Tried Santouka finally (after all the rave reviews). I'm quite a big ramen fan, and these ramen speciality restaurants are a must-try for me. I got myself the highly recommended Tokusen Toroniku (Choice Pork) Ramen ($18 ). It's the speciality dish here - roasted pork cheeks which are tender and bursting with flavour and melt in the mouth. According to the menu, pork cheeks are really valuable since only 200-300 g of cheek meat per pig.
The ramen base comes in 4 different flavours: Shio (salt flavour), shoyu (soy sauce), Miso (soybean paste flavour) and kara-miso (spicy soybean paste flavour). I tried the miso flavour, it's not too salty, very milky and robust and incredibly satisfying.
The ramen comes in 3 sizes, for a smaller bowl you take $1 off the menu price, and add $2 for a large bowl. Small on the left and regular on the right of the 3rd picture. I ate the normal size one - it's pretty filling because of all the soup.
Though I really like the 9 nuts (or was it 7?) ramen from Marutama, I think this will be a better place to bring a group of people who might not want to eat ramen to cos they have a wider selection of ramen and there are other rice choices besides ramen.
The restaurant is brightly lit and overlooks the Singapore River. Cold water is provided in abundance - a huge jug of it is left at your table for your convenience.The restaurant also provides a pecial basket from Japan to place your bags in. Seating area is rather small so do call in advance if you're going to bring a group of people.
Visited Senso for dinner. It's my first dining experience there. There is a cosy bar area and a restuarant area. The dining area is divided into alfresco dining (in the court yard, along with lots of vegetation fountains etc) and a large airconditioned area further inside.
Our dining experience started with a complimentary starter - a small piece of smoked salmon and crisped onions sprinkled with black pepper.
For starters, we had the Asparagi e scampi ($26) - Steamed white asparagus and baked langoustines (fancy name for Norway Lobster) served with morel mushrooms and butter emulsion. I thought that the scampi was too soggy and aneroxic.
The Minestrone Soup ($16) was a generous portion ( I think it made all of us very full) which I would recommend you to share. Chunky vegetables in a clear broth - not too salty but very tasty and homely.
I tried the Senso Mozzarella ($24), which was parma ham wrapped around 2 lumps of mozzarella. I don't think it's very fantastic - perhaps because I had expected more after reading a few good reviews...
My favourite dish for the night was the Angel Hair Pasta with Saffron Cream, Sea Urchin and Caviar ($28). If you could only try one pasta dish at Senso, this will be what I recommend. The pasta is infused in the saffron cream sauce, with little sweet morsels of sea urchin and salty beads of caviar. I would definitely eat this when I visit Senso again.
We also had the Rigatoni with Rabbit sauce ($32), which I didn't quite like because the sauce had this strong stew-like smell (the kind where after you cook your meat sauce you put it into the fridge uncovered and smell it the next day) which I don't like (But rest assured I'm quite sure the sauce is fresh).
The Sardinian Mussles Spaghetti ($28) was quite dissappointing. Apart from the tender mussels and shellfish, the spaghetti was overdone and and the noodles were very bland - There was none of the sweetness I expected from the shellfish.
The Cioccolata dessert ($16) was delightful - crispy outer chocolate layer with a molten lava chocolate centre, which went well with the clean tasting pistachio ice cream.
Overall, the dining experience came with equal hits and misses. Perhaps I will try the restaurant again in the future?
Ice Cream Gallery is one of those numerous ice cream parlours popping up around Singapore. But, I'm happily blogging about this because it has Teh Halia Ice Cream.
Ice Cream Gallery has Teh Halia ice cream, milky and gingery, and with crystallised ginger bits. However, I thought that the tea taste could be slightly stronger as it tasted more like halia susu (ginger milk) then Teh Halia.
Brandied Cherry Ice Cream is generous on the alcohol - the cherries are plump with a strong alcoholic taste. Yum!
The Rum and Rasin Ice Cream is Ice Cream Gallery's hottest flavour - but sadly, it was sold out the night we went.
A scoop costs $3 for normal flavours, and $3.50 for alcoholic flavours.
Went for the ieatishootipost makan session at Swa Garden and sampled the best that Swa Gardens had to offer.
The Cold Crab was good, as far as cold crab standards, I personally don't think there's much of a difference between the restaurants I've tried...
Braised goose was good tastewise, but it was too dry for my liking.
Oyster Omelette was very good, with copious amounts of fresh oysters hidden inside a thin golden yellow omelette. The oysters were very fresh, and not sandy/grainy at all.
The restaurant recommended the Stir Fried Crayfish. I didn't like this dish because the whole thing was just covered in sauce and the crayfish would be unidentifiable if no one told me what it was.
We also had the Chye Poh Kway Teow, which, on any other occasion I would have liked, but the dishes came too slowly and I was feeling very full by the time it arrived.
Ohr nee was smooth and not too dry, and came with lots of pumpkin and ginko nuts. It was not too sugary despite having a layer of syrup and vegetable oil on top.
Other dishes tried were the steamed pomfret, stir fried sweet potato leaves, ngo hiang, mayonnaise prawn.
Cost: $32 per person. Not bad considering that we had a variety of dishes and a good size portion each.
The Nectarie is my default dessert place (unless I'm going to pump room) when I'm at Clarke Quay. I like the waffles there, but like all food in clarke quay, it's pretty ex. You can choose dress up your waffle with a scoop of ice cream, or fruits. I've tried their strawberry (generous amount of preserved strawberries) as well as Alfonso Mango with Lemongrass (though the lemongrass taste is quite negligible).
Ice cream there comes in unique flavours such as Honey Lavander, Basil, Blood Orange, Jack Daniels etc. My fave is the Honey Lavander. But do go early since they tend to run out of ice cream quite quickly on weekends.
If you order the waffle with fruits and ice cream, be prepared to fork out at least $13.
Their cakes are prettily displayed and are rather expensive - prices start from $6. I prefer their waffles so I usually skip the cakes.
The seating area inside the restaurant is rather small - and it's very smokey outside. If you have a big group of people (>4) it'll be very squeezy inside.
Service on all 4 occations I've been there is very slow and inefficient. The food takes painfully long to come, and there is a huge pause between dishes.
Pharquesaid: regarding the last line, i guess it's the cannery signature service style. 07 Jun 2008 at 2:50 am
milellehcimsaid: sadly I agree with you. But I don't think service will be as bad as the Laurent's Chocolate Factory at Mohamed Sultan Rd (wins hands down for bad service) 08 Jun 2008 at 4:42 am
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1=SGD 0.0587
The ramen base comes in 4 different flavours: Shio (salt flavour), shoyu (soy sauce), Miso (soybean paste flavour) and kara-miso (spicy soybean paste flavour). I tried the miso flavour, it's not too salty, very milky and robust and incredibly satisfying.
The ramen comes in 3 sizes, for a smaller bowl you take $1 off the menu price, and add $2 for a large bowl. Small on the left and regular on the right of the 3rd picture. I ate the normal size one - it's pretty filling because of all the soup.
Though I really like the 9 nuts (or was it 7?) ramen from Marutama, I think this will be a better place to bring a group of people who might not want to eat ramen to cos they have a wider selection of ramen and there are other rice choices besides ramen.
The restaurant is brightly lit and overlooks the Singapore River. Cold water is provided in abundance - a huge jug of it is left at your table for your convenience.The restaurant also provides a pecial basket from Japan to place your bags in. Seating area is rather small so do call in advance if you're going to bring a group of people.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Our dining experience started with a complimentary starter - a small piece of smoked salmon and crisped onions sprinkled with black pepper.
For starters, we had the Asparagi e scampi ($26) - Steamed white asparagus and baked langoustines (fancy name for Norway Lobster) served with morel mushrooms and butter emulsion. I thought that the scampi was too soggy and aneroxic.
The Minestrone Soup ($16) was a generous portion ( I think it made all of us very full) which I would recommend you to share. Chunky vegetables in a clear broth - not too salty but very tasty and homely.
I tried the Senso Mozzarella ($24), which was parma ham wrapped around 2 lumps of mozzarella. I don't think it's very fantastic - perhaps because I had expected more after reading a few good reviews...
My favourite dish for the night was the Angel Hair Pasta with Saffron Cream, Sea Urchin and Caviar ($28). If you could only try one pasta dish at Senso, this will be what I recommend. The pasta is infused in the saffron cream sauce, with little sweet morsels of sea urchin and salty beads of caviar. I would definitely eat this when I visit Senso again.
We also had the Rigatoni with Rabbit sauce ($32), which I didn't quite like because the sauce had this strong stew-like smell (the kind where after you cook your meat sauce you put it into the fridge uncovered and smell it the next day) which I don't like (But rest assured I'm quite sure the sauce is fresh).
The Sardinian Mussles Spaghetti ($28) was quite dissappointing. Apart from the tender mussels and shellfish, the spaghetti was overdone and and the noodles were very bland - There was none of the sweetness I expected from the shellfish.
The Cioccolata dessert ($16) was delightful - crispy outer chocolate layer with a molten lava chocolate centre, which went well with the clean tasting pistachio ice cream.
Overall, the dining experience came with equal hits and misses. Perhaps I will try the restaurant again in the future?
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Ice Cream Gallery has Teh Halia ice cream, milky and gingery, and with crystallised ginger bits. However, I thought that the tea taste could be slightly stronger as it tasted more like halia susu (ginger milk) then Teh Halia.
Brandied Cherry Ice Cream is generous on the alcohol - the cherries are plump with a strong alcoholic taste. Yum!
The Rum and Rasin Ice Cream is Ice Cream Gallery's hottest flavour - but sadly, it was sold out the night we went.
A scoop costs $3 for normal flavours, and $3.50 for alcoholic flavours.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
The Cold Crab was good, as far as cold crab standards, I personally don't think there's much of a difference between the restaurants I've tried...
Braised goose was good tastewise, but it was too dry for my liking.
Oyster Omelette was very good, with copious amounts of fresh oysters hidden inside a thin golden yellow omelette. The oysters were very fresh, and not sandy/grainy at all.
The restaurant recommended the Stir Fried Crayfish. I didn't like this dish because the whole thing was just covered in sauce and the crayfish would be unidentifiable if no one told me what it was.
We also had the Chye Poh Kway Teow, which, on any other occasion I would have liked, but the dishes came too slowly and I was feeling very full by the time it arrived.
Ohr nee was smooth and not too dry, and came with lots of pumpkin and ginko nuts. It was not too sugary despite having a layer of syrup and vegetable oil on top.
Other dishes tried were the steamed pomfret, stir fried sweet potato leaves, ngo hiang, mayonnaise prawn.
Cost: $32 per person. Not bad considering that we had a variety of dishes and a good size portion each.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Ice cream there comes in unique flavours such as Honey Lavander, Basil, Blood Orange, Jack Daniels etc. My fave is the Honey Lavander. But do go early since they tend to run out of ice cream quite quickly on weekends.
If you order the waffle with fruits and ice cream, be prepared to fork out at least $13.
Their cakes are prettily displayed and are rather expensive - prices start from $6. I prefer their waffles so I usually skip the cakes.
The seating area inside the restaurant is rather small - and it's very smokey outside. If you have a big group of people (>4) it'll be very squeezy inside.
Service on all 4 occations I've been there is very slow and inefficient. The food takes painfully long to come, and there is a huge pause between dishes.
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!regarding the last line, i guess it's the cannery signature service style.
07 Jun 2008 at 2:50 am
sadly I agree with you. But I don't think service will be as bad as the Laurent's Chocolate Factory at Mohamed Sultan Rd (wins hands down for bad service)
08 Jun 2008 at 4:42 am