Akanoya Robatayaki

Behind its closed Japanese wooden doors, inside this restaurant is an experience truly one of a kind! It boasts of a true Japanese dinner theatre experience where skilled Japanese chefs kneel on an elevated platform to grill or barbeque your choice of food chosen among an array of freshest Japanese seafood, vegetables and meat display at the counter in front of you. The most interesting part is that the Japanese chefs cook and serve the food right in front of you too!! This concept, reputed to be the first in town, brings together the finest food, sake, service and atmosphere for a truly memorable dining experience.

This is the most interesting find that Ted and me have to date! We happened to stumble upon it while we were at Orchard Parade Hotel area and I highly recommend this place for a truly one of a kind experience! From the namecard we were given, this place appears to be one of the restaurants affiliated to the Akashi Japanese restaurant located just beside it. Incidentally all these restaurants are synonymous with great Japanese dining cuisines.

Don’t be taken aback by the closed Japanese doors, once you step inside, a truly different experience awaits you! All of a sudden when you step in, everyone in the restaurant greets you in a loud unanimous Japanese greeting. Unfortunately, as I could not really understand Japanese well enough, I am unable to make out what was being said to me. But I do know that its a very warm greeting from all the staff!

The air-conditioned restaurant has 3 grill areas, with 2 chefs each sitting on an elevated platform in front of a counter filled with various seafood, meat and vegetables. A crowd of about 12-15 or so people sits in front the chef who cooks in front of them for each grill area. Despite the grill/barbeque being carried out, the place is not smoky at all as the smoke is cleverly absorbed through a vent just above the grill area. As we were shown inside to 2 seats at the corner, we could hear loud Japanese greetings and voices inside the restaurant. The place seems to be bustling with constant activity and excitement with all the staff including waiters, waitresses and chefs all shouting to each other on the food orders and delivery reports. Really interesting indeed!!

As a start, we ordered the green tea. We were given a cold hand towel to wipe and start our dinner. We were first served a starter which was a delicate tofu with fish roe served with corns (Otoshi @ S$6 each). Delicious. Next we went to order our grill food items, the waiter show us to the front of the counter to choose our food. We were greeted with a huge selection. This includes: really fresh and great big Alaskan crabs, huge tiger prawns, oysters, big fresh fishes, black pork sticks, chicken sticks, asparagus, Japanese green onions, vegetables, various types of mushrooms, potatoes and many many others. We were spoilt for choice! We noticed most diners there ordered the fresh fishes or the Alaskan crabs as barbeque food. Finally making our difficult order among the many choices we were given, we also ordered the Chef’s Recommendation of Asari Misoshiru (soya bean paste baby clam soup @S$10) from the Kitchen’s menu. Their additional menu also includes other items like chawan mushi, soft shell crab, prawns,fish.. and rice/noodles with price ranging from $10-$40-seasonal prices. The soup was tasty and very delicious in my opinion. The clams were also very fresh.

I especially liked the black pork sticks (Tontoro Kushi @ S$7 per stick) which were very tender. So were the grilled chicken sticks (Yaki Tori @ S$5 per stick).

The big tiger prawns (Kuruma Ebi @ S$15 each) were nicely grilled and very fresh too!

The fresh mushrooms (Shimeji @ S$8 and Maitake @ S$12) were mixed and grilled after being wrapped in a silver foil. The vegetables like the asparagus (Asupara @S$6) and Japanese green onions (Senju Negi @S$7) were also very fresh and delicious. Whilst dining in the midst, at about 830pm, suddenly we were informed all the customers in the restaurant had to partake in a clapping ceremony, which we understand from the waiter later that it was a process meant to thank all the guests for patronising them that evening. Everyone in the restaurant had to clap their hands altogether real loud in between shouts of Japanese led by the chefs. It was really interesting!

Finally, we were served our fruit desserts which were very sweet and fresh mangoes and honeydews (@ S$6 per pax). In total, we spent about S$70++ per person. We really enjoyed ourselves a great deal, having thoroughly soaked into the boisterous Japanese dining experience there. We are sure we would be back there for a great lovely treat again! It’s a truly rare and uniquely Japanese experience which is quite difficult to find in Singapore. Strongly recommended for those special occasions where you are prepared to fork out for great food and experience!

Akanoya Robatakayi is located at 1 Tanglin Road, #01-01, Orchard Parade Hotel, Singapore 247905. Opening hours from 630pm to 130am. Tel: 6732 1866. Best to call to reserve a place as seats are limited.

Sushi-Tei

Shopping at Raffles City, Ted and me visited the Sushi-Tei located on the third floor just beside the new revamped Food Court. This restaurant appears well hidden in a corner. Stepping into the restaurant, one is transported to a calm and lovely warm modern ambience. We were shown to the tables beside the sushi belt. The season of the month is spring (March-May 09) and the restaurant has welcomed spring with a menu offering a flavour of sakura and healthy, nutritious food.

As recommended, we ordered the special Collagen Salmon Belly and Hotate (Scallops) Nabe (hotpot) @ S$18. We went for the shoyu-flavour among the choice of soup base of miso, shoyu or spicy. It was simply delicious. However, I found the salmon belly a little too fatty for my taste. I would have preferred the other Collagen Ama-ebi (Prawn) and Akai (Clamps) Nabe which is also at the same cost, if not for Ted who does not like ama-ebi.

We also had the (half boiled) Aburi Salmon Roll at S$12 (for 8 pieces) and also the fresh mix Sushi Salad at $6. Both of which were great meal of freshness and nutrition! I strongly recommend for all to try. The collagen special soup menu is only for this season so do try it once before its gone! Accordingly collagen aids in beauty and youthfulness, it is nutritious and full of natural protein. It also relieves symptoms of arthritis, transmit tension in tendon and does various wonders to skin and bones. Of course, it improves skin elasticity, firmness and complexion, smooth wrinkles and fine lines - making a great beauty booster. Comparing to the Sakae Sushi outlets, I find the sushi and sashimi here much more fresh and of more variety!

Sushi-Tei has many outlets all over Singapore. The one we visited is at 252 North Bridge Road #03-13/14 Raffles City Shopping Centre Singapore 179103 Tel: 6334 7887.

Spring Court Restaurant

How did you spend Mother’s Day? Where did you bring mom to?

Spring Court Restaurant is established since 1929. A place renowned for its Cantonese cuisine and fresh seafood, it was originally located at Great World then shifted to Chinatown but they later moved to East Coast before finally relocating back to Chinatown.

To celebrate Mother’s Day, we thought this restaurant would an appropriate wonderful place to gather and have some good food together. We were early that Sunday morning so there was not much crowd when we arrived. We had no time to plan in advance, so we were expecting to fall prey to the commercialised efforts of the restaurants in the name of celebrating Mother’s Day. Surprisingly, when we visited the Spring Court Restaurant at Chinatown, it was not what we expected.

Selected dim-sum was available on the menu and price was quite reasonable, ranging from $3.80 to about $5. The usual menu was slightly changed to include some specialties just for mother’s day. Of course, some of the more common cuisines were also excluded.

We started the meal with many dim-sums which were pretty good in my opinion. In particular, I especially liked the crispy Fried Mango Prawn Roll (@ S$3.80) which was served with fruit mayonnaise. The Deep Fried Beancurd Skin Roll (@ S$3.80) was also very crispy. The Beijing-style Dumplings (@ S$3.80) were very delicately made – about 4 pieces of tiny dumplings dipped in vinegar sauce and we were sure pleased to have ordered it. Steamed soft and wonderfully done.

We also had the Roasted Chicken (@ S$28) which was crispy golden yellow and crunchy delicious. The Bamboo Consumme Assorted Vegetarian dish (@ S$28) was Ted’s favourite. It consists of spinach cooked with mushrooms, black moss, bamboo consumme and many other vegetarian ingredients. It was a heavenly mix! To our surprise, we were also treated to a special promotion of a serving of the Beijing Roast Duck @ S$0.80 !! (This is a special promotion due to their 80th anniversary) The duck was real crispy and delicious.

As a finale, we tried the Panfried Hor-fun (@S$22). This one is definitely highly recommended in my opinion. The hor-fun is soft and is covered nicely with the egg and other ingredients such as prawn, vegetables over it. See above snapshots for what we had!

Spring Court Restaurant is at 52-56 Upper Cross Street, Singapore 058348 Tel: 6449 5030.

Fragrance Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodles

This is another fantastic place to go if you are craving for soya sauce chicken! One of my favourite. The stall owner is a Hongkonger couple who had been living in Singapore for many years now. Of course, needless to say, they are the chef too. The husband who is the chef prepares their specialty soya sauce chicken using the soya sauce to marinate the chicken. Delicious.

Few years back, this stall was discovered by a Channel 8 Chinese TV-Entertainment Program known as "Chen Ren Zha Zhi" (translated from chinese as "Adult Magazine") where their delicious soya sauce chicken was recommended by the comperes. Back then they were located inside the Bugis Food Centre and I had been a follower of theirs since then. Due to the changes at the Bugis Food Centre, the stall moved to this coffeeshop "Hong Joo Food Centre". Despite hidden within this coffeeshop, the delicious stall still holds their niche well and fans still flock the place in search of their soya sauce chicken. The only thing that might have not been so favourable for them after their relocation is the fact that they are nestled among the so many vegetarian stalls (because of the nearby famous tourist attraction "Kwanying Goddess Temple") and some people may tend to shun them at this buddhist-vegetarian-influenced place.

In any case, i still had to go for my favourite soya sauce chicken rice despite the vegetarian-buddhist environment! One of the thing that I like about this stall is the well boiled Cantonese soup that comes together with the chicken rice. They sometimes serve groundnut boiled in papaya soup or blacknut soup. All of them are nutritious soup and the best part is that they are serve together as part of the meal. The couple also used to offer a very big serving of rice so that customers dont need to fork out more money to order more plates of rice. Very thoughtful! However, over time especially due to the hike of rice price then, this practice seems slowly fading. For a 2-person meal, it only costs S$8 in total.

All in all, the chicken they serve here is soft, tender and delicious. Very well done, well marinated in the genuine black soya sauce. Their soya sauce is specially brewed and they are poured over the meat of the chicken for it to fully absorb the sauce thus, gaining the goodness and taste of it. All the chicken served are boneless as they will de-bone it for you. The soya sauce tastes great and the chilli is good too. Not only does the presentation look good, the food tastes just as great (just like its chinese name) Rice is also very fragrant, need I say more? I need 2 or 3 plates of rice every time I go there. I dont know about you ...

Fragrance Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodles is at Hong Joo Food Centre, Rowell Centre, Singapore.