WATAMI Singapore - Japanese Casual Restaurant

Saw an email flyer from my friend recommending this new Japanese restaurant in ION @ Orchard and so, we decided to check it out on the weekend.

I realised actually I have been to this similar restaurant couple of years back in Hong Kong, and it was just pretty average. During then I was still giving my affirmation statement that Singapore does better in Japanese cuisines.

Years later, I am back to the same restaurant, but just in a different country.

Sapporo Miso Ramen - Sapporo-style Noodles in Miso-based Soup.

The noodles were quite springy but I find that the soup base was too bland, didn't really have much miso taste.

This dish is actually very suitable for vegetarians because the whole entire bowl contains only raw veggies that were boiled in hot soup for less than 5mins and no char siew at all!

They mentioned this was the popular pick in the Restaurant, but I just found it pretty normal.

Salmon Sashimi - Sliced Raw Salmon.

How can I NOT order a plate of salmon sashimi, everytime I stepped into a Japanese restaurant. The fish was quite fresh here, but too thinly sliced.

Sushi Tei is still the best, so far.

Hotate Sashimi - Sliced Raw Scallop.

I was quite hesitant to try this in the first place, because the only raw sashimi I will eat will be the salmon.

But I am amazed how sweet and milky this scallop tastes! Doesn't have a fishy after taste and it almost melted in your mouth once you put em' in. Good!

Potato Mochi - Chewy Deep Fried Mashed Potato.

We ordered this dish out of curiosity and something new to try. Maybe they had been left outside for too long, the skin got quite thick and hard. Not as chewy as they described.

Hotate Butter Yaki - Hotplate Scallops with Butter.

Pretty nice combination with the butter, doesn't leave your mouth too greasy after eating and adding butter into the hotplate brings out the flavour of the dish.

I kinda like this dish, but my friend doesn't. So well, it really depends on each individual.

Ebi Tempura - Deep Fried Prawns Coated with Tempura Flour.

The tempura flour coated wasn't too thick, but the prawns are miserably small. Quite an average dish, which Sushi Tei definitely tasted better.

Mango & Ichigo Daifuku - Mango & Strawberry Rice Cake.

Thought of ordering something nice for dessert and we got cheated. There were red beans containing in the rice cake!! *pukez*

We hated red beans, yet gonna' stuff the whole mochi into our mouths because we have ordered it.

The picture shown in the menu was very misleading. *Sighz*

WATAMI Singapore - Japanese Casual Restaurant

ION Orchard #B3-23

2 Orchard Turn

Singapore 238801

Tel: 6509 9366

Operating Hours: 10am to 10pm

Website: http://www.watami.com.sg

Peach Blossoms Chinese Restaurant - Marina Mandarin

Came down on a weekday afternoon for a nice dim sum buffet brunch (a birthday treat) over at the Marina Mandarin. =)

I *heart* very traditional, cantonese restaurants for afternoon teas. *Grinz*

The Dragon-Phoenix Drum.

Ok, now comes the food.

鱼香鲜虾饺 (Har Gao/ Steamed Prawn Dumpling)

I find that it was just quite normal, prawns are fresh but not huge. Dumpling skin was a little dry and thick after awhile.

菜远云吞汤 (Dumplings Soup With Choy-Sum)
This, surprisingly was quite good!

The soup is very clear and flavourful (there's absolutely no MSG included), not oily and the dumpling left a nice, crunchy bite in your mouth.

The choy-sum is not too over-cooked / over-boiled as well. Well done.

银芽腐皮卷 (Deep Fried Beancurd Sheet Roll filled with Prawn Paste and Bean Sprout)

Ok, I hesitated for quite awhile before I decided to order something fried, its' usually not my cup of tea. But well, they only have about 20 choices over here, so might as well make our money worth it. =)

Apparently, the prawns are quite fresh. Very tasty and not so much of a greasy feeling. I wanted to order one more plate, but it was one day after my tattoo-ing was done. Didn't want to eat too many prawns, just in case infection happens.

金菇烟肉卷 (Deep-fried Bacon Roll with Prawn Paste and Enoki Mushroom)

Yucky and disgusting dish, sorry no comments.

川辣蒸风爪 (Steamed Chicken Feet in Szechuan Spicy Sauce)

This is part of my all-times favourite dish, but sadly to say, no wow factor at all.

鼓椒蒜香骨 (Steamed Spare Ribs in Black Bean Sauce with Minced Garlic and Red Chilli)

Meat is too fatty, no wow factor as well.

香菇蒸烧卖 (Siew-Mai / Steamed Pork Dumpling with Mushroom)

So tell me, where are the mushrooms?

香芒炸虾筒 (Deep-fried Crispy Mango Roll with Prawn Paste)

Quite flavourful, the small piece of mango fruit blended well with the prawn. Eventually, their deep fried items are way better than the steamed ones.

沙律明虾角 (Deep-fried Prawn Dumpling served with Mayonnaise Sauce)

皮蛋瘦肉粥 (Century Egg and Lean Meat Porridge)

They included a special ingredient which you don't see it quite often, salted egg yolk. Porridge was quite well done, not very watery and the flavour was just nice. No MSG included again. =)

碗仔金瓜糕 (Steamed Pumpkin Cake with Dried Shrimps and Dried Mushrooms)

Ok, no comments for this because I didn't eat it. And look at those photos, its' SUPER OILY! Goshh.

X.O 酱炒萝卜糕 (Fried Carrot Cake with Chinese Sausage in X.O Chilli Sauce)

Stupid me regretted ordering this when the waitress brought it over. We were already 80% full but we continued ordering the last dish, thinking that it might just be a small piece of fried carrot cake.

Never did we expect it came in a whole big plate!!

No further comments because I only ate a few bites.

Peach Blossoms
Marina Mandarin Singapore
6 Raffles Boulevard
Tel: 6845 1111

7atenine - Lunch Unlimited

Read up from many food blogs commenting how nice and surprising their menu was, we decided to try it out on the weekend. Over 20 surprising selections specially created by Chef Florent Geradin, you can never know what you will be eating next (the special menu changes everyday, so what you see here may be different from what you get).

It was quite a challenge for me since I'm not an adventurous person and I always prefer asian cuisine.

So now, I shall let the photos do the talking.

Tomato tart - cherry tomatoes on a not-so-crispy tart. I kinda like this dish because of the whole chunk of tomatoes which ain't too sourish. =)

This was actually the first dish, but I don't bother to re-organise it, haha. Avocado Cream Soup. Rich and creamy, but it tasted damn weird till we can't explain how it taste like.

Beef roll - raw beef on a hot stone. The beef slices were quite thick, but the stone was probably not hot enough. Not exactly to my liking because it was really too RAW.

Tuna Tartare - Raw tuna marinated with herbs. I didn't touch it at all, too raw again.

Orange squid salad - squid head on asian couscous with salsa. Quite fruity and refreshing, overall quite an average dish.

Shaved vegetable salad - asparagus, cucumber, baby radish in asian dressing. One of my favourite appetiser dish. The asian dressing tasted like sesame oil with oyster sauce, good!

Mussel tempura with foie gras & miso soup. I have never tried foie gras, but I can tell you I don't like it at all. =( Mussel tempura was quite bland too.

Pesto risotto. An extremely healthy dish? Hmm...bland.

Panfried seabass with marinated asparagus & lemon. My favourite main dish, refreshing and tasty. From the dishes comments so far, you can see that I am still an asian-tongue. *grinz*

Crispy pork terrine - deep-fried pork & veg cutlet. This dish was too oily and salty.

Scallop confit with chirozo fettucine. Too oily and the chirozo sausage was way toooo hard!! Very tedious to bite it into smaller pieces, don't even think about chewing them mann.

Lamb neck with leek carbonata. My friend felt that it was quite a nice dish, but I find the meat too dry and I can still taste the 羊骚味。Not very thoroughly done.
Angus beef with purple potatoes. Beef was too overly-cooked. Purple potatoes were too bland, if a tinge of salt was sprinkled onto the potatoes, it might tasted better.

Lemon curd tart. Very nice!! I don't mind going for a second helping, if I wasn't sick on that day. So wasted.

Very strong and tangy lemon taste, can be comparable to the Lemon Meringue from Double Bay. Good work, Chef Florent.

Strawberry gazpacho with basil ice cream and sago.

One word, weird.

Chocolate brownies with vanilla ice-cream. I was so sick then, so didn't try much of this dessert. But well, it looks pretty normal too. My friend, who hates vanilla ice-cream managed to finish it off. Apparently she said its' quite good.

So there you have it. Fifteen dishes that took up more than two hours. The presentation is stunning and faultless. They do vegetables and sauces beautifully. The meats for this session were a little hit and miss. The desserts are worth saving room for.

A shout-out to marvellous Chef Florent, being so kind and friendly coming out to chat with us and asking for our feedback, explaining how he understand that not all dishes suit everyone's taste and since it was rather surprisingly, you won't always get what you ate before.

Another applause to the wonderful manager, Katharina for being so patient and attentive to our needs each time she walked past. Always keeping that cheerful smile on her face and asking how was everything for us so far.

It is definitely fun to be keep in the suspense, and wondering what is coming next. Of course, with expectations there will be disappointment. We will definitely be back again to try out more other surprising dishes.

7ATENINE

8 Raffles Avenue

#01-10/12 Esplanade Mall Singapore 039802

Tel: 63380-789

Open daily Mondays to Thursdays: noon till 3pm, 5pm till midnight

Fridays: noon till 3pm, 5pm till 2am

Saturdays: noon till 2am

Sundays: noon till midnight

KL Trip - Grandpa Bak Ku Teh

Went KL with my XOXO colleagues on the weekend for a relaxing trip and Devina introduced us to this restaurant that specialises in Bak Ku Teh. She said its a MUST-TRY place.

Apparently it originated from Klang. A very traditional and famous Bak Ku Teh eating place.

We ordered a pot of 普洱茶 that requires washing the tea pot, cups and making the pot of tea in a very traditional manner (which I did it all by myself! hurray!). We all love the nice fragrance of the tea, just that its' a tad bit over-powering at the end.

Sumptuous dinner. We were all famished by then.

Their soup is not very peppery. Herbal taste was quite average as well. I would prefer my bak ku teh soup to be more peppery, lighter and more garlicky to eat with my rice.

The very oily and sourish 梅菜 that all of us don't really fancy about. It was left un-touched since then.

Nice and crunchy Dao Pok skin.

金针菇 is nice too! we lack of veggies in our meal, this definitely replaces it damn well.

Me & Devina had the 油饭。Initially I thought it should be some nice fragrance rice cooked with oil (just like what you ate from chicken rice), but it was quite disappointing. Sprinkled a few fried onions on a bowl of normal rice and you called it oily rice??

Lastly, the photo of the XOXO girls. hahahaha!!

ps: Sorry readers, I do not have the exact address of this place. However it is located at a corner of those shop-houses directly opposite Sunway Paramid and Eurphoria - club by MOS.