I was going for a spa with my best friend that day at Mosque Street and we saw Togi. Its not a big restaurant and its space was not wide but long. There were seats inside and outside.
For that day, they were having a promotion for their BBQ pork belly. We saw a table having it and it looked quite nice so we were sold.
As with Korean restaurants, they always give you appetisers. Yum.
Mostly pickled vegetables and ikan bilis. Some were really nice though. They tasted mostly sweet, sour and spicy at the same time.
The lady cooked the pork belly for us while some table cooked it themselves. So I guess you can request to do it yourself. It was quite nice to watch the pork belly turn colour and into something crispy at the edges and with the oil oozing out. I'm a bit afraid of pork belly so I thought it was ok. I only eat the meat parts and the crispy parts and waste the fatty bits. My friend who knows how to appreciate pork belly loves every bit of it though! :)
We order two more dishes. Bim Bim Ba and a noodles dish.
Personally, I feel this dish is a very healthy dish. Mostly vegetables and if you add chilli (which you should, if you are a chilli lover), its like making the perfect mixture in the test tube during chemistry class.
I enjoyed the noodles dish below a lot.
The noodles were cooked very well, not too soft, not too hard. Its springy like, almost similar to maggie mee, but in a good way. There's also some dumplings in the dish, plus this tube shaped floury Korean thing. It's a well known Korean food, but I'm not sure what its called. Not a fan of the floury thing though. It gives me carbohydrates nightmare. Back to the noodles, I LOVE IT! Its more spicier than the dish above. The chilli is a bit tangy too.
Overall, this Korean dinner was good. Many other dishes in the menu looks yummy too.
Togi Korean Restaurant
11 Mosque Street
Singapore 059491
Tel: 62210830
Raffles City Shopping Centre has an exciting food basement. There are SO many food outlets there and plenty of them are actually quite good! Having eaten too many of Central Mall's delicious ramen, we chanced upon Sapporo Ramen Bishamon and decided to give it a try.
We ordered their Shio and Shoyu ramen. Shio mean salt while shoyu means soy sauce.
Well, the ramen here are different from the ones at Central Mall or at Liang Court. I would say even though each strand of ramen looks about the same size as the previously mentioned places, the version here actually tasted as if its thicker. So I would guess they use more flour maybe?
This is how the noodles look like...
The char siew is actually thicker too. It isn't melt in your mouth but more meaty. The seaweed they used is quite good. Very strong seaweed flavour when you eat it, even though it has been soaking in the soup for a while. The shio ramen soup tasted more of a pork based one and it was kind of milky too. I thought it was slightly above average but not as good as Marutama ramen (I've wrote an entry on them before) but its not really fair to compare cos Marutama uses chicken as their base.
For their shoyu ramen,
the char siew and seaweed are the same, but the soup does not have the milky taste. Its more light. And don't worry if you think this is just soy sauce plus water. Its better than that. But as again, just a slightly above average ramen.
Their egg is very good though! The yolk will just flow out.
If you have never tried the ramen at The Central Mall before, you'd think the ramen here is maybe good. But the ones at the central mall is still better - Marutama (3rd floor) and Santouka (2nd floor).
And also, the prices here are a little more expensive too.
Would I go back? Yeah. If I am in Raffles City and I feel like having something soupy. But I wouldn't crave for this ramen.
Sapporo Ramen Bishamon
Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road
#B1-17
Tel: 6235 2890
Lunch is always the best time for foodies. Especially when you have set menus which is like 1/4 of a full dinner price. And that to me is always a super good deal.
What's note worthy of Rakuichi is that it has two chefs that used to work in Kuriya. That means that their standard can't be that bad. And its true! :) We were asking one of the waitress if Rakuichi belongs to Kuriya and she was confused for a while and she said "ya" so I'm not really certain if this is part of Kuriya. There were 3 different lunch set meals to offer here. Set A,B and C.
As you can see, there's a whole array of its-worth-your-money selection since Set A is only $21.90. There's sashimi, grilled salmon, sesame tofu, soft shell crab, miso soup and rice. Before the set lunches are served, you'll get a small bowl of salad too and later on, black sesame ice cream for dessert. The sashimi slices were fresh and thick but I think the winner here was the sesame tofu. It was really very well done. It looks like regular tofu with that regular taste we all know too well, but this sesame tofu REALLY has sesame taste to it. You'll even forget its supposed to be tofu. The grilled salmon could be juicier though cos I found it a bit dry for my liking. The rest were good and the black sesame ice cream was really yummy.
If you are willing to pay an extra $6 or so, you get Set C. Which is about the same as Set A, just that it has King Crab Chawanmushi, some small crunchy prawns, peas and grilled corn. Not as worth it as Set A still.
Overall, it was a nice lunch affair at Rakuichi. Service was prompt and our green tea were refilled quickly. Its quite a small restaurant though and during lunch time, most seats were filled. They had a range of seafood on ice which was on display at the counter top and I must say it looked very delicious and I was staring at the oysters and shellfish the whole time. A nice place to get away while in Orchard.
Rakuichi Japanese Restaurant
Far East Shopping Centre (Beside Wheelock Place)
545 Orchard Road #03-11
Singapore 238882
Tel: 6737 0757
In recent years, ayam penyet (a dish with its origins from Indonesia), otherwise known as smashed fried chicken/ flattened fried chicken has been gaining wider coverage (newspapers and magazines) and distribution (more outlets). Previously, before I tried the dish I was always trying to imagine how it will look like. Somehow the image of something along the line of a smashed watermelon will come to mind. But nah... its not like that. In fact, its like this.
As you can see, its not horribly mangled. In fact, the purpose of flattening the chicken is to tenderise the meat and let the flavour seep in better. At Waroeng Penyet, their ayam penyet is marinated with Java special sauce and then fried to perfection. No ayam penyet is complete without its side kick - the spicy and hot till your tastebuds are on fire sambal chilli.
Lucky Plaza has a famous stall that sell this dish but I think this is even nicer than theirs. Because unlike the Lucky Plaza one, this stall has managed to fry the chicken skin till it is most fantastically crispy and yet being able to retain the moistness and flavour of the chicken meat itself. When you use your fork and spoon to tear the meat away from the bone you can even hear the crunch when the meat and skin comes off.
I would say, this is the best malay style fried chicken that I have ever eaten in my life.
Their chilli is crazy. Its so spicy that I thought my tastebuds were about to catch fire. But luckily I have a cup of Lime juice at my side to sooth my tastebuds at the same time. But do I like the chilli even though its quite spicy? You bet I do. For people who don't usually have chilli with any of their food, you may curse the chilli here, but for others, you'd love it.
Best ayam penyet by far. But prices are also steeper than the rest. The ayam penyet here is $5.50 and rice is at an additional charge of $0.50. There's a new outlet at Changi Village too!
Waroeng Penyet
Block 81, #01-638
Marine Parade Central (Opposite Marine Parade Polyclinic)
Singapore 440081
Tel: 63441235
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
