The stable of Ichiban restaurants can always be relied upon to serve up affordable, localized version of Japanese staples ranging from sushi and bentos to tempura and donburi. Ichiban Boshi has recently revamped and expanded its menu, introducing many new Japanese tapas or appetizers. We dropped by to check out their new items and the petite portions all added up to quite a filling meal.

The Chicken Salad $5.90++ was tasty with lettuce, shredded lean chicken and strips of bell peppers tossed in a creamy sesame dressing.

The Dobinmushi $7.90++ looked enticing on the glossy menu but turned out to be disappointing and not worth trying. Photo was deceptive and the portion was pathetic. Dashi broth was bland, the lone shrimp was not as fresh as it should be and horrors, it had shredded surimi crab stick instead of enoki mushrooms (see pix).

The crispy sweet amebi shrimp $5.90++ was light and morerish, but the chicken kushi $2.30++ per skewer was run of the mill.

The rice was served in a hot stone bowl with a braised egg and green tea on the side. Pouring the tea into the bowl sizzled and warmed up the egg. Satisfying and filling as a meal on its own especially in the chilly air conditioned restaurant. Choice of toppings include sliced kurobata pork, isari clams, minced salmon and yasai tempura. We picked the salmon and tempura rice bowls. Salmon was good but pouring the tea over the tempura-topped rice caused the vegetable fritters to turn soggy defeating the purpose of ordering tempura.

We ordered the momo peach ice cream $7.90++ to share. A little disappointing as it was just plain vanilla ice cream encased in a peach-shaped white chocolate shell. No trace or fragrance of peach at all, so this dessert is all form no 'substance'.

Service by the foreign crew was good, and the environment was pleasant and quiet due to its CBD location devoid of families.

Pizza Hut has just launched its new range of Hawaiian pizzas with a one for one promotion on regular sized 9.5inch pizzas. This is great value as each pizza is divided into six slices making it possible for three or four persons to share two pizzas, yielding four or three slices per person respectively. At only $17.90++ with one for one promotion, each person pays only $5.30 (group of four diners) or $7.00 nett (group of three). Iced water is served free of charge. Diners can choose any two from their classic range (such as Pepperoni Pizza, Veggie Delite Pizza) and/or their Hawaiian themed pizzas viz:
• Hawaiian Pizza (ham, pineapple and mozzarella);
• Spicy Waikiki (new flavour with toppings of ham, pepperoni, pineapple and mozzarella);
• Aloha Chicken (new flavour with toppings of roast chicken strips, ham, pineapple or mozzarella).
For the pizza base, choose either pan pizza or thin crust pizza (stuffed crust pizzas are excluded from the promotion).

Although the waiter who took our orders primed us to expect about 20minutes' wait for our pizzas, the first pizza arrived within 15minutes later.

Comments on our pizzas:
• Aloha Chicken, thin crust - the toppings were generous and it was bliss to bite into the light and crunchy thin crust.
• Spicy Waikiki, thin crust - not spicy at all, a tad dry but still tasty, though it had less toppings than the Aloha Chicken.
• Curry Chicken, thin crust - this was yummy, oozing with cheese and topped with generous chunks of lean curried chicken.
• Aloha Chicken, pan pizza - best eaten hot as the dough turned too chewy upon cooling. Not enough cheese on the pan pizza so this new flavour works better on the thin crust version.

My dining companions agreed that the two new Hawaiian themed pizzas Aloha Chicken and Waikiki were tasty - lighter and less cheesy than the typical Pizza Hut pies. As they had less cheese, the thin crust version of the pizzas tasted better than the pan pizzas. The latter, due to the relatively thicker crust, requires a heavier cheese topping. Cheese lovers should stick to the classic/original Hawaiian Pizza which has more cheese than the two new flavours Aloha Chicken and Waikiki. Curry Chicken Pizza, either thin crust or regular pan, is a crowd pleaser that cannot go wrong.Throughout our meal, the cheerful and pleasant crew topped up our glasses of iced water without being asked.

DTF has a no reservations policy and all members of the group must be present before the waitress will assign a table. Locals are familiar with DTF's house rules but for the uninitiated, tge Michelin starred restaurant's seemingly inflexible attitude towardscustomers may seem high handed and offensive. More so at Bedok Mall which is teeming withhordes of people on weekends while its corridors are very narrow. Think long narrow corridors with plenty of small shops as in older shopping centres like City Plaza, Far East Plaza and Queensway. Bedok Mall is compact and tightly laid out, unlike its equally new sister Westgate which is also operated by CapitaMalls Group. There is scant space for diners waiting for a table and we had to circle around B1 whilwle waiting for our Q no to be displayed.

Once we were seated, service was brisk and we were primed on 20mins wait for our food.The kitchen staff was racing against the clock to handcraft the bite sized dumplings, put them in bamboo baskets and steam them in bulk to meet the orders by endless stream of hungry customers. Skip the signature minced pork xiaolongbao as DTF's branches in Sg do not execute them as well as the DTF's in Taiwan. In Sg, the dumpling dough/skin is not as fine and therelatively larger proportion of fatty pork used in DTF's xiaolongbao fillings as compared with other restaurants in the same genre such as Imperial Treasure and Paradise Dynasty, results in DTF's xiaolongbaoleaving diners with a mildly unpleasant porky aftertaste in the mouth after every bite. Order the
Chicken xiaolong bao $9.80++ like we did and you can't go wrong.

Steamed pork and shrimp dumpling or jiao zi $10.30++ that we ordered were tasty as well, juicy dumplings filled with half a tiny shrimp and minced pork. Forget the steamed pork and vegetable jiao zi as there is hardly any meat and the minced leafy veg filling tasted limp and bland. Chicken xiaolong bao, shrimp & pork jiao zi together with a plate of their de riguer egg fried rice $6.80++ and Sichuan style sour spicy soup $6++ were more than sufficient to leave the three of us satiated. Our only grouse was that the chinese tea served here was way too dilute almost like tea tinted water without any tea flavour.

We did not fancy the heavy, sucrose-rich and over the top muffins and cakes to go with our Starbucks coffee, so we were glad we didn't buy any because we later stumbled upon a tiny Ritz shop among a cluster of others selling pastries and other goodies for takeaway. The mini strudels at Ritz are big enough to be sliced up and shared by a couple or even among 3 pax. These were attractively priced at only $4.50 per mini strudel which was a good 9" long. We had a hard time choosing between original apple strudel, blueberry strudel, mango strudel and peach strudel. We couldn't resist buying twotypes if mini strudel and still had change left for $10. The strudel pastry was light as air crispy, the custard was creamy and smooth without being cloyingly sweet while the fruit filling provided a refreshing contrast of textures. The apple strudel was nice but I would have preferred bigger chunks of stewed apple as opposed to tiny diced pieces. The peach strudel was fautless. For the wallet-friendly prices, the use of canned as opposed to fresh/seasonal peaches was perfectly acceptable..

It is easy to miss this tiny cafe as it is licated in an obscure, isolated corner of Bedok Mall. We thought a short narrow escalator would lead to the car park but it led us to a long makeshift wall which faces a row of several tiny F&B outlets, among them Mr Bean Cafe. Good to know that their original soya bean curd - smooth melt-in-the-mouth texture and freshly prepared from imported non-GMO soybeans, can still be had for only $1.30 a tub. Thumbs up.