Love Fish n Co?
Hate Fish n Co?
Sick of Fish n Co?
Here's your prescription for your diagnosis! Manhattan Fish Market!
The concept is about the same - seafood, fries, fried stuff, buttered rice.
Conclusion? It's nicer than Fish n Co!
We ordered their "Seafood platter for two/ three" (Fish n Co terms) which was their Fishermen's Giant Fried Platter. I love the selection! Fried fish, fried fries (duh), fried mushroom (juicy!), fried prawns (sweet!), fried calamari rings and butter rice. Not a lot maybe but the portion is definitely enough for 3.
The calamari rings tasted less like the ones you get from their rival or even Swensens. I think its the spices they used... The fries were good, the fish meat was soft enough and like previously mentioned, the prawn meat was sweet! The prawns' heads didn't escape the deep pits of our stomachs too! Which means that technically, every single thing on the plate should be polished off. Yummy.
We tried one of the appetisers too - Mussels in Louisiana Shrimp Sauce.
It's not bad... The mussels are ok, the sauce was nice and thick. Fantabulous to dip the pieces of bread into. Oh, and I like to slurp the sauce off the mussel's shell after eating the meat ;)
All in all, its a great place! The bill only came up to slightly more than $50 for 3 persons and its definitely worth every single cent. We went to the outlet at Central Mall and the ambience for the outdoor seating was great. The indoor seating was a bit noisy with the people's chatter being trapped in. But the outdoor one was airy, windy, and romantic with the changing coloured lights and view of Clarke Quay.
Here's their website which is very good by the way http://www.manhattanfishmarket.com/
You can check their outlets and opening hours etc there. They have another one in Plaza Singapura.
I didn't know it till now. A lot of other quite well known Japanese eateries in Singapore are under Kuriya. Such as Ichiban Boshi, Kuishin-Bo, Ichiban Sushi, Fiesta. Others that we can guess quite obviously are Kuriya Fish Market, Kuriya and Kuriya Dining.
Kuriya and Kuriya Dining are quite similar. Both in town and both more up market. But Kuriya Dining is more up market and I suppose more fine in dining.
The ambience of the restaurant is quite comfy, private and nicely lit. The staff here are slightly more polite than average good places. The atmosphere was kind of like returning to a familar eatery whereby you'll feel more relaxed than usual and just can't wait to sit down and enjoy a good meal.
Currently, from now till 31 January 2008, Kuriya Dining is having a Fugu promotion at $70++ per person. "Fugu", as much as it looks like "Fungus", is really "Puffer Fish". Yeah, the poisonous one. But I'm not dead.
For this set, you'll get everything puffered up for you. In English, it means, you'll have puffer fish skin, puffer fish sashimi, puffer fish hot pot, puffer fish porridge and fried puffer fish. That's almost all the different kind of ways you can cook the fish!
When you order hot pot, you'll get to sit in this separate area which is more private because you need the stove. It's really very nice.
For starters, we got the puffer fish skin dish.
Its the white stuff and it is surrounded by some light Japanese soya sauce, and some other vegetables. The orange ingredient at the extreme right bottom when mixed with the food will give a hint of spicyness. The puffer fish skin tastes chewy and a bit rubbery but not in a bad sense. It is an interesting dish after all, if you have never tried it.
For their puffer fish sashimi, its white and transparent in colour and it tastes sweet. If you see carefully, you'll be able to see the thin slices around the decorative ingredients. I like their presentation. The plate is placed on top of crushed ice. Beside the plate is a saucer containing a special sauce for you to go with the sashimi. When the sashimi and the sauce goes together, the taste is really unique and it brings out the sweetness of the sashimi even more.
For their fried version, the fish meat was not bad. But it tasted like some other fried fish so it was not spectacular or special. I like their fried "fan" like creation though. Looks like fried thorns but I suspect its fried noodles. It was crispy and light and thank god, no leftover oil flavour.
The highlight of the meal!! The hotpot.
Brown, luscious, flavourful and heart warming. The smell of it bubbling away under the heat will make you drool. The soup has a very distinctive Japanese taste to it and what I love most was the "charcoal-like" taste it has. It can be described as those slightly burnt taste, but it is of course not burnt. It's very special and the soup itself was very good. The pot was big too. If you join your two hands together and form a circle, it is something in that size, just a bit smaller.
It comes with this...
All things yummy for a perfect hot pot meal! Vegetables (lots of it)... some glass like udon noodles (Quite chewy)... Mushrooms (3 kinds and very juicy all of them) and the uncooked puffer fish meat.
The puffer fish meat doesn't cook as fast as normal fish meat. When cooked for a while only, it is a bit tough, but letting it cook longer will make it taste sweet and softer... Almost scallop like texture. Very nice. There was nothing bad in the pot.
When you're finished with the ingredients and when you still have some soup left, the friendly staff will come along and tell you its time to cook your porridge. They will add Japanese rice in and cook and will add eggs into the mixture and continue stirring. And then you will get this.
The staff was telling us Japanese prefers to eat their porridge when it is still grainy and not when it is smooth and soup like, like some of what is sold outside. On the top right hand side of the photo there are two saucers one containing seaweed and another one is spring onion chopped up nicely and thinly. The seaweed was amazing! Very strong flavour and the porridge and the seaweed were the perfect complements to each other - like the yin and the yang, chilli crabs to man tou buns, beer to peanuts etc etc. DO NOT, eat the porridge without the seaweed. You will knock your head against the wall if you know what you are missing.
After all these, we were damn full. But desserts, being desserts will always have a vacancy in our stomach (I don't know why).
So we had our black sesame ice cream which was better than all those Japanese ice cream stalls out there. Why? Its not as milky and the ice cream was actually quite dark in colour. And it was intensely flavoured no less.
It comes with some fresh fruit. The ice cream was not as little as you see it. There were more goodness underneath. After I finished mine, bearing in mind I was already full, I still craved for more black sesame ice cream. The standard is different from the Kuriya at Shaw I think. Its just nicer. Even I thought the greent tea was nicer, but the staff said it was the same. Must be the atmosphere.
Overall, $70++ for this meal was a bit expensive, but hot pots are usually not that cheap anyway. And this set has fugu! I think its a good time to try it. At least must try fugu once right? The whole meal was exceedingly enjoyable and memorable. And looks like I'll go back for other hot pots that they have too! Like their seafood hot pot.
Kuriya Dining
Great World City
#02-42
1 Kim Seng Promenade
Singapore 237994
Tel: 6736 0888
Lunch hours: 11.30am t0 2.30pm
Dinner hours: 6pm to 11pm
Usually when I have meals with rice, I don't have the habit of finishing it. But there are some dishes that when eaten with rice, I'll almost come into the danger of finishing every single grain. And like almost everybody else, that powerful ingredient is curry.
At Tiong Bahru, there is this special Hainanese Curry Rice.
Special in the sense that the stall fills an entire bottom of a shop house so its like a speciality food for these people.
The curry looks very smooth huh? The meat is fried chicken and it was crispy and the meat was just tender enough. The curry is thick and don't let its slightly brownish appearance fool you. It is indeed quite spicy. But as with spicy things and being a Singaporean, that is what makes it shiok and enjoyable even if you have to eat it and perspire in the afternoon heat.
You see the glass next to it? That is why you'll need to order some lime juice. Cooling an refreshing. Just the right way to finish off a satisfying meal of Hainanese Curry Rice.
They serve other dishes that you can order along with your curry rice too. Such as fried vegetables, braised three layer pork meat (which is quite good) and other meat like fish.
(Sorry no exact address availabe but it is near Tiong Bahru Hawker Centre... around the area)
For all things Japanese, you surely can't miss "Green Tea". It's like their staple drink for almost everything I think. And nowadays there are so many things out there for green tea lovers - biscuits, cakes, ice creams, sweets, you name it, they've got it.
So it brings me great pleasure today to introduce a FANTASTIC green tea snack!
Maybe you've seen this packet around in some supermarkets/ Cheers before. They have it in Chocolate and also in Strawberry and even Chocolate AND Strawberry together flavours. But the undisputed best flavour has got to be the Green Tea. Ok, maybe its not really fair because I have not tried the Chocolate one and the Strawberry one but I've tried the combination one. Its still not as nice. In fact, it tastes a bit fake.
Inside the packaging, the green tea biscuits looks like cut out mini flowers. It is coated with some sugar and I must admit the sight of it did put me off the very first time I ate it. But after a few, I surrendered my whole self to the biscuits. Recently when I managed to grab my hands on it, I ate it almost immediately. The chocolate and strawberry ones are relatively easier to find than this.
Ok, about the biscuit, the green tea filling inside is really fragrant and flavourful! Every single one has a strong and delightful final taste to it. Even the biscuit itself without the filling is great!
Just submit your soul already. Recently they added a new flavour - Almond
Very nutty taste but still... Green tea still wins hands down, legs down, stomach down.
For strategic searching for this biscuit, please attack the Japanese Section at supermarkets.
Japanese speciality biscuits shops like the one in the basement of Central are good too.
I found my recent one in Cheers. So you'll never know. ;)
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