.50 per pc

It's a bit dry for me and we are able to taste the citrus sauce. 

Not much preference of this sushi but it definitely taste fine.

Salmon with seafood& veg salad roll @ S$2.80 per pc

I love this sushi because the salmon is raw.hehe!

 Taste refreshing and the mixture of the salad brings out the refreshing taste though.

The main courses that we ordered that night:-

Teriyaki chicken with rice @ S$12.00 per serving

Teriyaki chicken colour is attractive and the taste is not disappointing though. The chicken meat is tender and we are able to taste the sweetness of teriyaki chicken. It's a simple yet filling choice as main course.

Curry sliced pork with rice @ S$11.00 per serving.

Presentation is fine and the taste is acceptable for my colleagues. I didn't tried so no much comment from my side. But my colleague commented that the pork are nicely sliced and they are able to taste the softness texture of the meat and able to chew easily.

My choice of the night, Grilled eel (unagi) with scrambled egg with rice @ S$13.00 per serving.

It taste fine while it's hot. I would prefer to have unagi while it is still hot so you can't smell the fishy smell when it turned cold. The unagi texture is smooth and soft bone as well.

Sliced pork with udon which i forget the price. 

The portion is just nice for one and not to full to consume. 

My friend has no much comment of the dish.

As for my own preference, i wouldn't spend time to queue for it. Price wise is affordable as a chain of japanese restaurant. 

Itacho Sushi outlets are available at the followings:-

Itacho Sushi

2 Orchard Turn, #B2-18 Ion Orchard

68 Orchard Road, #02-35 Plaza Singapore

Bugis Junction, 200 Victoria Street, B1-05

Sun-Thurs: 11am- 10pm 

Fri-Sat: 11am-11pm

Haramiya Japanese BBQ

Had a date with Dawn who blogs at singaporesupermarketrecipes.com.For those who love to know where to get cheap deals for foods and groceries, you can browse her blog for more information. It's our first meet up for makan session. We had plans to meet up once a month to explore the foods around Singapore.So our first stop is at The Central, Clark Quay. 

We were exploring the restaurants in the shopping mall and decided to try on this Japanese BBQ restaurant, Haramiya Japanese BBQ Restaurant. This is a newly open restaurant and it's full house when we decided to dine in on weekend night. We waited quite at least 15 minutes before given a place to dine in.

The restaurant display was very grand and the decoration is a mixture of chinese and japanese style. There even has a display sets of the available dishes that are shown in the menu for customers to have the visual look of the dish.

Pork Karubi Dinner Set S$14.99

Pork belly, rice, soup,salad, kimchi, side dish and dessert to complete the dinner set. The thickness of the pork belly is so slim that you can barely feel guilty to have the fats to eat together. Salad was refreshing though with the fresh lettuce. Kimchi is as usually taste very spicy for me. But Dawn thinks that the taste is just nice. So it's basically due to own preferences.

Picture of the beef tongue which looks like the pig liver except that the thickness isn't that thick.

Harami Dinner Set S$15.99

Beef outside skirt,Rice, soup, salad, kimchi, side dish and dessert to complete a dinner set. It's more like a korean version dish rather than japanese style. The beef was done perfectly well when we grilled them. So thanks to our 'talented skill', we able to enjoy the quality of the beef to the max. We have them in medium well done and it perfectly good condition to chew and taste the sweetness of the meat.

This plate of ala carte is the Beef Tongue S$7.99. 

We wanted to try on the texture of the beef tongue and so  turned out to be quite chewy as well. The thickness of the beef tongue is just perfect as it is not too thick nor too big slice to chew. 

I was craving for salmon sashimi so we ordered a plate of Sashimi Salmon Tartare S$7.99. 

The thickness of salmon sashimi is just perfect to satisfy my cravings towards the wonderful sashimi. 

Overall the foods are acceptable. But the place is too noisy that i don't really enjoyed it. The crowd is good that the business is booming for Haramiya. However, i would prefer the distance of the seats to the table can be bigger gap so that it's is more comfortable for tall people especially. I can see some of the customers' legs cannot be placed into the gap between the seat and the table. The height of the table is also low as we need to bend a bit to dine in.

Neverthless one of the staff was quite friendly. She has the passion of serving and provide suggestion on the foods for us. Some of the staffs are not that attentive as we put up our hands to call for assistance, it took them quite sometime to see it and react towards it.

p/S: This is purely based on my own experience with the restaurant.

Address:

Haramiya Japanese BBQ Restaurant

#03-87 (The Central), Clarke Quay

Hokkaido Ichiba @ The Gardens Mall, KL

Took this snapshot using Instagram and it is my first shot of the Friday morning from Cititel Midvalley.I love the snap and it shows the bustling city of KL early morning.

 This is my first trip to KL for meeting in my current company and it is truly a good experience. I waited for 5 hours to have the meeting going and i missed my flight.Took the flight back the next day morning.

Nevertheless we had our dinner at Hokkaido Ichiba @ The Gardens Mall as our client would like to have Japanese cuisine. So thanks to him we had a good dinner on that night and even gave me a chance to snap the photos before everyone starts the dinner.

Pardon my photos as it is all taken using iPhone. Thus, explains the quality of the photos. Fret not the food taste is awesome despite on the photo qualities. It's our first time here and we are satisfied with the food quality and services. The staffs do replenish my ocha without even asking them to do. They are prompt to our queries as well.

Unagi Ozushi Sushi RM28

Autumn MK RM22

Presentation is splendid. Unagi is soft and not dry to go with the sushi rice. Autumn MK consists of ebiko (fish roe),lobster salad and avocados as the topping of the sushi rice. I love the combination taste of sushi and gives me a thumbs up for my craving of the day.

Atsuyaki Tamago RM 7

This is recommended by my client. Don't be deceive with the look as it is japanese fried egg and the egg texture is very smooth like silken tofu. Simplicity is great!

Ala Carte for Kushiyaki Mori RM35

Combination of hotate (scallop) from left, meatball, leek with pork, salmon meat, shishamo,mushroom and chicken.  

Gindara Shioyaki RM28

As you can see the gindara meat is very smooth and tender. I love having it.

This is a must try ala carte. 

Many thanks to my client for his excellent recommendation.

Wagyu Tataki 75g RM75 is exactly good recommendation for beef lover.

Nicely sliced surface grilled japanese beef. The medium well done wagyu texture able to make you savour into the heavenly taste.

Setsu no Sashimi Moriawase RM 180

Sashimi assortment with toro,hamachi, salmon,mekajiki,ebio,sea urchin and prawn. The Toro was splendid taste as you can feel the fats around your mouth edge when you put into your mouth. All the sashimi are fresh and nicely sliced.

Next we have Aburi Kaki Ponzu RM18

Superb delicious fresh oyster with wakame, cucumber and japanese ponzu. You can truly taste the osyter freshness and won't feel uncomfortable with the taste as ponzu blend it well with the combination.

Ankimo Ponzu RM13

It's the frogfish liver aka japanese foie gras.It's my first time to try it and the taste and texture is alike with french foie gras. Definitely a nice try of the dish.

 Negitoro Temaki RM12

I miss it so i couldn't miss the chance not to order it. It totally complete my meal of the day :)

I would definitely visit the restaurant again if I happen to go to KL again.

We also ordered sake and beer that night and total bill was RM738.90. It is definitely a luxurious dinner for 4 pax.

T-201, 3rd Floor

The Gardens

Midvalley City

Lingkaran Syed Putra

59200 Kuala Lumpur

Open daily: 10am - 10pm