I had great ramen at The Central's Santouka, so when I found that there was another outlet at Cuppage, I couldn't wait to try it. Just my luck, a couple of friends and I were around Somerset and looking for a lunch spot, so off to Santouka we went!

Whenever I go to ramen places, I always get their signature; I feel that from their signature/ original ramen dishes, you can more or less gauge the standard of the ramen. Thus at Santouka, I got the Shio ramen- the salt based ramen. And as always, I got a serving of the tamago ^^

I was really hungry so I couldn't wait for my ramen to arrive, and when it did it smelled sooooo good I almost forgot to take a picture of it first. Anyways, I was super excited and quickly dug in after taking the mandatory shot. At first slurp though, I was disappointed. The noodles were too soggy for my liking, and they were thicker than I remember (or expected). I like my ramen a little like mee kia, thin and springy, so that was a disappointment as it felt like instant noodles to me :/ The soup was slightly better, the chicken broth was tasty and flavourful, albeit a little salty, but it didn't make up for the ramen

I think what saved the day though, was the tamago- the egg that comes with ramen. I don't know how exactly it's made, nor how to make it, but I die for a perfect tamago; soft and creamy egg white and an almost liquid gold egg yolk that spills out when you bite into it. And boy oh boy, Santouka does a GREAT tamago.Their tamago is the perfect tamago; heaven in a bite. It's slight sweetness complements the salty soup so well, and Santouka gave a whole egg, unlike certain other ramen places (coughippudocough) so that I could enjoy my eggy goodness more.

While their ramen isn't as great as I remember, Santouka's tamago is perfect and I sincerely think that I might go back, just for the tamago heheh^^

I've heard from somewhere that &made was named so as to sound like the word 'homemade' in a french accent, after it's French creator. Well, being a restaurant of celebrity chef Bruno Mernard, I wanted to see if it was really all that great, so when my friend wanted to meet up for lunch around the area, I volunteered &made.

The decor of the place is a mix of modern and quirky, with colour tones of red, black and white. We were seated at the far end of the restaurant, so getting the attention of the servers' was alittle hard, even though there wasn't much of a crowd, but when we did get their attention they were attentive and enthusiastic to serve us.

My friend, being the salmon fanatic that she is, got the Honey Salmon burger, which was basically seared salmon with a honey mustard, dill and tatar sauce, while me, being a nuisance, decided to create my own burger. I chose a beef patty and paired it with shitake mushrooms and a fried egg, as I had had great breakfast burgers before with beautiful sunny-side-ups and I had hoped to recreate that experience. All the burgers on the menu came with a side of fries, which meant that my friend got to have fries while I didn't, but that was fine.

Our burgers arrived relatively quickly, and they definitely looked good.The Honey Salmon burger, which looked great and according to my friend, yummy! (although she does like anything salmon so we don't know how accurate her judgement is.) She also kept munching on the fries, and she's rather picky about carbs, so it must mean that they were good- thick and well fried, but soft and still potato-y when you bite into it.As for my burger, well... I'm undecided. First things first, my egg was NOT a sunny-side-up. This might have been a misunderstanding on my part, as fried eggs (as I belatedly realised) are not necessarily sunny-side-ups. However, I had expected one so I was rather disappointed. The mushrooms were done well though, with the earthy taste coming through nicely, and the beef patty was fine- but not amazing. It was seasoned well and it wasn't too well done too, but I felt it wasn't very juicy, neither was it super flavourful.

All in all, while the presentation was good and the burgers weren't bad, they weren't amazing either? My burger was $17, which I felt was okay for the reputation and ambience, but again, I probably will not be coming back :/

KOREAN BBQ! I recently went to Tanjong Pagar for a korean bbq fix; I was hoping that 2 Day 1 Night would miraculously be empty at 6pm on a Saturday night, silly me. In the end, my friend and I ended up at His.tori, another Korean BBQ place just a few doors down.

I am traditionally suspicious of new things, and His.tori was no exception. Having only been to 2 Day 1 Night, I was worried that this new place would disappoint me. Moreover, the service staff that greeted me was, horror of horrors, not Korean! LOL anyway after we settled down, I went to check out the buffet spread.

The spread was similar in layout and content to that of other Korean BBQ restaurants, and was overall quite acceptable and tasty. However, I felt that the pork belly at His.tori wasn't as good as other places ie. 2 Day 1 Night, as it was still very frozen even as it was on display, and the frozen food taste was quite strong. Also, they don't have the cold barley drink that I really like; I find that it helps to cleanse my palate after all the meat.

While there were minor disappointments, on the whole the meal was quite satisfactory indeed, and it is slightly cheaper as well I think, at $24 per person for dinner. I left smelling slightly of BBQ, stuffed to the brim, and rather happy.