Cow Tongue and Cheap Sashimi - at Sandaime Bunji!

One of the reasons that the darling and I are such huge Japanese food fans is the sheer variety of cuisine from the various parts of the country. Today, we visit Sandaime Bunji, which originates from Sendai (sort of halfway between Tokyo and Hokkaido), and specializes in two decidedly non-mainstream dishes: 牛たん ('Gyuu-tan,' charcoal-grilled ox tongue) and わら焼きかつおたたき ('Warayaki Katsuo Tataki,' Skipjack Tuna seared over a rice straw fire).


Yes, there is a tuna loin in the midst of that fire.
We decided not to order the straw fired tuna at the last minute, opting instead for the irresistibly-priced six types of Assorted Sashimi (s$15.90, promo price). There's a small caveat - each diner must order a drink - but otherwise it's an absolute steal for hefty, chunky slices of fresh, raw fish. There's even two cubes of 大トロ ('Oo-Toro,' fatty tuna belly)!


Of course, we made sure to try the restaurant's other specialty - 12P 牛たん Dinner Set ($42.90). The dinner set comes with 12 slices of charcoal-grilled ox tongue, a clear ox tongue soup, vegetables (seaweed & bean sprouts), appetizer (pitan tofu) and a bowl of mixed rice and barley.

It's a hearty meal, and a very ... interesting one. Ox tongue has a strong, distinctly beefy flavour, but with a uniquely smooth texture and a somewhat chewy bite. Taste and flavour-wise it was nice, but in our opinions when tongue is served this way, it loses heat too quickly and so the latter half of the meal felt like eating cold beef. Definitely a dish that you should wolf down as quickly as possible.


Our other main course for the night - the Unagi Dinner Set ($19.90 for the full/large size) - comes with the same accompaniments as the cow tongue, plus chawanmushi (steamed egg custard). It's remarkably value for money, considering that the unagi alone probably costs just as much if you buy it from Meidi-ya or Isetan or any other Japanese supermarket.

Taste-wise - it was above average but not mind-blowing. The eel was obviously cooked beforehand and only finished on the grill - therefore not having enough time over the coals to get a really nice char on the edges. Still a satisfying meal nevertheless!


So while we weren't blown away by the ox tongue, we were pleasantly surprised with the very reasonable prices of the other items on the menu - especially the Unagi - and can totally imagine coming back again if/when we're in the area. Note that the Sashimi bowl is a promo price, and the waiter didn't know when the promo ends.

Sandaime Bunji is at #01-14/15, Millenia Walk, Singapore. Reservations probably not required. Non-halal.

Japanese Food in a European-style Cafe: Ma Maison, Parco Millenia Walk.

Ma Maison Restaurant and Cafe sort of advertises itself as French Japanese Fusion. Which in my opinion isn't quite accurate. The layout & deco of the restaurant does have very strong European influences, but the majority of the menu is firmly entrenched in Japanese Cafe territory.


Take, for example, this Omu Rice (SGD14.80), which you can order with a choice of several different sauces. We went with the "regular" brown sauce. The Omelette was nice and fluffy (like scrambled egg), and generously layered over tomato rice with bits of chicken. Nothing fusion about this dish, it was most certainly Japanese.


Same story with the Tonkatsu Set (SGD19.50). For a jack-of-all-trades type of cafe we're pretty impressed with the crispiness of the deep fried pork loin, although it does fall a little short of the dedicated tonkatsu joints like Saboten.


No fresh sesame seeds to grind here, just a straight-up tonkatsu sauce. And a salt crystal grinder for extra taste - which we didn't need as the food's plenty tasty already.


Ginger Ale - SGD4.00. I'll never understand why we all let restaurants get away with charging four times the price of a canned drink just because it's served with a glass full of ice (yes, I'm guilty of this all the time).


Overall at slightly over SGD20 per person, Ma Maison serves up some nice solid Japanese cafe fare in a very nice & pleasing environment - perfect to take a date. Music was soothing and chosen well to suit the decorations, too ... although the standard Japanese-style shouts of "いらっしゃいませ" every time a patron walks in is a little at odds with the ambience.

Ma Maison has three outlets - Bugis Junction, The Central, and Parco @ Millenia Walk. Non-Halal.

Keisuke's Crab Broth and Tonkotsu Ramens.

Ramen Dining Keisuke Tokyo, part deux! My previous (solo) visit was on 22 Jan, where I commented that the Shoyu Ramen was a little too salty for my tastes. I've got the darling with me for a second opinion, though, as we snack on the chili oil bean sprouts while waiting for our noodles.


Green Tea at SGD3.80 a pot seems a bit expensive, no? Love the guy/girl tea mugs though.


On the the noodles! My Tonkotsu Ramen Premium (SGD14.80) had a nice, strong, porky flavor, and the cha-shu was more tender and juicy this time round, but our opinion is that it suffers from the same disappointment as in my previous visit - too much sodium! It's bearable with the noodles, but once you've polished them off, the remaining soup is just too salty to slurp up.

I mean, I needed one and a half cups of green tea to wash away the lingering salt aftertaste!


We also tried the Crab Stock Ramen with Egg (SGD15.80) is ... different. For starters, it's more like Lam Mee than Ramen, since the broth is a lot thicker & starchier, and the noodles are closer in size to udon. It's unique and actually pretty good, with a nice crabby flavor and aroma.


Overall, we feel that it's worth taking a trip down to Millenia Walk at least once to try Keisuke's Crab stock Ramen. If you're not a fan of crab the tonkotsu is pretty tasty, but unless you've got a high salt tolerance you should perhaps choose to have your soup "light" instead of "normal." Non-halal.

Our Ramen Rankings:
Superb!: Ippudo & Santouka
Delicious!: Nantsuttei, Tampopo & Keisuke Tonkotsu King
Solid: Shin-Sapporo, Keisuke, Gantetsu, Gensuke, Riki, Ikkousha & Bario
Below Average: Marutama, Menya Musashi & Menya Iroha

Ramen King Keisuke Takeda's Ramen Restaurant in Singapore!

** Update ** We've made a second trip to Keisuke - check out our full thoughts on the Ramen King's other broths by following this link!

Continuing our Ramen exploration in Singapore, we turn our attention now to Keisuke Ramen over in Parco, Millenia Walk. This joint is TV Tokyo's 2011 "Ramen King" Keisuke Takeda's first venture here, and much has been said about his prawn-based soup stock (which takes a few hundred ama ebi, or sweet shrimp, to make).

Except that you can't have this prawn-based ramen any longer. Apparently the story goes that the locals "didn't know how to appreciate" the soup base - saying it was little different than our local prawn noodle - so the chef decided to just stop cooking & serving it. As the saying goes, "Pearls before Swine" :P


You can, however, still have a choice of tonkotsu, shoyu, shio, (spicy) miso ... and Crab Stock bases for your ramen. You can also choose how tasty you want your broth to be, how hard you want your noodles, and which toppings to exclude.


Gyoza (SGD5.00) was pretty par for the course. I'm not sure why I always tend to order gyoza with ramen - it's possibly because almost every ramen shop I've ever gone to also serves gyoza on the side. Or because, as a KK boy, it's very similar to one of our staple foods - the pot sticker a.k.a. Wo Tieh.


Anyways my Shoyu Ramen with ChaShu was très disappointing. The meat was a little dry and not anywhere near as flavorful and tender as most other competing shops, and the soup base was just overpoweringly salty. From the soy sauce. Yes yes, I know I did order soy sauce-based soup, but it's suppose to be the *base* and not the *only flavour*.


I'll reserve final judgement for when the darling comes back from KL/JB so that we can try the tonkotsu and crab broths as well, but first impressions are that it absolutely does not live up to expectations.

Ramen Dining Keisuke Tokyo is on the 3rd floor of PARCO in Millenia Walk. Non-Halal.

Garlic Lovers Dream at Nantsuttei (Ramen joint)

We continue our recent Ramen obsession by joining the queue in front of Nantsuttei on a Sunday afternoon. The restaurant is small - probably only seats three dozen ramen slurpers - which results in a 15 minute wait (which actually isn't so bad considering it's a weekend).

Nantsuttei's USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is the ma-yu (fragrant garlic oil) that is liberally added to each bowl of ramen. This ma-yu is made by frying garlic seven times, which does raise a niggling thought about carcinogens and all that but hey, it's not like we're eating this every day, right?


There isn't that much choice on the menu - quite a few of the menu items are just the same basic ramen bowl with different choices of ingredients. Anyways were were quite amused by the ramen eating guide - sorry for the slightly blur picture but it's basically look and smell --> taste noodles --> soak the chashu --> savour the soup --> finish everything!


We place our orders and while waiting, are a little annoyed at the choice of chopsticks used here. Disposable bamboo ones are fine, but when you're charging $20+ per person, couldn't you have chosen any other brand of chopsticks that isn't soft, irregularly curvy, and with so many small bits of bamboo hanging/coming off?


Instead of our usual gyoza we try the Yude Won Ton (SGD6.00). This is described on the menu as coming with a "special sauce" but as far as we could tell it was just a very salty soy sauce. I made the mistake of liberally drenching the wonton in the sauce and ended up with my tongue getting overwhelmed by the saltiness.


For the Ramen, the darling has the Negi Ramen (SGD15.00). That black sauce you see floating on top is the ma-yu/garlic oil. If that's not enough garlic for you, or if you're fearing an imminent vampire attack, you can request for as many (free) cloves of garlic as you wish - these come with a garlic press so you can squeeze and add as much crushed garlic as you desire.


The ramen comes with a creamy tonkotsu-type broth, which is pretty nice but a little lacking in flavor compared to the flavor champion Ippudo, or even Santouka.


My choice was the Kara Miso Ramen Mouretsu Tanmen Hana-ji Boo (SGD16.00). A combination of pork & miso broths with fried ground pork and hot pepper (you get to choose how hot you want it), this bowl was a lot more tasty! A little too tasty though, because once the noodles are finished, the broth combined with the chili makes it difficult to drink on its' own.


Overall, we found Nantsuttei to be above average, and at about SGD20 per person, pretty par for the course for 'specialized' ramen joints in Singapore (i.e. lots of soup and noodles but hardly any meat).

Nantsuttei is in Millenia Walk. If you're not familiar with the mall, you won't find it listed on the mall directory - head to the third floor of Parco (the department store) and you'll see it at the right hand side of the "food court" there. Non halal.

Our Ramen Rankings:
Superb!: Ippudo & Santouka
Delicious!: Nantsuttei & Tampopo
Solid: Shin-Sapporo, Keisuke, Gantetsu, Gensuke, Riki & Ikkousha
Below Average: Marutama & Menya Musashi