Ryoriya Sangokushi

Taiwan Japanese food? Other than the Japanese sounding (mouthful of a) name, and the few beer/sake options on the menu, I’d say the food here is more “Taiwanese”.

Expensive too. The bill came up to $192 for the 4 of us and this was what we ordered:

- century egg tofu
- jelly fish
- some cold sliced pork with cucumber
- claypot “san bei” chicken
- egg fried with prawns
- fried brinjal
- a small bowl of plain noodles
- 2 bowls of rice
- 2 small bottles of Taiwan beer
- 1 small bottle of sake ($22)

I liked the century egg tofu and egg fried with prawns best. But then, it’s hard to go wrong with homely fare like these. The rest of the food were not too memorable and portions (despite my pics) were kinda small.

The food isn't too bad, but for the amount we paid, I doubt we will be back. Darn, should have followed instincts and gone to Bella Pizza.

Shunjuu Izakaya

Shunjuu is one of my favorite jap restaurants. The yakitori items (chicken meatballs, rolled beef with cheese) are pretty good, thought I gotta be honest that Kazu is better. What keeps me going back is the sashimi salad and the century egg tofu. Yums. And, the location. I just lurve hanging out at the Robertson Walk area - super chill vibes.

For the month of October, there's another reason to visit Shunjuu - SHOCHU 1-FOR-1 Promotion!! It's a pretty sweet deal, I paid $75 for these two bottles of 750ml shochu. And if you can't finish two bottles in one go, they allow you to store the unfinished bottles with them for up to 3 months.

Wait for 3 months? Never! I plan to go back very soon to finish up muhahaha.

Yoyogi Restaurant

The amount of sashimi I have been having is kinda an overkill but what the heck, I love my fatty chunks of raw fish and no, I am not sick of Japanese food (yet)!

Tonight’s fix was at Yoyogi, this Japanese joint along Mohammed Sultan Road which was recommended by my dinner date B. The reviews on hungrygowhere were not encouraging as they seemed to suggest the place was over-priced but I decided to check the place out anyway.


The sashimi moriwase platter wasn’t cheap at $88 but it did look pretty. There was a good variety of fish, but only 2-3 small slices of each –Fish Mart Sakuraya has spoilt me with their gianormous portions. Interestingly there was a “squid with roe” sashimi which had a really good bite and texture to it. It’s presented as the cross-section of a white squid and there’s white roe inside. I forgot to take pictures and I haven’t been able to google what is. If you know what it is PLEASE let me know..

The teriyaki cod and shioyaki salt we ordered was ok, nothing too challenging or impressive. I needed to get my carbo fix so I ordered a bowl of garlic fried rice to fill my stomach. Bad choice, it was dry and unflavorful. The two skewers of chicken we ordered were also mediocre, bland and a bit charred.

I’m usually very forgiving with my food reviews but $200 for the bit of food we had (including two bottles of biru) – very average tasting – was definitely not worth it. I’m sorry, but I am not going back.

Hummerstons

The Thirsty Thursday club comprising 2 overworked lawyers and 1 hyperactive tax professional convened last night. The venue: new restaurant Hummerstons at Robertson Walk. It was a very nice setting on the 2nd floor at Unity Street, above the (eerily quiet) no signboard seafood and overlooking the Robertson dining stretch of restaurants and bars. I loved the beautiful vintage re-upholstered chairs/tables and cool bistro vibes of the restaurant.

As professionals, it is good practice to keep meetings short and sweet, so we wasted no time in moving on to the first item on our agenda - ordering a bottle of wine to quench our Thursday thirst. Admittedly, I am a cheap drunk so my eyes immediately settled on one of the house reds, an argentinian malbec at $45 a pop. At this price point, it was quite palatable - peppery and spicy. Oh that first sip of wine was a warm hug down my throat!

Next item on the agenda was the food. Here, we zoomed in on the beef and foie gras poutine (french fries topped with emmental cheese, covered with brown gravy), the smoked duck quesadilla, as well as 2 items from the specials menu - the Norwegian salmon, and the chicken terrine with double brie cheese (this sounded too good to resist).

When the food came, we were bowled over by the fantastic presentation. This is my first appreciation of how visual presentation can whet one’s appetite to eat. Apologize for the pics which do not do the dishes justice. I think the presentation might have raised our expectations a notch too high though, because the taste of the food, albeit good, did not impress. The poutine stood its own, but the smoked duck quesadilla and chicken terrine were kind of lack-lustre. Luckily, the norwegian salmon was done very nicely, I loved how it was pink on the inside, and the cream (mushroom?) sauce complimented it perfectly.

We ended the meal with item 3 of the agenda, a bottle of montepulciano d'abruzzo ($51). It was an easy drinking Italian red with mildly sweet and soft tannins, a good one to end the meal.

The Thirsty Thursday club passed the motion that in spite of misses in some food items, Hummerstons was a good place to unwind and recuperate from a hard day at work. Oh, and of course, quench our thirst.