Muthu's Curry Fish Head @ Suntec City

One of my favorite foods is a good Indian-style Curry Fish Head - with banana leaf rice. If you're reading this and you're from Kota Kinabalu, chances are you'd have probably eaten Krishna's Fish Head at least once. Surprisingly, I haven't really been able to find anything similarly delicious outside of KK, so I'm always on the lookout for a fresh head served in a huge bowl of fragrant curry.

One place I've managed to find that serves a pretty mean Fish Head is over at Muthu's Curry Restaurant. Free flow papadum and vegetables and white / biryani rice on banana leaf comes at $3 / $4 per person.


The fish head itself comes in three prices - SGD20, SGD25 and SGD30. Strangely enough, these three price levels don't correspond to the actual size of the fish head, but instead, they correspond to how much the fish cost at the market in the morning. So on one visit three people could be satisfied with a $20 head, but on the next visit two people might still be hungry after polishing off a $25 head.


The inconsistency carries over to the cooking, too. While the curry fish head is generally pretty good, it does tend to be more delicious some days and not really that good on others.


For about $15 per person and all-you-can-eat rice & vegetables, Muthu's Curry Fish Head has been pretty high on my go-to list of restaurants whenever I'm craving some Curry.

Muthu's Curry has 3 outlets - Racecourse Road, Dempsey Hill and Suntec City.

Seoul Yummy - Casual Korean (Suntec City Outlet)

Whenever I think of Korean food, two things spring to mind: Korean BBQ and Kim Chi in various forms. Korean cuisine is a whole lot more than that, of course. I suppose in our corner of the world, Korean BBQ joints seem to form the majority of restaurants serving Korean cuisine.


The darling and I came across Seoul Yummy in Suntec City Mall, which presents itself as a casual Korean dining place. Menu prices seemed pretty reasonable, and well ... there was a huge (faux) tree in the middle of the dining area with bright orange leaves, making it actually quite inviting.


We go for their weekend Set Lunch, which for SGD20 nett buys you a glass (or cup) of Hot / Cold Roasted Barley Tea and a choice of Starter and Main Course. Oh, and not forgetting the customary banchan (side dishes) that most Korean places serve.

Personally, I found the banchan rather lacklustre and forgettable. The kimchi was a particular disappointment, lacking in spiciness (heat) and overloaded on the sour.


Our first starter is the Steamed Kimchi with Pork Dumplings, which isn't too bad. It sort of tastes like a steamed gyoza with kimchi as the vegetable component. The dough is a tad bit on the thick side, though.


The Potato Pancake was a little disappointing. To be honest I'm not entirely sure how this pancake is supposed to taste. To me it was just bordering-on-tasteless starch, even when liberally dipped into the provided sauce.


The darling orders the Bibimbap (Mixed Vegetable Stone Pot Rice) with Pork - which ended being pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.


My Hotplate Spicy Kimchi Soup with Pork (and rice) fared little better. The soup itself was quite a bit more watery & diluted than I was hoping for, and lacked "ooomph." At least the ingredients were quite generous - lots of pork, tofu, egg and assorted vegetables floating around.


For the price that we paid, I think that the meal was satisfactory. It certainly wouldn't qualify as "gourmet," but then it's unreasonable to expect gourmet taste for un-gourmet money. If you're craving for Korean food and don't really want to break the bank, Seoul Yummy should satisfy, but otherwise you'd probably have more satisfaction elsewhere.

Seoul Yummy is located at the Basement Level of Suntec City Mall. Non halal.

Shin Sapporo Ramen - The Birthplace of Miso Ramen

Happy New Year 2012! The darling and I spent our first Singapore NYE countdown at Marina Barrage, where our lack of experience and knowledge of where exactly the fireworks were going to come from, resulted in Marina Bay Sands almost blocking the entire view :( ... it's OK though we still got a few pretty decent pictures! Check our flickr (link on the right) for more.



2011 was a great year for us - we started a new life in Singapore where there are lots more eateries to explore. The blog grew hugely as well! December 2010 we had 2,129 unique pageviews - this grew to 14,370 in December 2011. Huge thanks to those of you who follow us regularly, and also to those of you who happened to stumble across our little footprint in the internet some way or another. Do leave us more comments, we love to hear from you guys and gals :)

Anyway I digress! Towards the end of 2011 the darling and I went on a mini Ramen eating spree, fueled by the dozens of ramen joints in and around town. One of our staples that we go to quite often is Shin-Sapporo Ramen over at Suntec City. I don't know how accurate their claim of being the "birthplace of miso ramen" is, nor can I vouch for their authenticity, but they've got a lot of variety both in soup bases and noodle types. Food's good, and no queues, too!


Coming back to the variety bit, Shin-Sapporo has a pretty good variety. They've got shio, shoyu, miso and tonkotsu soup bases, and what's interesting is that each different soup base comes with a different noodle. Generally speaking, stronger-tasting broths are paired with straight, less-absorbent noodles, whereas the less-strong broths are paired with curly noodles that "hold" more soup as you slurp.

On to the food, though! The Gyoza (Pork, SGD5.80) is solid but unremarkable (i.e. pretty much the same as the average gyoza you get at any other Japanese joint).


Kara-Tonkotsu Ramen (Spicy Tonkotsu broth ramen, SGD14.80). Tonkotsu broth is made by boiling pork bones, fats, collagen and other miscellaneous parts for many hours. As you can see compared to the first picture above, the noodles are thin and straight, as tonkotsu broth is considered one of the more 'flavorful' broths. Shin-Sapporo's version is solid and pretty nice, although not as strong/flavorful as the current popular ramen joints. Oh, and don't worry about the kara (spicy) bit, it only really has a hint of chili & slight additional heat.


The Kara-Miso Ramen (Spicy Miso broth ramen, SGD14.80) is paired with the curly noodles. Miso broth (incidentally it's one of the younger/newer styles of broth) is supposed to be slightly less flavorful, but the version on offer here is definitely tasty enough. The generous topping of sweet corn was a slight turn-off for me, though, but your mileage will vary depending on whether you're a corn lover or hater.


Overall we found Shin-Sapporo Ramen a pretty solid place to have your ramen fix. It's not really worth travelling all the way to Suntec to eat at, but if you're in the area you won't be disappointed. 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

Marutama's Chicken Broth Ramen

Offtopic: We are now on Twitter, so Follow Us on Twitter to get first-hand updates whenever we ... update!

After sashimi/sushi, ramen is possibly the most popular Japanese food type around our corner of the world. We don't have to look too hard to find a shop or other with a large らーめん sign showing its' dedication to the Japanese noodle soup - so when the ramen hunger kicks in it's easy to satisfy our cravings!

Anyway that's sort of how we find ourselves seated in Marutama Ramen over at Suntec City. An immediate downside is that it's situated in a shopping mall directly above that "open area," so if there's an event or fair happening it can be quite noisy. We're also somewhat amused by the menu having only one choice of soup - and instead of the typical shio, shoyu, miso or tonkotsu base, Marutama's soup is based on chicken broth.


The Marutama Ramen (SGD12.00) comes with lots of noodles and a single measly slice of yakibuta (the half-boiled egg is a $1 add-on), which in my humble opinion, is way overpriced. I mean, consider that if you fly to Tokyo you can get this bowl of noodles with way more pork for less than $10!


Back to Singapore though! Taste-wise I was also disappointed. The noodles were too soft for my liking, and the broth while being thick and quite flavorful, brought memories of Maggi's chicken flavor instant noodles. Don't get me wrong, I'm not equating Marutama's broth to a 2-minute instant soup base, but the association is there =[

The Ebi Ramen (SGD15.00) was a little better. It still has the same base chicken broth but with a pretty strong prawn flavor infused into the soup. And the prawns were pretty fresh, too!


Gyoza for SGD5 - nothing much that I can say about this, to be honest. It wasn't bad, but neither was it noteworthy.


Overall, the darling and I come away rather disappointed. If you're a lover of all things chicken and don't eat any other instant noodle flavor then Marutama is worth a try. Otherwise, it's only a five-minute walk to Shin Sapporo Ramen which is better and has much more variety.

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