With so many restaurants lined along the two sides of Lorong Mambong, it’s easy to miss out Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ restaurant if you are new to Holland Village. How many times have I walked past it when I was in the area? Plenty.

I can’t believe that it took me until now to try the Japanese restaurant, but boy am I glad that I finally went there for dinner recently. Gyu Kaku means bull horn in Japanese, but to me, it translates to meat heaven.

Besides Holland Village, the Yakiniku restaurant also has other two branches at Chijmes and UE Square. There’s really nothing better than the sizzling sound of wagyu beef over the red-hot charcoal grill.

The manager suggested the Fuku Set ($179/2pax, $249/3pax, $309/4pax) which comes with assorted kimchee, aburi bacon, choice of salad, assorted mushroom, wagyu fillet steak, wagyu karubi, wagyu rump cap, kurobuta pork collar, duck breast, gindara miso foil grill, ishiyaki mentaiko and a choice of dessert. There is also the Warai set ($149/2pax, $209/3pax, $269/4pax) which is slightly more affordable and comes with choices like lamb chop, wagyu tongue, and wagyu nakaochi.

This is the Horenso Salad at Gyu-Kaku restaurant, which is essentially a Japanese style Spinach salad topped with bacon and creamy sesame dressing. If it was up to me, I’d call this the awesome-Japanese-salad.

After finishing the fantastic salad, we continued with the assorted kimchee, aburi bacon and the Japanese stone grill rice. I wasn’t really paying attention to them, though. I was distracted by the huge plate of wagyu-goodness on the table…

I ate a slice of beef. Two. Three. And then half the plate was gone. It was impossible to slow down. They were so good. Oh my god. A piece of Wagyu fillet steak, a bite of wagyu karubi, a mouthful of wagyu rump cap – I can die without regrets now.

Halfway through the meal, we shifted our focus to the kurobuta pork collar, duck breast and gindara. The grilled cod was not bad, but I felt that it was a distraction from the beef. Who needs cod when you can have wagyu beef? The same goes for kurobuta pork collar and duck breast. Still, everything was gone in a flash. More meat please!

The servings of the Fuku set should be enough for most people, but my brother is a big meat eater, so we ordered more food from the ala carte menu.

If I had eaten the Wagyu Brisket ($13.9/small, $19.9/large) first, it might have tasted fantastic, but there was no turning back after we had the wagyu fillet steak and rump cap.

Even though we already had a lot of meat, it was impossible to resist the 200g Wagyu ribeye steak ($89.9). Our bellies were bursting when we were done with the steak. This is the reason why I can never be a vegetarian.

I was quite amazed that we didn’t smell like BBQ after finishing dinner. The air ventilation of the restaurant was very good; the fumes from the BBQ were ventilated efficiently through the vents. It was also great that the staff came along often to change the grill plate.

Gyu Kaku Japanese BBQ restaurant is not cheap. But it serves good quality meat, and I like the fact that you won’t smell like BBQ after a meal. I will definitely come back when I am craving for wagyu beef.

Singapore Food Blog Review
Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant
29 Lorong Mambong
Holland Village
Tel: +65 6466 4001

30 Victoria Street
#01-01/03 Chijmes
Tel: +65 6333 4001

81 Clemenceau Avenue
#01-18/19 UE Square
Tel: +65 6733 4001

Note: This was an invited media tasting.

For more recommendations, please read my list of Japanese Restaurants in Singapore

A couple of weeks ago, the kind folks at Hungrygowhere invited me to join them for a food tasting session, and when I heard that they were going to Summer Palace at The Regent Singapore — I agreed immediately.

Among The Regent Hotel Restaurants, I have always wanted to try the Afternoon high tea at the Tea lounge, Basilico Italian Restaurant, and of course the Cantonese food at Summer Palace Chinese restaurant.

After a quick glance at the menu, we were very excited as there’s a long list of food waiting for us. The Media Degustation menu started us with the Dim Sum platter which included a Baked Chicken Tart with Baby Abalone ($9 per piece), Shrimp dumpling with Bird’s Nest ($8 for 3 pieces), Deep-Fried Yam with Garoupa ($5 for 3 pieces).

Baby abalone and bird’s nest with dim sum? Oh boy, it’s so extravagant!

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I felt that the baby abalone was rather out of place alongside the baked chicken tart. The savory-savory combination didn’t really work for me, but I like the shrimp dumpling with Bird’s nest. A morsel of the delicate bird’s nest was placed nicely on top the open-shrimp-dumpling, while I couldn’t really taste the fineness of the Chinese delicacy – it’s kind of nice to know that we just had something supposedly good. On the other hand, the Deep-fried yam with garoupa really opened up my mind. While I had Steamed grouper dumpling before, it was my first time having deep-fried yam with garoupa, and to be honest, I’ve never imagined that garoupa could actually be used as the ingredient for deep-fried yam balls.

The Braised Superior Bird’s Nest with Lobster and Gold Leaf at $88 per serving was expensive, but it was really worth every cent. I don’t know about you, but gold foil never fails to portray the luxurious feel to me. We could taste every strand of the bird’s nest with the chunky lobster meat, and together with the (literally) superior stock – this was the highlight of our dinner.

It was a shame that the Wok-fried Wagyu Beef ($68) was prepared in huge blocks. It’d definitely be a lot better if the premium beef was sliced thinner to showcase the marbling of the meat.

I was confused when the waitress read out the name of the dishes at machine-gun-like speed. Hold on a second, which is the scallop and spare ribs? Both of them looked rather similar to me! You know, deep fried food always appear to be the same.

Okay, so there’s the Crispy Scallop with fresh pear ($36 for the normal portion), and the Deep-Fried Spare Ribs with Shrimp Paste ($22 for normal portion). In case you are wondering, we only had a tasting portion of both dishes. By then, we realized that the Chef likes to play with many different contrasting flavor combined into one dish, and the Crispy scallop with fresh pear was the prime example of that. Broken down into three different components, there was ham on top of the meaty scallop with the pear and there was a surprise layer of powdered dried shrimp enveloped between the two.

On paper, the Deep fried spare ribs was like what the name suggested – something shrimp paste. But it was slightly more than that. The Deep fried spare ribs were coated with a layer of shrimp paste, giving it the luscious and fragrance texture. Inside, it was rewarding with the meat being juicy and so succulent.

I used to have crocodile meat when I was a kid, as it can cure asthma. Even thought Summer Palace’s rendition was wok-fried, the finely sliced crocodile meat tasted somewhat more like shabu-shabu. Have you tried crocodile meat before? Go to Summer Palace restaurant for their Wok-fried crocodile meat with spicy sauce ($40).

All of us thoroughly enjoyed the Eight Treasures Fried Rice ($26) that had ingredients like scallop, roasted duck, char siew, olives, brown rice, and dried shrimp.

I know It’s kind of early to have moon-cakes in July when the actual Mid Autumn festival is in September, but the folks at The Regent Hotel gave us a sneak preview of their new moon-cakes for this year. If you are keen to sample some of the mooncakes, they will be available at The Regent Singapore from the 25th August to 22th September.

It was quite hilarious that a few of us actually arranged a date during the dinner, to come back and try their dim sum offerings. We went back for the dim sum last week, most of them was pretty good, but unfortunately my camera was sent for repair and I didn’t manage to get any photos. If you had tried their dim sum before, check out my list of Dim Sum Restaurants in Singapore for other options.

Restaurant Review
Summer Palace Chinese Restaurant
1 Cuscaden Road 3F
The Regent Singapore
Tel: +65 6725 3288

Like what I’ve mentioned in my previous blog post on the list of Japanese restaurants in Singapore, my friends have been craving for Japanese food recently.

For Japanese food lovers, there’s this unsatisfiable crave for Japanese food. More sushi, more sashimi, more sushi, more sashimi! You can never have too much Japanese food. I would know, since we went to three Japanese restaurants within a week.

The Central at Eu Tong Seng street, Clark Quay has always been known as a Japanese food heaven. It houses many Japanese restaurants like Ma Maison, Marutama, Waraku Japanese restaurant, and Watami. Our dinner that night was at Sun with Moon, a Japanese restaurant at The Central by the Singapore River.

Sushi is so photogenic! I love how my picture for the Avocado Soft Shell Roll ($12.8) turned out. That aside, it was subtle, and sweet and when I swallowed it down – gulp – it’s gone! Six sushi are never enough.

Tonkatsu Tamago Toji ($12.80)

Wagyu Steak ($45.80 for 120g)

Tempura Zaru Soba ($13.80)

California Roll ($11.80)

Sun with Moon is at the prime location facing the Singapore River, and most importantly, it’s not together with the other restaurants inside the clustered Central Mall. With the breeze from the river, the al fresco dining area is ideal for a romantic dinner for two at night. Food presentation was sublime and the sight of the food made our mouth water.

Having been to both Sun with Moon (Central @ Clarke Quay & Wheelock) and its sister restaurant Japanese Dining Sun at Chijmes, I have to agree that all three restaurants have very contemporary and chic decorations. Unfortunately, Sun with Moon did not really meet our expectations to make the cut for my recommended Japanese restaurants in Singapore. The food was actually not too bad but there was just something missing. It’s not you, it’s me. Given that there are so many Japanese restaurants in Singapore offering good Japanese food at a similar or lower price, I probably wouldn’t return to Sun with Moon in the near future.

How much are you willing to pay for a Japanese dinner?

Restaurant Review
Sun with Moon
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#01-70/71/72 The Central @ Clarke Quay
Tel: +65 6534 7784

I love a good restaurant. But if there’s one thing I like even more, it’s having good company for dinner together. Dining in a fine-dining restaurant is very nice, but it really depends on the people around you to make it even better. Sometimes we get lucky, it’s an extra bonus when we are dining with nice people, and it happens to be a very romantic restaurant.

Many people always ask me to recommend a romantic restaurant in Singapore, I’d like to tell them: so long you are with your other half, everywhere is romantic. But I can’t possibly do that can I? You want to know a romantic place for your first date, a romantic restaurant for birthday parties, a romantic restaurant for that special occasion, and like today, a romantic restaurant for Valentine’s day; it’s all about the ambiance.

I’m very pleased to ‘stumble upon’ Boathouse, a newly opened Modern European restaurant at Fullerton Water Boat House. Chic decorations that exudes a laid-back and homely feel, gorgeous view that overlooks the Marina Bay area, elegant and simple furniture, oh I love this place.

Fish Chowder Sea Bass Carpaccio ($15)

I had Wagyu beef on a couple of occasions before, but this was the first time that I actually had a Wagyu Beef Ribs. The first bite? It tasted just like pork ribs. The second bite? It’s definitely a lot better than the normal pork ribs. It’s a superior version, no it’s  wrong to even compared it with pork ribs. My dear, you are looking at the Wagyu Beef Ribs with Aged Red Wine Jus ($33).

The meat was so tender that it falls off the bone and melts in your mouth splendidly. Placed together in a plate, the wagyu beef ribs absorbed the aged red wine jus, and in turn the latter captured the essence from the long braising process. How good was it? Catherine wiped the plate clean with bread.

Ju had the Atlantic Pink Snapper ($25) instead of the Wagyu beef ribs. She mentioned that the fish was fabulously fresh, firm, sweet, and didn’t want to share it with us. An excuse to return? I’d think so!

I seems to be having a lot of pasta recently. Boy I’m glad all of them were good quality ones, and the Tagliatelle Wild Mushroom in Truffle Sauce (S$19) was no exception. Every slurp of the tagliatelle was intense, and so flavorful. Some might find it to be too salty and overpowering, but I thought that it was pretty well done.

The Caramel Apple tartlets ($15) were small. Fine, they were tiny. Initially the restaurant told us it was tasting portions, but after confirmation from a few friends who went there for dinner, they were still serve the mini apple tartlets for the full price.

Fifteen bucks for three mini tartlets and ice cream? I wouldn’t pay for this, and neither should you. Please do not order the apple tartlets until the restaurant made changes to it.

The mind is a funny thing. It always play tricks on you, and subconsciously conjured images of things that you wouldn’t want other people to see. Halfway through the meal, my mind decided to play a game with me. Like as though there was a remote control, it pressed the ‘play’ button, and memories of a very good semifreddo that I’ve before started to flash.

Reason #1 why the pastry chef here does not have a sweet tooth.

With the sourish fruit compote to compliment the White Chocolate Semifreddo ($15), it gave the impression of an anti-sweet establishment. Desserts, are after all, meant to be sweet. I tried the semifreddo on it’s own, and it was so good. In order to see the reasoning behind the inclusion of the fruit compote, I reluctantly had a taste of the semifreddo with the tart berries – well it wasn’t so bad, but I’d obviously prefer dessert to be sweet.

In my opinion, a good Panna cotta must have a firm yet wobbly-like texture. This one here was fairly competent, but under the limelight of the excellent semifreddo and creme brulee, the Panna Cotta did not make a statement.

Reason #2 why the pastry chef here does not have a sweet tooth.

The presence of the licorice reduction, with the Creme Brulee. I was told that the evil licorice was planning on taking over the dessert world, in a test-tube-like container.  Okay I exaggerated. You know, the guys (& some girls) who raise their eyebrow at the slightest mention of desserts? The licorice reduction would be perfect for them since it literally reduced the sweetness level, making me wondered why anyone would do that.

Oh well, that aside, I enjoyed the creme brulee very much.

Torched to a magnificent golden-brown, the underlying custard was naturally sweet. The contrasting layer of the cranky caramelized sugar with the beautiful custard: I’m in love with the creme brulee.

My middle name is dessert: apple tart with ice cream, creme brulee, panna cotta, and white chocolate semifreddo.

* * *

This is the second part of a series that I’m doing on the waterfront restaurants in One Fullerton. I’ll like to thank Fullerton Heritage, Sophia and Kannan of Boathouse for arranging and hosting this dinner.

BoatHouse is definitely one of my favorite restaurant now, and I will not be surprised if they are one of the best new restaurants in 2010. There’s a separate rooftop bar on the third floor called Prelude. Stunning, stunning place with an awesome view of the Esplanade and Marina Bay.

Prices range from $20s for pasta to $30s for a main course. For the superb location and wonderful ambiance, Boathouse is offering a very value set lunch; the 2 course set lunch is $22++, while I’d go for their 3 course set lunch at $29++. Most of the items on their set lunches are from the main ala carte menu which make it extremely tempting.

See you at the Boathouse Fullerton.

Restaurant Review
BoatHouse
#03-01 The Fullerton Waterboat House
3 Fullerton Road
Singapore 029415
Tel: +65 6538 9038

Boathouse is listed as one of ladyironchef’s favorite restaurants in Singapore.

The best of everything. The sashimi platter ($120) was the highlight of our meal and we started with a bang; there’s tuna, pink prawns, hirame, uni (sea urchin). Every slice was so fresh, I could see the glitter in my dining companions eyes. While I’m not a big fan of “raw fish”, it’s definitely a feast for the eyes and treat for the palate to have it prepared so exquisitely.

The Sakura set dinner ($58 per set) which included appetiser of assorted braised vegetables Japanese style, spicy dynamic oyster, sushi roll. For sashimi there’s tuna, salmon and oyster, and this was followed by a steamed dish of chawanmushi, with a deep fried tofu from the land behind. The two mains would be grilled chicken and wagyu beef burger, if that’s not enough, there’s hot udon served with kakiage. And finally rounding off the meal with a chef’s special dessert.

The four of us ordered two sets to share because there was so much else to order from the ala carte menu!

Fortunately, the assortment of sashimi from the set menu came early, and an innocent question “more sashimi?” led to the fantastic sashimi platter you saw on the first photo.

I love eggs, all kinds of them; fried, half boiled, scrambled, sunny side-up, poached ones, anything – except steamed eggs. There are bits of chicken, crab stick, boiled prawns, ginko nuts, and shitake mushroom within the Chawanmushi.

The deep fried tofu and cheese wrapped with soy bean skin is up next, at first sight the sticky cheese looked promising, but upon tasting there wasn’t much wow – the cheese’s not enough and the whole taste was subtle, bordering on bland.

Our first main course of the menu came piping hot, the grilled chicken was served on a hot stone which was specially brought back from Mount Fuji, to ensure the meat retained its optimum temperature – while we took photographs!

Umami’s rendition of wagyu beef burger came in the form of two “meatballs”, while there was nothing spectacular of its appearance, the meat was sure tasty!

Hot udon served with kakiage was the last item on the Sakura menu before dessert. The tasting portion of the menu covered a variety and was decent, there’s two other set dinners at $88 and $128.

And now it’s where the real dinner starts, our selections from the ala carte menu.

A simple deep fried dried cuttlefish ($8) brought us back to the appetiser stage, and prepared us for all the food coming.

I enjoyed the Grilled cod wrapped with lettuce ($16) tremendously. The fish was lightly grilled on the outside and tasted good on its own. But it’s when we wrapped it within the lettuce, Korean-style, and the crunchiness of the lettuce supplemented and enhanced the freshness of the cod.

Clearly, the spicy dynamic oyster ($16 for 3) was everyone’s favourite. Befitting of its name, it had us on first bite in the Sakura menu and we ordered again. The tangy sauce was oh my god, so good! We slurped down the delicious oyster, and did not waste a single drop of the sauce. The best oysters in Singapore, and no, it’s not raw.

The comprehensive sushi menu made it difficult for us to choose from, but in the end for the love of salmon, we went for the Avocado salmon roll ($12). An elongated plate with eight pieces of makis, was indeed value for money.

A whole chunk of it, right in front of our eyes. The scared foie gras ($33), grilled with teriyaki sauce. Oh-oh-oh! Lightly grilled on the outside yet retaining a soft pink within, I swallowed it down – gulped, and wish that time stood still at that moment.

We were all excited by the Japanese beef – Umami served top grade wagyu! A sizzling sound signal the arrival of something magnificent, the marbling was so rich & dense that the meat literally melted in our mouth. I looked around and tried to speak, but no words came; I just allowed myself to quietly finish the meat, and inside I was secretly hoping there was more of this. It’s like totally God’s gift to mankind. Our jaws dropped when we heard that it’s a current promotional price of just $38 instead of the usual $60.

My previous encounter with Kurobuta pork was enough to tell me it’s good stuff, so when we browsed through the “from the land” menu, I immediately ordered the Braised kurobuta pork belly ($12).

“Eeekk!” The girls exclaimed when it was served. The fatty layers were enough to scare off the others, but not me. One bite of the braised pork belly, and one sip of beer, what more can you ask for?

The Rolled omelette with truffle oil ($8 for 5 pieces) was also one of Umami’s signature dishes. You like Japanese omelette? You will like this.

Like what the manager Nigel had mentioned, although the US Black Angus beef ($38) is great, but it’s not in the same league as the Japanese wagyu; the former is like human while the latter is god. The Angus tasted ordinary considering we had gone to heaven with the wagyu – the marbling was just not the same. But it’s not that the Angus wasn’t good, but because we had tried the wagyu first.

And finally after a very long and satisfying dinner, desserts came in the form of home made kurogoma brulee ($6), and home made custard pudding ($6). The former was a sesame version of creme brulee that I didn’t quite take to, but I love the home made custard pudding!

Umami has been around at Liang court since April and I have to admit I did not notice their presence previously when I went to Liang court. The very posh and club-like entrance made it rather intimidating for diners to step in, and they are currently making changes to the front decorations. There’s a current DBS 1-for-1 promotion for their $18 and $25 set lunches.

My appreciation to Lynda from DBS, Cherylene & Seema from Eurorscg, and the Nigel & his staff from Umami for the wonderful dinner. My third and final restaurant with DBS Foodster will be at Xin Cuisine, Holiday Inn Atrium, you can find out more information about the DBS Indulge Series here.

177 River Valley Road
#01-26 Liang Court
Tel: 6333 1166