MOF の my izakaya

Here's a little japanese language lesson: the character の (pronounced like a forceful 'no') is what is known in English as a possessive adjective, or rather, it transforms the root word into a posessive adjective. Like watashi means Me, I etc and watashi(no) means My.

eg. Watashiwa Sheryl desu = I am Sheryl.

Watashino namae (name) wa Sheryl desu = My name is Sheryl.

(ignore the desu and wa, take it that they are punctuation)

Therefore, MOF の my izakaya really means MOF's 'my izakaya.' I'm not really sure whether this means that 'My Izakaya' refers to the restaurant and 'MOF' refers to the group (like Tung Lok group) etc. But that's the only way that makes sense to me. And if so, I guess we can expect MOF to come up with restaurants other than My Izakaya.

An Izakaya is a popular japanese drinking place that also serves food much like a bar that sells bar food in our context. So imagine my surprise when My Izakaya is branded as a cafe/restaurant in Singapore. It's supposed to be a watering hole!

Nonetheless, I am very pleased by My Izakaya. Their menu is admittedly limited but offers quite a few interesting dishes. And, the food served is actually quite good.

Mekajiki (swordfish) sashimi.

This was rather good; firm and fresh. However, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

This is the plum rice sushi. It is pretty darn fantastic, if I may say so. I like tamago a lot but I always think tamago sushi is quite 'bo-hua'. So I usually end up ordering unatama maki (unagi+tamago maki) hoping that it will be good. But it never is. Somehow the combi just does not work for me. And it is difficult to find a tamago that is really spectacular and which hits that oomph spot. Yes, the humble tamago is easy to make but it is not easy to perfect it. I think it says a lot about a chef if he pays attention to this simple dish.

The tamago is in, Shally's words, "eggy like eggo pancakes" (though Shally didn't even try it and Sharon doesn't think that eggo pancakes taste eggy. Sheryl doesn't know what to say.)

But in all honesty, the tamago was quite good. It was very sweet and the firmness was just right, just that it lacked a bit of the eggy oomph.

The main thing about this plum rice tamago is not the tamago but the plum rice. Sharon really liked this because the plum rice is not too sour and is super fragrant. Without even putting it in my mouth, I could already smell the plum fragrance. I kept putting it at my nose and sniffing it. A bit unglam. It was an interesting dish; I think the plum kinda whetted our appetites for more food to come. You know, 'kai wei', which literally means 'to open stomachs'.

I love this dish. This is the salmon mango sushi. I expect Hong Kongers especially to love this. Everything in HK is mango-inspired. EVERYTHING. They put it into every plausible dish. They have mango desserts that are super mango-ey. Like mango pudding with mango bits topped with mango syrup and mango sago. These Hong Kongers are crazy over this fruit.

So anyway, I liked this a lot. I thought that the mango made a normally dull dish very refreshing. I liked the sudden burst of sweetness the mango provided as I put it in my mouth. In particular, the sauce that they drizzled over the sushi was delectable. Sharon reckons that it's a mango-mayo sauce. I have no idea but it went with the sushi and that's all that mattered. The sauce, the mango and the muted salmon flavour.. Very nice.

It is definitely not your traditional sushi and I think purists would probably balk at this but I thought this was very unique. I know that Sushi-Tei has a mango-inspired sushi too but I've never tried it so I can't compare. But I do like the version here. Sweet squishy mango with salmon. MMmmm.

What I did not like though, was how much rice there was. I felt that the proportion of rice to salmon/mango was too great and that took away from that wondrous flavour a little.


We ordered a seafood toji set. The seafood toji was forgettable. The gravy was ok, the prawns were fresh, the scallops overdone. It was aight but nothing to shout about. You can get such standards anywhere.
Our seafood toji set came with chicken katsu. It was nicely fried and you can see the salt/pepper seasoning on the chicken. The chicken was very soft too. Other than that, I think I'll pass on this the next time I come here. I have a feeling their mains are not as good as their side dishes.

We had a imo dessert. It came with a card, this is what it said. "The imo series is a marriage between hot and cold desserts. While sweet potato is hot the Hokkaido milk base soft serve ice cream is icy cold. The best way to eat our japanese sweet potato series is to spoon a bit of everything and then eat them together. MOF uses premium Grade A Jap sweet potatoes imported from Japan. It is so sweet we do not add in sugar to it!"

It was goooood. The imo set we ordered came with the soft serve ice-cream, red bean paste, deep fried sweet potato and deep fried yam. It was so good. The ice-cream was reminiscent of McDonald's cone ice-cream. In fact, the one at McDonald's was stronger-tasting; sweeter with more vanilla kick. I quite liked the red bean but Sharon thought it tasted like chinese red bean soup and not japanese an pan. We liked the yam and the sweet potato A LOT but (despite the shortcomings of the red bean paste and the ice-cream) I'm sure it was the combination of everything that created that magic and left us spell-bound.
The sweet potato was mashed but not too finely, so that you can still savour the odd lumps of sweet potato. And the sweet potato was really sweet and full-bodied. It's one of the better Japanese sweet potatoes I have had. It's fried to a nice crisp golden and the crispness and the half-mashed/half-lump creation was quite a marvellous marriage. It was also pretty to look at, like a golden pillow.

The yam is outstanding. It had a very strong yam taste to it. Normal yam desserts out there are quite bland and dull, with merely a whiff of the yam taste. This was not one such dessert. The yam taste was very 'full-on' and potent. It wasn't very sweet, I don't think they added sugar or anything to it, it was just very yam-mish! It did not taste like orh-nee because it was unadulterated by sugar/coconut milk or anything. Just straight up pure yam. It wasn't very smooth and had the same lumpy consistency that made it all the more authentic. Very hard to come by indeed.

The yam is not the "star dish", the sweet potato is supposed to be the selling point. But the yam stole the limelight from the sweet potato in our opinions. This is because good yam stuff are just so hard to come by. And this yam flavour really shone through, even when we ate it with the ice-cream and red bean sauce and all that. The batter was somehow "chewier" according to Sharon.

We liked this dessert so much we ordered it again, this time with black sesame. (No photo) It was even better. The black sesame was very authentic and very pang. We liked this imo series so much we were craving it the next day.

MOF の My Izakaya

Marina Square (Cafe & Restaurant)

6 Raffles Boulevard

#02-128E Center Stage

S(039594)

tonkichi

We heard that Tonkichi has better katsu-don than tampopo and have been wanting to check this place out. I've always wondered which place could have better katsu-don than Tampopo?!

Trivia: Tonkichi means 'lucky pig' although I wonder what's so lucky about a pig that gets savagely murdered and devoured.

First up, my sliced pork with rice set. I really liked this one. It tasted like teppanyaki, especially with the fried beansprouts and all. The pork was very well-done and the seasoning was flawless. It was so flavourful and so full-bodied.

There was a lot of that wondrous savoury gravy, enough gravy to envelop each grain of rice entirely. The rice, however, was a little soggy. Also, I got a bit bored of the taste after a while. It was spectacular at first bite, but I soon grew weary of it. That did not stop me from polishing off the entire set though.

This is what we came for, the hire katsu-don. I do not think it is better than tampopo. Not at all. The katsu-don at tampopo is so good, the egg is so well-done, it is as if it melts into the rice, amalgamating into perfect unity and symbiosis. The rice is infused with the katsudon sauce. That is the perfect katsu-don man.

The rice here was nothing like that. The egg was overdone and the amount given was meagre. The katsudon sauce was also lacklustre and insufficient. It tasted more like katsu + don than proper katsudon. (Of course, I'm comparing it to Tampopo which has excellent katsudon)

One thing for sure though, their katsu kicks ass. This is one of the best katsu I have had. It is so crispy and yet so light. It doesn't taste cloying or oily at all. It is the elite of elite of katsu. When you bite into it, the bread crumbs literally sputter and crackle. You can feel the breadcrumbs giving way helplessly to the pressure of your teeth and then sprinkling mercilessly into your mouth. I am not kidding.

What amazes me is how NOT oily it tastes. The meat is so lean and yet so tender. Look at how lean it is! It looks a bit dry, I know, but trust me, it is very very good.

The texture is unbelievable. It is so crispy but not the least bit cloying, not at all. A superb katsu. It also helped that they were crazy-generous with the amount of meat they gave. Sharon almost couldn't finish it.

The next time I'm here, I will definitely have the katsu.

Tonkichi

Isetan Scotts,

4th Level

350 Orchard Road

Shaw House

Singapore 238868

tatsuya

We were supposed to go to Wasabi-Tei but changed our minds and decided to try out Tatsuya which had raving reviews. We ordered a bento set, a gindara, and sake (salmon) sashimi.
The bento is not supposed to come with california roll, but we decided not to have the unajyu and opted to change it to a california roll instead.

The california roll was not bad. Normal japanese rice taste of vinegar but is not very sweet. Somehow the rice here is very sweet. I'm not sure how they cooked the rice, but you know how when you chew on rice for a considerable period of time they start to digest and start tasting sweet? That's how it tasted, coupled with the vinegared taste of course. It probably sounds disgusting, but it is really quite good. The sweetness instantly erupts when you put it in your mouth and lingers long after you have swallowed.

Sharon thinks it is one of the best california rolls she has eaten. I don't think it is that good, but it is quite good, frankly. The avocado was very creamy, the tobiko burst into frenzied raptures when bitten into, the rice was an immaculate balance of acetous and sweet. It was definitely pleasurable. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say it is the most outstanding one I have tried. I'm certainly not about to run down the roads proclaiming Tatsuya as the King of california rolls.

The chawanmushi is very unique indeed. It is very soft, very smooth, very eggy and very tart. Yes you read right, tart! There is a distinct yuzu taste to it. That added an interesting dimension to a very traditional dish. I quite liked it. I thought it was refreshing and well, nippy.

However, this chawanmushi had no other ingredients added whatsoever so I got a bit bored of the taste. The yuzu was unable to sustain my interest for very long. As much as Sharon likes yuzu, she thought that this was a corruption of chawanmushi and did not like this at all.

Their tuna looked amazing. So thick and succulent. However, we did not like this. It was limp and very fishy. Then again, we're not big fans of maguro anyway. Somehow, we like tuna belly but not tuna sashimi. To me, it has a very metallic taste about it and I don't like it. So maybe maguro-fans will like this?

I thought the Salmon Sashimi was not bad. It was fresh and firm to the bite. However, compared to Akashi? It's a long long long way off. I don't know why, but Akashi's Salmon sashimi is simply out of this world. It's in a whole different league of its own. Akashi's other stuff are not that great but their salmon sashimi is darn freaking good. I have never had anything like that before.

Ok, I digress, back to Tatsuya. Their salmon sashimi was good, but it was not THAT good. It was definitely better than what you would get from sushi-tei, but I don't think the discrepancy is that great to command that wide a price gap.

Tai (sea bream/red snapper) sashimi. I did not like this. I thought it was limp (and not just cos it was sliced so thinly) and not very fresh.

Mekajiki (Swordfish) Sashimi. Sharon liked it, she thought it was very good and comparable to Akashi (though Akashi is better). In her own words "u know how when u eat swordfish, coz its a firmer fish, wen u bite into it.. there's a slight crunch to it? and lk the 'juice' comes out from the meat? this was lk that... just that akashi's is better"

The cod was flavourful. The seasoning was quite marvellous. Sharon found it too salty for her liking, which I found odd, cos I'm usually the one more sensitive to extremely salty food. Towards the end, her tastebuds could no longer handle the excessive sodium and she could only eat two slivers of it.

The gindara was overcooked and much too tough. Fish is always difficult to cook. A minute less and it is slimy, a minute more and it's too tough. But this fish was obviously wayyy overdone. The charred skin was great, I loved the smoky taste, but the texture was verging on rubbery. This does not make me a happy girl.

All in all, Tatsuya was a complete disappointment. I think I would have enjoyed myself a lot better eating at Sushi-Tei for half the price. I can't believe we chose Tatsuya over Wasabi-Tei. Why why why?!

Tatsuya Japanese Restaurant

270 Orchard Road

#01-05

Park Hotel Orchard

kimchi goes to japan

About two weeks ago, Sharon and I were standing in front of Sushi Tei Holland Village, looking at their new menu. Apparently, they have included some healthier alternatives including beancurd, bittergourd and kimchi inspired dishes.

Fast forward a week, we found ourselves in Thomson Plaza, trying out this new menu. Mind you, it was with trepidation that we decided to give Sushi Tei Thomson Plaza another try; experience has told us that this outlet is not very good at all. Normally, I wouldn't order fried rice, but that time, we ordered the kimchi fried rice and the kimchi hotpot. Boy am I glad we ordered the fried rice. It was shioookk.

From the very first bite, I was awe-struck. It had a very distinct wok hei, the kind that you can only find in tze-char places. The kimchi and the japanese rice went very well together, it was a delightful blend of spicy, sweet and savoury. And of course that heaven-sent wok hei. We really really liked it. Although come to think of it, its really just tze-char right?

So anyway, we liked it so much we decided to go back the next day. This time to the Taka outlet.

As usual, we had our quintessential salmon sashimi which was aight, nothing to shout about. (Nothing compares to Akashi's salmon sashimi.)

We also had the aburi salmon belly. Which is always good. Fatty oily fish with rice. :) Although I have to admit that you can get better elsewhere, at a premium of course.

We had this deep-fried octopus dish, which was really a surprise find. It was on the conveyor belt and we decided to try it for fun. It tasted like calamari to me actually, and frankly, its hard to go wrong with deep-fried food right?

Soft-shell crab maki. Again, you can't go very off with deep fried food. Especially since I have a weakness for soft-shell crab. That said, not the best I have had again. It was aight, no biggie.

Now, the highly anticipated fried rice. After the hype of the previous day, we were really looking forward to this dish. Unfortunately, this was a far far far cry from the one we had at Thomson Plaza. It did not have that wok hei. It was a lot less oily. (You could see the oil glistening in the bowl after our meal at Thomson Plaza. Not here.) And the chef was a bit heavy handed on the garlic.

My guess is that the Sushi Tei outlet at Thomson Plaza is a lot "rougher" than the one at Taka. Which is normally frowned upon, since Japanese food is usually so delicate with an emphasis on exquisite skill and fresh fine ingredients. Fried rice, especially tze-char styled fried rice, on the other hand is a lot more robust with strong flavours etc. So is Korean food.

It naturally follows then, that a more cavalier culinary showing would be more appropriate than dainty handling. And if we are right in that the chefs at Thomson Plaza cater more to the average robust Singapore palate then naturally, they would be better at preparing kimchi fried rice than those at Taka.

As you can tell, it has actually really little kimchi. Maybe we really are just paying jacked-up prices for yangzhou fried rice with a morsel of kimchi.

I would not want to try the tofu and bittergourd dishes. They seem like such an utter waste of money. Especially the "century egg tofu". I don't get it. We tried the hotpot the day before so we decided to try the kimchi with pork this time. Sharon thought it would be good since she likes the Korean version.

I don't know if the Thomson Plaza would have delivered a better version, but the one we had was blah. We were not impressed.

The one dish that did get us talking, however, was the gindara. Now, we have had the gindara multiple times at Sushi Tei and enjoyed it thoroughly each time. Especially if we were at Raffles City. And that night, the gindara stole the limelight.

Not for a good reason.

It was overcooked and rubbery. It had a nasty aftertaste. I mean, I didn't think it was that bad, I think an undiscerning eater would have eaten it. But it was definitely off. Sharon, on the other hand, was greatly displeased. In her own words, she calls it the "pui cod".

Naturally, she complained to the manager who did not find anything wrong with the cod but who also waived the cost. Great service, I have to say.

Not just because they waived the cost of the gindara, but because they also threw in not one but TWO desserts for free. Ahh, the power of complaints..

The first dessert we had was this wafer in the shape of a fish enveloping vanilla ice-cream (not photographed). It brought back fond nostalgic memories of the ice-cream man in Primary School who sold ice-cream for 50c. You know, cool thick slaps of raspberry ice-cream sandwiched by cheapo wafer slices? Yea, good times honey.

The second one was similar. Wafer biscuits positioned to resemble a clam with yuzu sorbet in its clasp with mochi and red-bean encircling the sorbet, much like a chain of maidservants around the princess pearl ;)

t

The yuzu sorbet was refreshingly tart and light. It was not sour at all, it had an invigorating zest to it and did not have the squeamish saccharine-infusion that desserts are wont to have.

I like desserts like that, but that's just a personal choice. I know many people who adore that sugared taste in their desserts that I find so cloying.

Sushi Tei

391 Orchard Road

#02-13

Ngee Ann City

Singapore 238873