Tontei is located on B1 of NEX at Serangoon. It has been there for a while but I only gave them a visit recently.
The interior has a bamboo theme. Everywhere you set your eyes on, it is bamboo. The place is quite crammed. Table to table distance is small, difficult to have a private conversation.
This place is said to be famous for shabu shabu. What is shabu shabu? Basically it is a Japanese style hotpot. You use your chopsticks to pick up a piece of thinly sliced meat, may it be pork, beef or whatever, dip it into the hot pot and then move it left once, say shabu; move it right once, say shabu, then the meat is done and perfect for eating, thus it is called shabu shabu. Haha...ok, the say 'shabu' while dipping the meat part was invented by me, not sure whether it is really true.
I ordered the super value Shabu Shabu set at $15.90++. You can choose your soup base and two types of meat out of 4. I chose the tonkutsu broth (pork soup), and pork collar & premium beef for the meat.
The wait was a bit long, our food came only after quite a long while. Then the candle fire for the hot pot was kind of weak. Both mine and my friends' went out after 10 minutes or so, we had to ask for new fire power. For my friend, his new candle fire went out again before his soup started boiling, so had to get a new one again. This is an area for improvement. The wait for food, and the wait for the soup to boil were long. You got to be a really patient patron.
Ok, back to the food. Frankly speaking, I didn't have high expectations of tonkutsu soup base, but surprisingly it was very good. Sweet and clear, and most importantly, not the very salty type. They provided two types of sauces, one is plum-based, a little bit sour, very appetizing. Both the pork collar and the premium beef were good. Well, not really very "premium", for $15.90, how "premium" could you expect? But I think they were at least decent.
Overall, I think the food was not bad, the staff were friendly, but I think there was quite a shortage of manpower in the restaurant, which leads to quite some delays. And the candle they use for the hot pot is not very powerful.
The interior has a bamboo theme. Everywhere you set your eyes on, it is bamboo. The place is quite crammed. Table to table distance is small, difficult to have a private conversation.
This place is said to be famous for shabu shabu. What is shabu shabu? Basically it is a Japanese style hotpot. You use your chopsticks to pick up a piece of thinly sliced meat, may it be pork, beef or whatever, dip it into the hot pot and then move it left once, say shabu; move it right once, say shabu, then the meat is done and perfect for eating, thus it is called shabu shabu. Haha...ok, the say 'shabu' while dipping the meat part was invented by me, not sure whether it is really true.
Premium Beef
Pork Collar
I ordered the super value Shabu Shabu set at $15.90++. You can choose your soup base and two types of meat out of 4. I chose the tonkutsu broth (pork soup), and pork collar & premium beef for the meat.
The wait was a bit long, our food came only after quite a long while. Then the candle fire for the hot pot was kind of weak. Both mine and my friends' went out after 10 minutes or so, we had to ask for new fire power. For my friend, his new candle fire went out again before his soup started boiling, so had to get a new one again. This is an area for improvement. The wait for food, and the wait for the soup to boil were long. You got to be a really patient patron.
Super Value Shabu Shabu Set, $15.90++
Ok, back to the food. Frankly speaking, I didn't have high expectations of tonkutsu soup base, but surprisingly it was very good. Sweet and clear, and most importantly, not the very salty type. They provided two types of sauces, one is plum-based, a little bit sour, very appetizing. Both the pork collar and the premium beef were good. Well, not really very "premium", for $15.90, how "premium" could you expect? But I think they were at least decent.
Overall, I think the food was not bad, the staff were friendly, but I think there was quite a shortage of manpower in the restaurant, which leads to quite some delays. And the candle they use for the hot pot is not very powerful.
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