Volcano is sooooo good

Well Hidden is the 2nd floor corner at The Central, lies a volcano ... bursting out bowls and bowls of delicious hot ramen. This little ramen stall (yes, the seats are very limited.) is called Ramen Santouka. With the Jap (or chinese ....) writing on the signboard .. it directly translate into fire-head mountain. I shall call it Volcano Ramen (correct me if I am wrong).

It is a Jap restaurant franchise with shops all over Japan and even the states. This franchise is different from your usual franchise, the ramen taste great. Unlike some other franchise, which claims to be best ramen in Singapore ... but come on, I can easily find 10 stalls than serve much better ramen. You won't regret stepping into this stall and the time spent waiting for a seat.


I ordered a Char Siew Shoyu Ramen ($15) that comes with about 3 pieces of fat juicy pork meat served with rich and nicely brewed soup. The noodles was springy, just nice for ramen. The fat juicy pork meat was sinful, but the feeling of the fats melting (yes, it really melts in your mouth) throw away all my worries of putting more 'reserve' in my waistline.



Ahpui soh ordered a Charhan Shio set. ($15.50) It comes with a Ramen, Japanese Fried Rice and a nicely braised egg. This version is served with a piece of the same juicy pork char siew in a rich milky broth. This taste equally great, although the Fried Rice is not equally impressive. And you should try the braised egg, it is different from the usual braised egg you got from your Kway Chap store.

For this stall, I will give a Ahpui score of 8.5/10. The Char Siew Shoyu Ramen is a must try !


The location is at :
Ramen Santouka
The Central
#02-76
Tel : 62240668

Ah Pui Goes Cooking

Having always looking everywhere to satisfy my craving for good food, I decide to venture into a brand new frontier ... cooking class to learn how to cook myself. So that I won't have to pay through my nose to someone to cook for me, using ingreidents that only cost <>
Attended this 'French' cooking class at Raffles Culinary Academy 2 weeks ago, hoping to come out of the class to be able to cook up a meal worthy of a Michelin star.

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The 'classroom' actually is a state of the art kitchen, with working stations for us to test out our cooking skill. We are suppose to learn 3 dishes,

a) Homemade Truffle 'Brioche' with poached Foie Gras and Braised 'Granny Smith'.




Quite a mouthful, but to put it simple, it is just Foie Gras with 'chopped -Vinegar soaked green apple' and butter bread. Call me suaku, this is the first time I tried truffle sliced from the actual whole truffle itself. By itself, it does had much taste, but it do have a strong and nice fragrant. The Foie Gras is really soft and it melts in my mouth nicely.

b) Roasted Turbot with steamed Baby Bak Choy and Smoked Potato 'Vine Tomato Confit'



aka .. A very small piece of roasted fish (slice) with a piece of bak choy and some other veggie with potato.
This is the first time I heard and saw a Turbot. But I got to say that the texture of the fish is really good. I will sure to try this fish again when I got the chance. It was not too soft like Salmon, Grouper or Cod. It is a bit firmer, sort of like soft tender chicken. The balsamic and olive oil soaked roasted tomato is great. A bit of sweet and smell great with the balsamic and olive oil.

c) Vanilla "Panna Cotta", Raspberry and Hazelnut Ice Cream.

Who can say no to ice cream .... especially good soft ice cream.



Overall, the experience is good, although we don't get much hands-on except for the 2nd dish. So there goes my dream of coming out with a 1 Michelin Star dinner. As a typical 'French meal' the food are nice to see, nice to eat but expensive and can't really fill your stomach.

Spending hours to prepare the dishes. The Foie Gras need to clean and remove its vein, then preapre and poached it, spending at least 2 hrs on this. And for the 2nd dish, we will need to prepare each of the item (fish, tomato, potato, bak choy) seperately, another 2 - 3hrs gone. And end of the day, only a tiny portion goes to our plate .... I don't think French cooking is for me.

Food, Ah pui score of 8/10. Cooking .... 3/10 and unless you have plenty of time to spare.

Happy Lunar New Year !

Went over to Chinatown yesterday night after my dinner and man, it is really crowded.







A 'peek' to the stage.


Happy New Year to everyone !

Budget Terminal, Budget Design

Was passing by Changi Airport last Wed, and since I was there, I decide to drop by the new 'Budget Terminal' for a look to see how it is as I have not been there before.

When I reach there, man .. I was surprise for it's flashy lightning deco (or is it christmas deco ...?) It look like a 7th mth getai.


Well, I understand it is a budget terminal .. but .. first it is the cheapo name 'Budget Terminal', next the ulu location (yes, we need to travel through a stretch of poorly lit road to reach there), and then the '7th month getai' lighting ...how hard CAAS want to enforce the 'budget' feel of the terminal ?

I personally think this deco should stay in the 70s :

2am Dessert Bar - Deserted Dessert

After dinner, ahpuisoh happily suggested this 'cool' place for some after dinner dessert, to fill the last 1/4 'tank' of our stomach. So we went to 2am:DessertBar at Holland Village. Yep, as it's name implies, it open until 2am in the morning.



The place was nicely furnished, giving it a 'high class' feel. And as it's deco, the items in the menu were quite 'high-class' too. There were on a page for dessert, not much to choose from, a page for some light snacks, and then the rest are for drinks. The menu also recommend what wine to pair with the dessert you select. Nice touch. But not so nice when all the dessert cost at least $14.

We decide to order a 'Chocolate Tart' and 'Blackberry' ($14 each).
We were eagerly waiting for our dessert, and when it arrived, we were quite disappointed. Not because it does not taste good, but the portion of the dessert ... slightly deserted as compare to the big plate that it comes with.



The Blackberry consist of 4 mini scoop of blueberry ice-cream, a mini scoop of lychee sorbert, some chocolate and a few rose petals. Score high in presentation, and taste quite good too. But just not satisfying .... and after wiping everything from my plate, I still feel as if I had not eaten anything yet.



The Chocolate Tart comes with a chocolate pie that it fills with rich warm chocolate in the middle, and it pair with blood orange sorbet. Again nice presentation and taste good. The cold orange sorbet matches very well with the warm creamy chocolate. It was much better than the miserable 'Blackberry'.

I personally thinks that the dessert were slightly high priced, not really worth the money. Maybe good for people who don't mind spending, but surely not for me. I would give it a ahpui score of 7.5/10 for the dessert ( that is if I can have thrice the portion for the amount of money I pay). Overall, I would give is a 5.5/10 for this place. Not a place to satisfy one's sweet tooth craving but a nice place just to sit and relax.

2am:Dessert Bar
Lor Liput
Holland Village

Nice fish, but I won't be Hooked

The snow are falling, halls were deck with boughs of holly, trees were decorated with all sorts of tinkles and fireplace heated up to fill the surrounding with warm in another part of the world, but not here, not in this warm part of the world, where air-con is more prefer than fireplace.
I don't really celebrate christmas, especially not in such a warm weather. But today is still christmas eve, I don't want to have Chap Chai Peng as my dinner. So me and ahpuisoh decided to venture out to somewhere for dinner. And I decide to goto Railmall along Upper Bukit Timah road for dinner.

After walking around, we finally decide on going to this joint that sells fish-related food - Hooked.
The place was brightly lit and the staff there were quite friendly, definitely a plus. Most of the menu item include fish as on of the main ingredient, and there is quite a good selection.

After going through the menu, we decide to order Fish Pie ($5.50), Fish & Chips ($11.50) and Grilled Snapper ($15.50).


The Fish Pie was good, top coated with cheese, inside is filled with potato, and instead of usual meat for a shepherd pie, there was Salmon. The pie was nicely baked, the fish was not dry but moist, thanks for the fact that it was soaking with good omega oil all around. Recommended.



The fish&chips however is slightly disappointed. I can find better fish&chips in other places than this. Maybe my expectation was too high, by itself, it was quite decent and comes with nice thick fries (chips). The meat was moist, but the battered coat was not crispy enough.



The grilled snapper looks good and taste good. And I like the potato side that comes with it. The fish was nicely grilled, moist and when added with tomato sauce and lemon, perfect match. Can try.

We order a set meal together with the snapper, it comes with a cream of chicken soup and a coke. I recommend to forget about topping $3.60 for the set. The soup taste just like campbell and the coke was too blend (too much ice).

I would give a Ahpui score of 7/10 for this place, but as I said, if you are going for the fish&chips, for the price, there are other better places.

The location is at :
Hooked
The RailMall,
Upper Bukit Timah Road

Connected !

Finally, after all these months ... I am connected to the world.

No longer need to skive some time during working hours and now I am able to access sites that are consider 'undesirable' in my workplace. Arhm, this ... I mean sites related to games and youtube, don't think too far out ;p

Now what I need is time, time to surf .....