we live to eat: $$$

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We are back from our month long haitus! Last month we were too busy eating (BKK reviews are due soon) we didn't have time to review. Today's review will be on none other than Tendon Ginza Itsuki! Tendon is highly raved for its generous portions of tempura rice bowls.

Even so long after opening, popularity hasn't waned. We arrived 15mins before opening and the queue was already insane. Couldn't make it for the first seating ):

Tendon only has two items on their menu. We went for the special ($13.90) which comes which 2 prawns, 2 chickens, 2 long beans, 1 mushroom, 1 corn and 1 pumpkin tempura. It's so much more worth it than the all vegetable set!

On the house are some pickled vegetables which were kind of bland, like kimchi without the chili.

Served with the tendon is a bowl of miso soup and chawanmushi. This was silky smooth and had a lot of ingredients.

Not too long later, our tendon was served. The perfectly crisp tempura was stacked on top of the rice and nestled somewhere in between was the runny egg (which was also lightly coated in tempura batter). Even though the tempura already had some 'tendon' sauce on it, it wasn't enough for us so we had to drizzle more on! The portion was so huge, Sher couldn't even touch her rice.

At first bite, everything was perfect. However by the time we reached our 2nd piece of chicken, we were growing tired of the taste.. Tendon is a heavy, one dimensional meal that doesn't leave you craving for more. So I guess we won't be back for seconds. After the meal, we all reeked of tendon :'(

The bill came down to a hefty $40.20 :o We paid $3.80 for Ayataka green tea?! It's as ridiculous as Tsubohachi Izakaya Hokkaido at Changi Aiport, where they also charge $4 for non-refillable hot green tea.

Tendon Ginza Itsuki
Address: 101 Tanjong Pagar Rd, 088522
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun, 11:30-14:30 (lunch), 17:30-22:00 (dinner)
Damage: $17/pax

Seoul Yummy is extremely popular for its stews and the unmistakable black pan was present on almost every table when we were there. We opted for the Signatures Combo ($48.70 for 1 appetizer, 1 main and 1 dessert). Army Stew (Budae Jjigae) is supposedly one of their must-orders, and we chose the meat (as opposed to the seafood) version. Our Army stew came with a hunk of frozen chicken, pork and beef, assorted vegetables and ... wait for it... sausages, luncheon meat, baked beans and maggi mee -- all of it dumped unceremoniously into a huge pan and left to simmer. Note that the maggi noodles are actually concealed underneath the meat.

The next step is simple, just chop everything up and wait for the meat to cook through. For the steep price, not only are the ingredients cheap and poor in quality, they don't even give you a lot of meat. We struggle to see how this pot of Army Stew should even cost more than $10. Many fans have raved about the broth, which we found to be quite tasty and not very spicy, albeit a little on the salty side.

For appetizers, we had the potato pancake. This was pretty decent and we could feel the strips of potato in the pancake. And like most Korean restaurants, you get free flow banchan! Always a small plus.

We chose the chocolate and banana bingsu for dessert. The chocolate ice cream was nice and creamy, the bananas were coated in caramel and sprinkled with crunchy bits. Well in fact everything was yummy except for the bingsu, which was coarser than what it should be. Sigh, what a let down!

Seoul Yummy is a bit of a misnomer. A more apt name would probably be 'Seoul Expensive' or 'Seoul Uninspired'. It goes too far to milk poor Korean crazed Singaporeans of their every penny. We suggest to avoid this place like the plague, you're better off heading to one of those steamboat buffet restaurants in Bugis -- for just under $20, you can get so much better fare over there.

Seoul Yummy
Address: Ion Orchard (2 Orchard Turn, #B3-22 Singapore 238801)
Opening Hours: 11.30am - 10pm (Sunday to Thursday); 11.30am - 10.30pm (Friday & Saturday)
Website: http://www.seoulyummy.com/
Damage: $20-30/pax

Collagen jelly made from Jidori chicken bones

Our first trip down to Tsukada Nojo for their famed beauty pot or bijin nabe! By stewing Jidori chicken (Japanese kampung chicken) bones for more than eight hours until the bones completely dissolve, Tsukada Nojo creates these tofu-like collagen blobs which forms the base of your hotpot. The benefits of collagen are supposedly to firm up your skin and reduce wrinkles hence the 'beauty' pot name. More importantly, we heard that the broth at Tsukada Nojo was incredibly tasty and we simply had to try it. But the queue at Plaza Singapura was always daunting. So, when we found out that Westgate had an outlet, and the queue was a lot shorter, we had no reason not to drop by! We reached there slightly before 12pm on a Saturday and we were one of the 1st few customers.

While waiting for our collagen blob to melt, we went ahead to order one of their onigiri (rice balls, $3.80). This one was wrapped in bacon, drizzled with yuzu mayo and served with a lettuce leaf to appease the vegematics. Be warned, the bijin nabe portion is quite substantial, and you absolutely must slurp up every last drop of soup, so we advise not to order too many onigiris -- delicious as they may be.

Fresh, organic produce to go with the tasty stock!

To go with your hotpot, you are served a wide variety of organic produce, such as red radishes, yellow zucchini, ladies finger/okra, enoki mushrooms, taupok, baby corn and some leafy vegetables that were very tender and fresh (we were instructed to quickly blanch it because it overcooks rapidly). Which brings us to the service at Tsukada Nojo -- it was impeccable. Each table is assigned a waitress, and ours was patiently explaining the origin of ingredients and how to cook them in great detail. However, we were kind of busy taking photos and not paying much attention to her.. oops.

Before we could start dunking our ingredients in, we were made to try the unadulterated version of the soup, and try a portion of the Jidori chicken, which surfaced after the collagen pudding had melted. The soup was pure and very flavorful, although quite oily to the point of being sticky. The ingredients were nicely arranged in the pot for us (we declared ourselves first timers!) so we could get this lovely shot.

Looks good enough to eat already! Btw our steamboat picture is featured on EatBook's list of 10 steamboat restaurants! Head over to check out other steamboat restaurants that will keep your belly nice and warm;)

We chose the thin egg noodles to accompany our meal (you can choose from three kinds -- thick mochi, thin egg noodle and rice noodle). That is really one huge plate of noodles. We had a hard time trying to polish off everything but we always finish ALL of our food!

Seaweed paste to enhance the flavor of the stock

Half way through the meal, we were brought some seaweed paste (aww hearts), if we wanted to alter the flavor of our soup. Don't put too much, its quite salty, and besides, the soup is already good enough as it is!

Cute hand drawn pictures of us on the plates and konjac jelly

To wrap up our meal, we were each served a stick of konjac jelly on a plate hand-drawn by the waitress using sauces. So cute right hehe. Can't bear to destroy the pretty family portrait:/

Tempting advertisement for fried sweet potato and ice cream

Sweet potato fries and ice cream for dessert? Was so tempted to get a plate of this, unfortunately, our bellies were close to exploding and we had to give this a pass. All in all, a satisfying and highly recommended meal!

Tsukada Nojo
Address: #03-04, Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive, 608532
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun, 10:00-22:00
Website: http://tsukadanojo.asia/en
Contact: +65 6465 9356
Damage: $25++/pax

Today was our long awaited Restaurant Week 2015 lunch at Violet Herbs! After sampling Arossa Wine & Grill's impressive Restaurant Week lunch menu a year ago, I guess the bar was set pretty high for this one. Today also the marks the first run on our new Sony A5100. We have gone mirrorless ;) Do bear with us while we figure out how this camera works; it's way more complicated than our trusty Galaxy S5. Violet Herbs is conveniently located along Tras Street, past Orchid Hotel -- look for Acclaim House if you somehow ended up on the opposite side of the road.

This sign board is pretty hard to miss though.

We realized we've been only taking photos of the food, but not the signboards. So, here you go!

There's actually two sitting areas, with different themes. The ground floor is purple themed while the 2nd floor is nature themed. We were ushered into the purple area but on hindsight, perhaps we should have requested for the 2nd floor because they use those cool looking black plates that looks great on the Marinated Red Miso Cod.

Oops, slightly blur menu as we were baffled with the auto focus on our camera. Violet Herbs brands itself as semi-formal fine dining, with rather interesting European/Asian offerings themed around herbs. We had a tough time deciding what to order as they all sounded so good. And from the pictures we've seen online, they all looked exquisite too. So in the end, we settled on one of each except the Roasted and Poached Foie Gras (Sher wasn't too keen on eating a mouthful of fat) and Chicken Roulade. This way, we get to sample as much of the menu as we could.

Pre-appetizers! Home-made focaccia with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dip. We weren't too thrilled by the lone bread though. Yes, there was the characteristic chewiness and the exterior had the ever slightest crunch. However, we kind of expected it to taste and smell of fresh herbs and we were sorely disappointed. Furthermore, the balsamic vinegar was rather bland tasting.

Today's amuse-bouche was a cute melon ball, garnished with some caviar and a sprig of coriander. Again, this dish somehow lacked the punch we were hoping for -- it just tasted like melon.

First up, Hokkaido Scallops & Salmon Belly. All this could fit in a tablespoon ): We wish we had more. The puree was silky smooth and tasted luxurious, not bad at all considering it's made from the humble sweet potato. We loved the scallop, which was seared to perfection.

The Mushroom Cappuccino looked great and tasted great. That foam is actually truffle foam and it's reassuring that they exercised restraint on truffle oil usage -- the gasoline-like taste/smell wasn't too overbearing. We could still taste the richness of the mushroom soup. Still can't figure out if that smudge at the side was intentional or accidental though (a bit of OCD going on).

Next up, the signature Marinated Red Miso Cod. But omg, why is it on a white plate. That's when we realized we should have gone upstairs... oh well. We hope we managed to do the dish justice with our shot. As for the cod, it was so tender, it flaked off in layers when you ran a fork through it. Sher, who doesn't usually eat eggplant, even polished the almond topped roasted egg plant. I guess she didn't know it was eggplant.

This shot of the Pan Seared Red Snapper didn't turn out so well ): Likewise, we were not too impressed with this dish as the snapper was tasted slightly fishy and overcooked. We would have preferred if the skin was crispy instead of chewy. The accompanying celeriac puree and the champagne cream sauce were excellent nevertheless.

For desserts, we had the Mascarpone Lemon Tart and the Lavender Creme Brulee. Don't know if it's just us but the tart shell, was rock solid and we had difficulty breaking it apart. For a moment, we were afraid it would go flying off the plate... urgh can't imagine how embarrassing that would have been. The lemon curd itself was delicious -- very tangy and (duh) lemony, although kind of runny; but the rosemary ice cream, like all the other herb-inspired creations before, didn't really stand out. We would have thought it was plain vanilla ice cream if we didn't read the menu beforehand.

The Lavender Creme Brulee was a bit of a let down. We could hardly taste the lavender infused in the custard; the custard was eggy rather than rich, smooth and creamy; and the crackly caramel top you'd expect a creme brulee to have was non-existent.

Overall, Violet Herbs has some hits and misses. The concept is certainly interesting, unfortunately, we found no compelling reason for a re-visit. For a restaurant that has 'herbs' in it's name, the dishes with herbs in them were perhaps too subtle to taste and somewhat lackluster.

Violet Herbs

Address: 81 Tras St, 079020

Opening Hours: Mon-Sat, 11:30-15:00, 18:00-22:00; Closed Sun

Website: http://www.violetherbs.com.sg/

Contact: +65 6221 3988

Damage: $25/pax (restaurant week lunch)

We weren't planning on having sushi for tea break, but the 'bullet train' caught our eye as we walked past the Bugis+ Genki Sushi outlet on the way to the toilet. Did you say bullet train?! Yup, Genki Sushi makes clever use of technology to deliver your order straight to you via a white flat tray that, well, kind of resembles the Shinkasen bullet train. There's a whole network of rails running around the restaurant and the best thing is your food is made to order -- fresh! Unlike traditional conveyor belt restaurants, there's absolutely no need to be wary of condensation on the plastic lids, or that piece of salmon making its return trip. At Genki Sushi, you can even watch the chefs prepare your meal, load it onto the train and whooosh. Kids will probably love the concept, just keep those grubby hands away from the rail.

So basically you order from one of those iPads and shortly after this train arrives with your food. You then remove the plates and hit that yellow button and the train returns to the kitchen.

Had to try the horse mackerel (left) which tastes of the sea, with the ginger and scallions subtly balancing out that fishy aftertaste. As for the salmon belly, you can't really go wrong with salmon belly, and this one was incredibly fresh. If you strain your eyes a little, you'll notice that prices here aren't exactly cheap ($2.80 - $3.80 for nigiri and sushi).

Oh wow, matcha. Gotta drink more tea then ;) Sorry, we are cheapskates.

This grilled shrimp with garlic butter is a must-try for all you garlic lovers. The shrimp is sweet and firm and the garlic butter..

And some udon to round up our tea break.

Although a tad expensive, Genki Sushi shines through its food quality and concept. It's worth a try, if only for the novelty factor. However, there are probably better places around that are more value for money.

Genki Sushi

Address: 201 Victoria Street, #01-13, 188067

Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 11:30-20:00

Website: http://www.genkisushi.com.sg/

Contact: +65 6732 5711

Damage: ~$30 (5 plates, average $4)