8 posts tagged “japanese”

Located in the west side of Singapore at Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre, is this piece of gem that's tucked away from the city life and reflects none of the bustling acivities of the AYE close to it. When we arrived at HLGSC in the evening, the area was sleepy and just dotted with a random few people walking around. This place seems to specialise in Japanese eateries as there were a quite a handful around and we saw quite a few Japanese in the area too.

Sliding open the door, you will enter into what looks like a tiny and cosy dining room, filled with artifacts, trinklets and Japanese comic books. Its a very authentic feel. The kitchen is right beside the dining tables and separated by a curtain. I remember sitting there and feeling as if I was right at home sitting at my own dining table, waiting for dinner while my own mother fussed about in the kitchen.

 

Look, even the menu is the same from the first day they opened which has been like more than a decade ago. Its mostly in handwritten Japanese with English pronunciation but not English meaning.

If there is no one in the restaurant, you can try asking the very sweet and lovely daughter of the chef (it is after all only a mother and daughter's affair here) to kindly explain to you.

A very special tea is served here.

Instead of the usual green tea, its roasted barley tea. Yup, you read it right. Its called Ocha in Japanese. Other than the make up of the tea which is quite special, its taste is surprising too. If you smell it, it gives out the aroma of coffee. Its a light tea which was quite good to wash down your dinner with at the end.

We ordered two appetisers. The first one we had was chicken gizzard. Its some organ part of the chicken.

Its chewy in texture if you're wondering what its like. Not smelly or anything so no worries there. The gizzards were nicely pan fried with onion, green capsicum and sesame. The onion nearly stole the show because it was downright delicious. It honestly the best cooked onion I've ever ate. It was kind of sweet and maybe it was because all the ingredients really complimented each other that made this dish become one of the highlights of the evening.

 Another appetiser which we greedily ordered after eating the first (because it was so damn good and prices were affordable) was the above. That's squid cooked with butter. As again, sesame was generously sprinkled on it. There was also some lemon taste to the squid. A well done dish, but it was nothing special. At this stage, I was starting to think I should also add sesame into the food I cook next time because it goes well with almost anything!

For our "main course", we ordered their chicken katsudon, which is deep fried chicken cutlet lovingly coated with egg on top of a bottom layer of warm rice. It comes in a set, so there's those pickled stuff, tofu and a bowl of miso soup.

Looks like those Japanese drama whereby you eat your food (which always looked very heartwarming and delicious)from a square box! The whole dish was drizzled with some sauce so if you eat the soft egg with onion and the rice, its almost like pringles - once you pop, you can't stop. Its dangerous for those on a diet. The chicken cutlet is deep fried well and the meat was thick and wasn't tough. It seems to be those bread crumbs cutlet though. Overall, above average, but not exactly mind blowing.

This is their unagi (eel) set. Its beautiful this dish. The colours made it look very inviting and it tasted as good as it look. The unagi expertly poses on the bed of soft and slightly runny egg which is supported by the firm foundation of warm rice. This is how you eat it. Dig from the top to the bottom and eat all three layers in one scoop. Oishi, I tell you. The eel was very soft till it seemed to be able to melt in your mouth. It was just the right hint of sweetness and its the sesame again I tell you. Everything with sesame is good. That must be their secret. This dish is an enormous obstacle if you're on a diet.

Chako serves home made (fresh!) ice cream too. There's fruit kinds such as mango, strawberry, pear and usual favourites like black sesame.

  Their ice cream are the most health conscious ones I've tried. Its really low in sugar and made with yogurt too. So overall taste was very light. However, it seems to have tiny ice bits in it... Not very sure if it comes with authentic home made ice cream. Not horrible at all, but its those kind that one serving is enough. But you can order it just to know how a healthy ice cream is supposed to taste like! I'm not saying that the flavour is not there at all. In fact, its quite strong. So that's good.

In conclusion, Chako felt extremely homely, cosy and warm. It really felt as if my mummy was right in the kitchen cooking dinner for me while I laze around reading comics or magazines. They cook everything on the spot so nothing is made in advance. Expect to wait quite a while. Even though we were the only customers that night, we had to wait around 20 -30 minutes for the first appetiser to appear because Madam Chako is the only chef. But the wait is worth it. This meal cost about $70 in total and for such quality, I give my thumbs up.

Please make reservations as they have limited seating and who knows that day she might have a full house.

Restaurant Chako

134 West Coast Way (Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre)  

Opening hours:

Lunch - 12.15pm to 2.30pm (Only available from Mon - Friday)

Dinner - 6.30pm to 10.30pm

Tel: 67763919 (Reservations required)

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 

After Akane at The Japanese Association closed down, the next best place to have good Japanese food had to be a Tatsuya. After all, the head chef, Ronnie Chia (whose Japanese name is Tatsuya), is a disciple of Yoshio Nogawa at Akane.

So armed with some kind of expectation and a pocket which is ready to be burnt with a hole, our journey at Tatsuya begins.

The counter seats are where the action is. Unless you want privacy or you are afraid of sharp knives and chefs in white robes, just skip everything else and sit (make a RESERVATION first) at the counter.

Our first insight into the world of Tatsuya was this dish

The fish roe tasted different from those I've tried at Kuriya. The transparent and soft shell enclosing the fish roe juice (?) did not just break and disappear. It seemed as if the covering was thicker perhaps. Every spoonful of the roe gave way to a delightful burst in the mouth.

Our second dish was this plate of small red tomato. It's not exactly baby tomato because its not that small. The tomato flesh was firm and the insides were juicy and it was slightly naturally sweet. Did it taste a lot different from those normal red tomato we get from the supermarket? Well... maybe a bit. But of course this was better.

I think this was Angelfish liver. It's in the middle of the plate, the semi circle orange looking thing. It's very delicious and fresh. But nothing great. We had this at Akane too. Can't help with the comparison, but I vaguely remember that the one I had at Akane was better.

Ok! So after giving our mouth and stomach a good warm up, it was time for the real stuff! Sashimi! Everything was exceptionally fresh by which I mean you do not get this kind of quality at Sakae Sushi or whatever Japanese restaurant in whatever shopping centre. Prawn not as sweet as Akane. Haha.

This dish was suddenly popped up in front of us all the way from the kitchen. It's actually yam ball with unagi (eel) and mushroom as fillings. There were some pieces of prawn soaking up the atmosphere in the gravvy too. The yam ball was good enough to please any yam fans. The unagi however seemed to have teleported half of itself to somewhere else because there was not really enough of it. But it was amazing. The amount of stuffing inside the small ball.

 The next time I go for a snorkelling trip, I will never look at rock fish the same way again. The fish was steamed and the meat had a sweet flavour to it. Taste like most well steamed fishes though. Personally I feel it is very hard to cook an exceptional fish dish.

Had a little break with some crunchy cucumbers. The red sauce looks like sambal but in actual fact it tasted kind of fermented. It was not horrible but made a nice and interesting dip to the cucumber.

Our first sushi for the night was this tuna belly sushi. Right before it was presented to us, the tuna belly was torched with a flame. Maybe I am seriously hung up with Akane or something, but this lagged behind to the tuna belly at Akane. This was delicious yes, but out of this world? No.

 When we asked for recommendation for their soups, the waitress introduced us their tuna belly soup which I believe if I didn't hear wrongly was double boiled. The soup was light and clear with some oil floating at the surface but I attributed that to the presence of the tuna belly. Tuna belly meat itself was soft and it almost melted in my mouth right away. It wasn't as salty as the one at Akane and this version had better cooked tuna belly meat but maybe because I'm such a loyal fan, and because Nogawa is the master, I still prefer Akane.

We had prawn sashimi too and this too was torched. You can see the torched parts which are slightly black on the top. You know how prawns smell like when you barbeque them? It had the exact smell and taste when I tried it. Just that other than the torched part, the rest was raw and it was enjoyable as a whole.

 This was an interesting and unique sushi. Scallop topped with goose liver. I thought this was worth it. The slight sweetness from the fresh scallop and the rich taste of the goose liver came together and the result was something really beautiful. My stomach can attest to that. YUM!

 The chef behind the counter said this was sweet eel sushi. I don't know if this eel is different from unagi but if it is unagi, he would have just said that it's unagi right? The eel's meat was not as soft as other places, but at least the eel was not drenched with too much sweet sauce. Not too bad.

I think with most top notch Japanese restaurants, the peice of seaweed wrapping around the rice was exceptionally good. It had an above average crisp and it smelled and tasted very very good too. When you eat the whole thing together, you yourself can hear the slight crunch of the seaweed. The sea urchin sushi was almost identical to the one I tried at Akane but just that the see urchin itself tasted slightly different. There was another dish we had which I didn't get to take a photo of. It was wrapped with seaweed too but kind of in the shape of a california roll but ours were more like folded into a long and slim rectangle. It was filled with long thin slices of cucumber, those very very tiny orange ball which I do not know what it is called and also very crispy salmon skin. Wow. This had to be the best thing I ate for the whole dinner.

Before we eat this tamago(egg) sushi we were lalready ike pregnant whales. But since Tatsuya is not a place we come just for fun everyday, we ordered this anyway because only a good japanese restaurant can make a good tamago because this requires a lot of skills. The egg that you see here has a lot of layers. Just that its not visible in this photo. And verdict? It was good no less, but we're not really sure how good or better it is to the rest cos they all kind of taste the same just that some places may have sweeter versions.

 For the closing ceremony for our stomach, we had honeydew which was sweet and chilled and we had a little bit of cheese cake in a martini glass and black sesame ice cream. The cheese cake was not really a cake. There was hardly any cake layer but the cheese mousse like parts were really very good with a satisfying cheese after taste.

Their black sesame ice cream was not home made but from Japan. Quite a good version.

Overall, the meal at Tatsuya was quite an experience. The sashimi and sushi were no doubt very good and very fresh but because I still cannot get over Akane, I would say its still second fiddle. However, if you have not tried Akane before, Tatsuya will not fail you. The chefs at the counter were all very friendly and the waitresses were knowledgeable about what was offered and they were very attentive.   

 

Tatsuya Japanese Restaurant

Park Hotel Orchard

Tel: 67371160

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

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. ;)

In a recent article of The Sunday Times, they were talking about how there is a ramen craze in right now. And it is true! Many ramen stores are sprouting up faster than your tao gay can grow. Ok, digressing aside, Marutama Ramen is really a fine ramen store! Not as in "fine la", but as in g-o-o-d and worth your money kind.

Evidence below.

The soup is simple and every spoonful of it will evoke images of chicken in your head. It is extremely tasty and its the BEST chicken soup I have ever tasted. According to people who have been to Japan and eaten their heavenly ramen, this ramen is the best they have tasted in Singapore. So there you have it. The next best thing to eating an authentic ramen outside Japan.

As you can see, the topping for the ramen is a piece of char siew (damn good), some seaweed (its not those dark green kind and it doesn't make your soup taste too overwhelmingly like its been soaked with seaweed) and some spring onion.

The egg which you see is an add on and it costs $1 I think. Its very worth it. And this is because the egg york is not overcooked and it is orange-y in colour and when some of the liquid egg york seeps into your soup, the combination is A***mazing***.

Try this ramen. I bet you will not regret it. Long queues are synonym with this store too. Especially during lunch or dinner hours when the wait can be as long as one hour. Seriously, I think this is one store whereby employees will be willing to sneak off early from work and come up with some feeble lie to dine here. I've seen many Japanese eating here too. They serve free cold plain water, and they have Japanese ramen magazines for you to read to appease you.

I'm not joking. Marutama ramen is the place to go. I should know. I've been there consecutively every week for more than a month now. Each bowl of ramen starts from $12 onwards.

They have other side dishes too. Like this one.

 

Their roasted char siew is not bad. Soft and juicy in the right amount. Their pork belly which I didn't get a photo of is not bad too. Even though I do not eat animal fats of any kind, I ate all of the pork belly because it doesn't feel sickening at all. I guess they really know how to cook their pork here.

Go early. They may close early because they are sold out.

 

MARUTAMA RA-MEN

6 Eu Tong Sen Street

#03-90/91 The Central

Singapore 059817

Tel: 6534 8090

Business Hours: 11.30am to 10pm

Brief Introduction of Akane

Akane Restaurant is owned by Chef Nogawa, a Japanese who came to Singapore in 1972, and has been here ever since (Hooray!). Mention his name at other famous Japanese restaurants in Singapore and you will get nods of admiration for the man. He is after all, the master of Ronnie Chia (of Tatsuya at the Crown Prince Hotel), Yoshida (of Sushi Yoshida) and even the chef of Shiro (at Greenwood Ave) was once a assistant of Mr Nogawa. At Akane, the ingredients are always fresh as they are imported from the famous tsujiki market in Japan 5 times a week! Well, to experience a true and authentic taste of japanese food by the master or his disciples, you decide.

This time, we went for lunch because we heard lunch was a lot cheaper. And it is! Set lunches are from $20 - $25 each, the portion is average, but the food taste a lot better of course.

First dish that arrive was "Scallop Tempura"

 

They added other vegetables such as mushrooms to go with the scallops, and overall, I would say that the tempura is light and has a nice bite to it. The scallops are sweet but maybe this dish tastes a tad too normal. But its still nice.

 

Our chirashi set lunch arrived next, and at $25, it is really worth it. In the big bowl in the middle of the picture, we have some sashimi, prawn, egg, roe, crab stick, squid. Underneath it all, they've added shredded seaweed on top of the rice and the rice is a little sweet and very delicious. Goes very well with the ingredients on top. The tofu on the top right was very good too. However, their miso soup (if we can call it that) is cooked with prawns, and the taste of the prawns is quite strong. It is a different twist to the traditional miso soup, so maybe not everyone will like it. Good selection for this set.

 

That, is their speciality. Its tuna soup and the soup is really very tasty. In the soup, there are tuna meat, mushrooms and tofu. The tuna meat was very very good - its the next best thing to a tuna sashimi and tuna belly, and the tofu was really soft. I think Akane makes very good soups. We had crab soup (seasonal) the last time we went there for dinner and that was fantastic and extremely flavourful too. Don't give their soups a miss.

 

 

At the top we have egg sushi, and at the bottom, we have "Fatty tuna with spring onion" maki. "Fatty Tuna" is really tuna belly - the translation gone awry somewhere. It was the first time we ordered the egg at Akane, and it was better than the average stuff outside, the egg being not as sweet. It's a interesting way of presenting the sushi because the egg is cut into halves and the rice is enclosed between the egg. So we have more egg than rice.

The first time we ate the "Fatty tuna with spring onion" maki, we were blown away. Firstly, when you place one piece into your mouth, right at the moment before it touches your tongue, you will sniff out the freshness of the seaweed. When you bite into it, the crispness of the seaweed (there you have it, its damn fresh and of good quality) will cause your eyes to widen a bit in surprise and when you get to the fatty tuna with spring onion part, you will be blown away. There are so many taste and texture to feel in each piece. When you eat the whole thing together, the fatty tuna is soft and the whole piece just melts in your mouth.And here, it will be where your eyes open even wider. It's incredible. The seaweed does not linger for too long in the mouth. Most seaweed from the outside will be almost the last thing that goes down. But at Akane, the seaweed, rice and fatty tuna all becomes one. The combination is quite amazing. This is another dish not to be missed!

 

Akane is also well known for their udon. I dunno what that bowl of udon is doing for you, but I can still remember how smooth and delicious it was. If you're those kind of person who likes their food simple, clear and light, you must try this. I'm not very good at describing noodles, and I don't really like noodles but I really relish every bit of this dish. Maybe at first it will be too plain for some, but after a while, you will like it =) It may not be as great as those they have in Japan, but this is as close as it will get.

 

Dessert! We ordered their home made Sesame Ice Cream. I dunno if you've heard, but good Japanese restaurant tends to make good sesame ice cream! The flavour is quite intense and for every bite, you can really taste the sesame. I'd say this is quite good.

 

This dessert came along with the lunch set. It's red bean with some nutty thing inside. From the appearance, it may look overly sweet, but surprisingly it is not. It is an interesting dessert and that's about it. The taste was pleasing, but so- so too.

Lunch at Akane is a different affair compared to dinner. The atmosphere is different because at night you will see people coming and actually taking it slow and relaxing with a few beers. In the afternoon, however, people just go there for a good lunch and leave to continue their day. Also, if you want to meet Chef Nogawa, I think it is best to go for dinner. He is a really friendly man though it is not that easy to understand his accent sometimes. But bear in mind that dinner is a lot more expensive. Reservations are recommended and if possible, book the counter seats where all the action is. For a fun dinner, just let the chefs decide everything. Try their sashimi platter too. And bring your credit card! They don't accept cash.

 

Akane Restaurant

120 Adam Road Level 4 The Japanese Association

Opening hours: 11.30am to 3pm, 6pm to 10pm

Telephone: 64672768