Sumiya at Suntec City

Lunched at Sumiya at Suntec City the other day.  Take note that this is SuMiya, or 岚家 in Kanji or Chinese.  There is a restaurant chain in Singapore with a very similar name, which is Sukiya.  I almost mixed the two up.

Sapporo Draft Beer (330ml), $4.80++

While waiting for my food, I decided to give their Sapporo draft beer a try.  The beer is translucent in clarity, slight in fragrance.  The taste is smooth, with almost non-detectable taste or after-taste of bitterness.  I like it.  I have a general dislike of beer that is bitter, with the only exception of the famous Australian beer of Victoria Bitter.  The reason for that exception is Victoria Bitter is actually not bitter, if you drink it at the right temperature.  Once it warms up, the taste is indeed bitter!

Kaiseki Set, $29.80++

I ordered their Kaiseki set.  What is "kaiseki"?  Wikipedia says: a set menu of select food served on an individual tray.  The price of Kaiseki in Japan can vary quite a lot.  Some are still at the affordable range of about $30-40/pax, while the expensive ones can cost upward of $200/pax.

My kaiseki came with a great presentation.   All the items were laid out artistically as if the tray were a canvas, while the chef is the artist using the food as his paint to come up with a beautiful painting.

For the whole set, I am most impressed with the egg piece.  They somehow manage to 'write' the name of the restaurant on the egg block.

In terms of taste, I like the simmering items best.  The pumpkin was carved as a leaf.  It is super soft, basically melts in your mouth.  The carrot was presented as a plum flower.  You are not just having a meal, you are having an arts appreciation class as well.

Overall, the presentation of the food is very artistic and obviously efforts have made in this area.  In terms of taste, I think it is acceptable, but not fantastic.  The rice was a bit on the hard side, the salmon flakes didn't smell too good.  The grilled fish was kind of tasteless.  However, at its price, it is quite a fair deal, though.

Chun Kee Seafood White Bee Hoon at Cheong Chin Nam Road

Happened to pass-by Chun Kee at Cheong Chin Nam Road, which is directly opposite the famed Beauty World shopping center.

It was already after lunch hour, there were not many customers there.  It happened that the owner, the gentleman in a shirt in the photo above, was there to entertain his family and/or friends.  Someone once said that the best assurance a restaurant owner can give to the patrons is to eat the food from his own restaurant, thus I felt very assured that day. 

The place is divided into two sections.  The inner section has air conditioning, while the outer section doesn't .   Choose what you prefer.

Seafood White Bee Hoon, $5.80

I ordered the seafood white bee hoon, their signature dish, for $5.80.  No GST, no service charge.  The ingredients are quite simple.  Two pieces of prawns, a few pieces of squid, egg, vegetables and of course, the mee hoon (vermicelli).  The bee hoon came piping hot, as it was cooked upon order.  A word of caution: It is really hot, especially the broth.  I almost burnt my tongue.  So you have been warned, be patient!

The broth is strong-flavored.  It was said that the broth was cooked with chicken stock and lala clams, no wonder it was sweet, and had this pleasant smell of the sea.  The egg was first fried till a bit burnish, then cooked together with the rest of the ingredients.  The fried egg and the broth mixed together and created the strong flavor in the dish.  A nitpick is it is a bit on the more salty side.  If they can use slightly less salt, it would have been perfect.

The vermicelli retained its shape well, not a big patch of unidentified objects.  The best part is the vermicelli managed to absorbed the broth nicely without being over-cooked.

Overall, I think the food was good.  It is a more memorable version of the seafood white bee hoon found in Singapore.

Fatty Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodle and Carrot Cake

There are a number of interesting stalls at the Ci Yuan Community Club, Fatty Fried Carrot Cake is one of them.  Well, first thing first, the carrot cake is very much a misnomer.  The ingredient used is actually radish, not carrot.  And the guy who fries the carrot cake is not actually fat. 

Fried Carrot Cake, $3.50

The very traditional, or say common carrot cake usually is fried with tons of oil, and seasoned with generous portions of salt.  At this stall, somehow they manage to control the quantities of these two elements well.  You won't feel salty at all, but still retains the fragrance of the radish and egg, as well as the flavor of the dish. 

The traditional way of preparing for this dish is very time-consuming.  First, you start with shredding the radish into slices.  Then you mix it with flour at the right proportion to make it into a kind of paste.  After that, put that paste into a steamer to steam for x amount of time until it solidifies and becomes a piece of big cake.  Next you cut the cake into small pieces of 1-cm cubes.  I think most of the hawkers don't do this anymore.  They just buy from the whole-salers the ready-made carrot cake cubes. 

When a customer orders the dish, they will fry the carrot cake together with eggs till the outer crust becomes crispy, while the inside still maintains some softness.  On this, I think this stall at Ci Yuan did a pretty good job.  You can experience the bounciness of the carrot cake at every bite. 

It is a good place to satisfy your carrot craving if you are nearby. 

Seafood White Meehoon at Ci Yuan Community Club

Chanced upon this stall at Ci Yuan Community Club's hawker center.  There are quite a number of options for the customers to choose.  I chose the lala and prawn white meehoon, but requested not to have lala.  Anything with a shell is not quite my cup of tea. 

White Meehoon with Prawn, $5.00

What is 'meehoon'? You may ask.  Meehoon is something like vermicelli, thin, long noodle-like food.  Very popular in southern China and South-East Asia.  My plate of white meehoon came with the meehoon immersed in the broth, topped with a few sea prawns and pieces of deep fried lard.   

I kind of liked the deep fried lard.  It was crispy, and it had a special texture and smell, very appetizing.  However, it may not be very healthy. 

The crown jewel of this dish was actually the broth.  Somehow it was very tasty.  Sweet, fragrant, and had a lot of depth. 

What is not so good is the portion.  The portion was quite small.  A few chopstick-ful later, the meehoon was all gone, but I was still like half hungry. 

The Butcher's Kitchen at Suntec

The Butcher's Kitchen is located on the second floor of Suntec City Mall.  The place was previously occupied by an Italian restaurant, but it had since closed down.  The Butcher's Kitchen is part retail, part restaurant.  There is a small retail section where customers can buy their meat products.  Well, as the name implies, they are proud of their meat offers.

We decided to share a vegetarian pizza, and then each of us would get a burger each.  We also ordered our drinks.  My choice was a cappuccino, but a waitress informed me later that the coffee machine was out of order so there would be no coffee!

Vegetarian Pizza, $18.00++

The vegetarian pizza was not bad.  Thin, crispy crust, topped with tomatoes, capsicum, mushrooms, and other stuff.  And of course, cheese was absolutely a must.  The portion was kind of big, actually enough for two guys to share for a meal.

Burger Dog with Pork, $10,00++

My burger dog with pork was less satisfactory.  Does anyone know why it is called burger dog?  Anyway, the portion was big, but the patty was way way too salty.  It felt like one big teaspoon of salt had been added to the patty.

Service-wise, it was quite ok in general.  I must sing my praise for one of the waiters there.  He was in his late teens to early twenties.  He brought us the burgers, and then asked us whether we would like to have chili sauce and ketchup.  Soon he brought us the chili sauce and ketchup on my request.  I left the two bottles on the table as I was still eating my pizza.  By the time I wanted to pour some ketchup onto my plate, I found the sauce just refused to come out.  After a few tries, I decided to just settle with chili sauce, and left the ketchup aside.  Surprisingly, that waiter came to our table, and helped me get the ketchup out onto my plate.  I didn't know how he managed to notice this while he was busy all the time.

Overall, the dining experience was decent.  Probably ordering some meat dishes will give us more fulfilling experience. 

Hup Kah Noodle House at Fernvale

Hup Kah noodle house is located at the Kopitiam next to Fernvale LRT station, opposite Seletar Mall.  There are some newspaper clippings showing recommendations for this stall from some foodies.  There is always a small queue at this stall during lunch.  This stall partners with UberEats as well, so sometimes even though the queue is short, but the wait time is long, as they have to fulfill the UberEats orders as well.  During my day of visit, it happened that they had a UberEats order, so the wait was a bit long.  The stall is manned by, I guess, a mum and son team.  The son takes care of taking orders and payments, while mum does all the hard work of cooking.  They also have a tablet at the stall, taking UberEats orders.

Sarawak Kolo Mee, $5

The most famous dish of the stall is the Sarawak kolo mee.  Char Siew and deep fried wanton are the toppings, and some lettuce as side.  The noodle is the Sarawak kolo mee.  It is different from the normal noodles such as egg noodles, or the prawn noodle type of noodles.  It is thicker, and much firmer.  I like the texture this noodle offers. 

Portion-wise, for a guy like me, the $5 portion is still a bit small.  I felt hungry after just an hour or so.  For ladies, probably the $4 version is enough.   

Tontei at NEX

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.

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.