Ramen @ Men-IChi

Our Mother's Day lunch was a simple one at the newly open Men-Ichi near our area. This shop was always crowded with people and long queue waiting to eat their Ramen and Gyoza. So today after our church sermon, we decided to drop by before the weekend lunch queue begins........

This newly open Men-Ichi replaced the old Délifrance shop that used to be there for more than 10 years. The layout and renovation of the shop looks very Japanese Noodle stall style with it's wooden roof top and white paper lanterns.

Upon searching through the menu on what to order, we saw some Mother's Day set meal which cost around S$25.00 for salmon seafood set, rice, vegetable and etc. But mum prefer to have Japanese Curry rice while I settle for one of their chef recommended Ramen on the list. While waiting for the food to be served, we tried their salted vegetable pickles which taste good with it's light fragrance that is mixed with some white sesame seeds which brings out some extra flavour.

And another surprised while waiting, mum saw one of my best friend Vivian and her boy. We have not met each other for a very long time and since they are alone we invited them to join us for the Mother's Day lunch too. Everyone of us enjoy our chat and updates in life while the two kids enjoying playing and drawing while waiting for the adults to enjoy our lunch.

Both Mum and Vivian ordered this Tempura Curry Set which served with miso soup and cut fruit. I love the presentation of this Tempura Curry and from the look at the curry sauce you know that you will fall in love with it. The prawns and vegetables are coated with a layer of batter and fried till crispy and golden brown. One good point about this dish is, both mum and Vivian agreed that the items are not oily like some of those served in other restaurants. Overall they are very satisfied with this dish but a little setback is their serving speed are kind of slow maybe good things have to wait slightly longer... :p

Finally here comes my Kyofu Tonkotsu Shio Ramen. According to menu, their Kyoto-style ramen soup is light and shoyu based but rich with collagen and kotteri from the long hours of boiling. In Singapore, there are about four popular types of ramen which are shio(salt based), sho-yu(soya sauce), tonkotsu(pork bones) and miso(fermented soy beans). The one that I am having today is a combination of Tonkotsu and Shio which is the salty pork bones soup broth giving tonkotsu ramen its characteristic richness.

I am sure by looking at the photo above, you are already tempted by it's presentation and wonderful flavour of the soup broth and wish to have bowl of Ramen now. Although I am not an expert in eating Ramen but I am sure this is a good choice to try out their wonder soup broth as well as the handmade noodles. A bowl of this Kyofu Tonkotsu Shio Ramen cost around S$16.90.

Men-IChi has two branches @:
Jurong Point #B1-54
1 Jurong West Central 2
Tel: 6794 5125
Daily: 11.30am -10.00pm

930 Yishun Avenue 2
#01-22/23 Northpoint
Singapore769098
Tel: 6755 5719
Daily: 11.30am -10.00pm

Fruit Paradise's Fruit Tart

I am sure some of you have heard about this "Fruit Paradise" tart shop which has a few branches in Singapore with it's very first at Manpuku located at Tampines 1. They also have other branches at Orchard Central and Raffles Place MRT.

Their tarts are decorated with fresh fruit that are selected and handpicked carefully by experienced Japanese Pastry chefs. And the tarts come with 3 kinds of base – custard cream, cheese cream and fresh cream. The tarts range from Chocolate Banana, Mango Fruit Tart, Blueberry Fruit Tart, Orange and Grapefruit Tart and etc. So this is our this year Mother's Day special dessert "Assorted Fruit Tart" is bought by my brother's friend. The fruits are so fresh and appetising to look and taste together with it's colourful combination. According to my brother if you will to buy a slice of each flavour it cost around S$8.00 per slice..... Em... are you willing to spend that amount for a slice of fruit tart?

Here I wish all mummies and mum to be a Happy Mother's Day!!!!!! 3 Cheers!!! for all mummies in the world..... :)

Zhou's Kitchen @ Far East Square

This year Mother's Day celebration as usual was organised by my brother at Zhou's Kitchen, Far East Square branch. As most of us are working and also to avoid the weekend crowds we decided to settle the dinner on Friday night.

Zhou's Kitchen provide casual Chinese dining concept and it has about four branches located in different parts of Singapore such as Square 2(novena), Anchorpoint and Jurong Point. Besides serving a tempting variety of A-La Carte dishes, there are set meals offering value and convenience too.

For today we are having their A-La Carte Dinner Buffet which cost about $29.80++ per Adult where you can pick your choice from "Cold Cuts and Appetizers", "Meat", "Seafood", "Vegetables", "Rice/Noodle" and "Dessert".

For Appetizers we have Century Egg and Cucumber cubes - 青瓜皮蛋 which is light and refreshing. Salad Prawns with Mixed Fruits in Thousand Island sauce and Deep-fried Fritter were rather kind of average standard. While "Fujian style Meat Roll that comes in 5 thin slices was kind of to our liking with it special ingredients.

Talk about their soup, it was rather disappointing. The 2nd soup shown in the above photo supposed to be their limited one serving dish known as "Braised Shark's Fin Broth with Crab Stick and Shredded Chicken - 红烧蟹柳鸡丝翅" but it ends up to be just like a normal bowl of diluted soup with some shredded chicken which mum hint to the waitress on her dismay. On the other hand we all agreed that the normal "Braised Beancurd Broth with Diced Seafood - 海鲜豆腐羹" taste even much better than the Shark's Fin broth.

For the Meat dishes, each of us select our favourite items such as "Pan-fried Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper - 黑椒牛柳烧" which is fragrant and tender to taste, "Pi Pa Duck - 琵琶鸭" where the meat is soft and goes well with the topping sauce but their "Deep-fried Pork Ribs With Chef's Special Sauce - 京都排骨" is quiet a disappointment due to the presentation and the sauce taste so sour and the pork ribs are so tough. "Sweet and Sour Pork - 咕噜肉" on the other hand was much better with it's tasty sauce and overall combination, so end up we have two serving plates of that instead. As you can see from the photo, their "Deep-fried Chicken with Prawn Paste - 虾酱鸡" was just like some deep-fried chicken strips instead nothing fancy.

Beijing Roast Duck - 京式片皮鸭 is also one of the Limited to 2 Slices per Person items on the list. This dish is kind of different from the usual Peking Duck that use the outer crispy duck skin to wrap with the pancake wrapper. Rey enjoy himself on serving us this dish by assemble the spring onion, cucumber and sweet sauce with the duck and wrapper while we are busying with other dishes.

On the Seafood list, we tried their "Chilli Crab A-La Tung Lok - 辣椒螃蟹" other than the presentable look the taste wise was rather average or not suitable for our liking. The Chilli Crab sauce was too sour rather than those usual hot and spicy chilli crab sauce that we have patronised from some of the famous crab restaurant. "Poached Live Prawns - 白灼虾" was rather better with its look, taste and freshness. "Deep-fried Prawns with Crispy Oats - 香酥麦片虾" and Sauteed Shrimp with Long Bean in Sambal Sauce are another two prawn dishes that we ordered too.

We also tried two of their fish dishes such as "Thai Style Soon Hock Fish - 泰式炸笋壳鱼" and "Steamed Red Tilapia in Black Bean Sauce - 豉汁酱蒸红鱼". I also ordered brother's favourite "Stewed Ee-fu Noodles - 干烧伊面" and mum's favourite "Fried Rice with Chicken and Salted Fish - 咸鱼鸡粒炒饭".

Finally, the moment that I am waiting for is here. Dessert menu/items is always one of the main thing I look for when I scan through the menu. So when it comes to the end of the meal, I will always reserved extra space for my favourite dessert. Today we are having "Chilled Herbal Jelly With Honey - 龟苓膏", "Sweetened Almond Cream with White Fungus - 雪耳白果杏仁露", "Sesame Cream - 芝麻糊", "Glutinous Rice Balls with Peanut Crumbs - 擂沙汤丸" and lastly "Ice Cream Puff - 雪糕酥点".

5 Minutes Tofu Dish

Tofu is always one of the best and versatile ingredient found in the kitchen pantry. Since Tofu has very little flavor or smell on its own, you can use it to create all kinds of sweet and savory dishes range from starter, soup, main course and dessert or even in cake and pastry. Today we are going to prepare a less than 5 minutes dish using Tofu and Pork Mince with Bean Paste (肉酱) as the main ingredients.

This is a very simple and yet presentable dish that doesn’t even require any cooking time but perhaps just a few seconds to a minute of re-heating in the microwave before serving. As you know Tofu is rather tasteless so by adding Pork Mince with Bean Paste (肉酱) to it, it actually acts as a seasoning to this dish too. In order to make this dish look and taste even better, I also add in some shimeji mushroom and "century egg - 皮蛋" in it.

Ingredients:
1 Box of Silken Tofu
3 Tablespoon of Pork Mince Paste(肉酱)
1 Century Egg(皮蛋), cut into small cubes
1 Packet of Shimeji Mushroom, optional

Garnish:
Some Spring Onion
Some Chilli

Method:
1. Remove the tofu from the packaging and place it on a big serving plate and try to pad dry both side with some kitchen paper towel.
2. Cut/plug the individual stalk off from the bunch of shimeji mushroom, and give it a quick 30 second stir in a lightly oil saucepan.
3. Removed and arrange on the side of the tofu.
4. Spread the pork mince paste on top of the tofu and scatter the century eggs all over it.
5. Before serving, reheat the tofu in microwave for 30 second to a minute high depending on the voltage of your microwave.
6. To serve, top with some chopped spring onion and chiili as garnish.


So you see, this is a very quick and easy dish that can be served in about 5 minutes time. And if you don't prefer to do any extra washing after stir-frying the mushroom then perhaps you can replace the mushroom by some shredded lettuce, which can blend well with the bean paste too.