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During our stay in Sentosa, Mic had made reservations at a new and nice Japanese (fine-dining) restaurant, Santaro Japanese Restaurant at Amara Sanctuary Resort Singapore. The 10 course set dinner menu was not fixed but decided by the chef, therefore we are not too sure either what we had.
1) The first course was a tuna, ham and crabsmeat salad that was refreshing to the tastebud.
First off, I would like to state a big caveat to this review, which is that the subjectivity in this post is probably much greater than in my other posts. In fact, it’s a little strange to write a food review about a Japanese izakaya, or pub, since it is more often than not the place where the nijikai (二次会) takes places. On a Friday night, you’d probably just grab your dinner at a standing ramen stole before heading to this, your second stop of the night, and thus the name. More often than not, what you’d order can probably be referred to just as finger food to complement the more serious undertaking of alcohol consumption.
Ueno in my opinion, is a great place to set up base camp in any trip that centers on the Kanto region. The bullet and airport trains run through, there’s shopping around the area, there’s a nice bakery (remember to go after 9.30 p.m. for discounts!); this time round, I also discovered a nice family restaurant, CASA Restaurant, that serves up Western and Japanese cuisine.
Takayama City is a place that doesn’t appear to see much activity once it hits 5 p.m. in the afternoon, which makes it a little hard to scout for a dinner venue. I did notice some hustle and bustle nearer to the eastern part of JR Takayama Station, where Takayama Jinya and several ryokan are located, but being accompanied by no one but myself, a round at the izakaya seemed extravagant. So I settled for this place called Manpuku-tei (まんぷく亭) in Takayama’s shopping district, north-west of JR Takayama Station.
During my time in Takayama City, in Japan’s Hida Area, I was lucky to stay in a hotel which hosted a restaurant good enough to make it into the Japanese guide books as a place specializing in charcoal-grilled cuisine. Well, I was staying at the Hida Takayama Washington Hotel Plaza, just across from JR Takayama Station, and the restaurant in question is called Roen (炉宴).
When good friend alabranma told me he was travelling again to Japan, I decided to ask a favour to help write some reviews on some of the more interesting places to visit. He’s a true-blue academic pursuing his interests in all things Japanese and has made trips almost annually to some pretty interesting locations.
I was more or less expecting 1 or 2 reviews since most people don’t like to do work during a holiday but last night, he zipped up 5 reviews and some great photos to me after his return to Singapore. Would like to thank him for making the effort and welcome him to the site. Looks like we’re going to have our resident Japan expert.
You can find more of his articles here.
It’s a sign of the times when you walk through Japan’s Narita Airport loo
king for food, and half of the six restaurants you pass by are selling Chinese food. Discussions on the mass migration of people aside, I was able to locate this place called SUIHOU (翠鳳), the Japanese reading for Jade Phoenix, which promised to fill this tired traveler up. I’m being literal here – the display outside actually had a sign that said the rather large bowl filled with noodles was what you would actually get. The meal in question here was the Weekly Noodle Set (週替り麺セット). I’m not too sure how the system works, other than the fact the type of noodles and accompanying rice dish may differ from day to day. Well, as long as the volume is the same, I’ll gobble down whatever they bring out.
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Quite a different place to makan since this isn’t a fancy restaurant or cafe but rather a very friendly owner’s house.
It is common practice in Kukup for the homeowners to upgrade their homes into “villas” (something like a bungalow chalet) and rent them out to weekend holidayers.
For 1 night weekend stay at Kukup Venice, each of us (min. 16 pax) was charged RM 70 for 1 lunch (fried bee hoon and curry chicken), 1 tea (green bean soup and fried prawn pancake), 1 bbq dinner, 1 breakfast (fried fritters, nasi lemak and kopi-O) and 1 seafood lunch (transport cost not included).
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Just south of Pontian, Johor is the small fishing village of Kukup Laut. On our way to our weekend stay, we came across a family selling multi-coloured jellies much like “ang gu kueh”. After trying getting a box to sample, we found that the jelly had fillings ranging from pineapple (yellow), peanut (orange), corn (green), green bean (white & purple).
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I brought my family to this Chinese restaurant near Serangoon Garden Way (beside Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf) for Fathers’ Day celebration.
The reason why I decided on this restaurant is purely because of its beautiful name. For those who watch Gilmore Girls will be familiar with its name. Dragonfly Inn is also the name of the little inn that Lorelai and Sookie own. When I first heard about this restaurant, I wanted to try it out with Mic and thought maybe this would be a good occasion to try it.
