http://www.umakemehungry.com/2017/05/nobiro-japanese-restaurant-sake-bar.html

Up in the quiet residential of Faber Hill, you will get to find a hidden gem Japanese Restaurant humbly located along the shophouses stretch. However if you are familar with Buck Tile St Cafe, they are just side by side and you definitely won't miss it.


The Izakaya Style Restaurant has an extensive menu serving Japanese dishes, including western dishes, sashimi as well as grill delights and its worth a visit especially you want to have some taste of Japanese Sake away from the crowd. You might be surprised they have as many as 50 types of Sake stored in their chiller. Impressive!

Interior is modernly furnished and there is even a game corner right after the entrance for guests to enjoy it while waiting for their food.


We ordered the recommended home made Honey Lemon drink.


Under the Mains in the menu, we found this special combination of Bacon, Prawn and Cabbage Omlette. Though it may be quite an average item for some but credits goes to the smooth runny egg omlette, wrapping up the shredded cabbages underneath. With it marrying the sweet sauce, mayonnaise and bonito flakes, everything was yummy!

A recommended item on their menu. The texture of Grilled Squid was tender and packed with slight hint of smoky flavour. Squeeze some lemon juices on top on the Squid and dabbed them onto the Mayonnaise and enjoy!

With a straight forward setup and presentation, the Hiyashi Soba is quite ordinary.

Texture of noodles is alright, dip these cold soba into the soba sauce.

Serving of Oyako don was done on a porcelain bowl, covered with a big wooden spoon placed by the side. Enjoy the aroma of Oyakodon rushes in as you open the bowl cover.


Light flavours of rice with flavourful egg and yellow onion. What a comfortable homely meal we had in Nobiro. It is a tad too light in flavours as we preferred it to be saltier in taste but no worries in my opinion it is still as good.



We are very please to have Yakitori fresh from the charcoal grill and ordered Omakase Set B at $30.80 which consist of 10 Sticks of Yakitori base on Nobiro's Selection. However you can also go for their Omakase Set A at $15.80 for 5 sticks of Yakitori.

Servings were split into 3 parts and were served separately too. The first plate consist of Chilli red grilled tomato, leeks and mushrooms. Simply love these freshly prepared grill vegetables especially in its smoky flavours.


Covered with a layer of teriyaki sauce, these tender chicken thigh in its smokiness taste is awesome.

Not a fan of chicken liver but I would say this is very well executed with the terkiyaki sauce.


The last portion of the Yakitori were served in a plate of 5 with a lemon wedge by the side. For those who don't really like the innards taste, the lemon juice can be of a very good way to reduce it. Let's take a look at the items...


Chicken Wings on a stick?


Loving the bite down the bacon into the juicy enoki mushroom. The smoky flavours were great!




Nobiro Japanese is worth a visit and if you are nearby in the day, they have affordable lunch bento meals special for you guys.

http://www.umakemehungry.com/2017/02/buttergrill.html

Though some said Valentine's Day is quite commercialized, we still manage to grab a place for dinner in Buttergrill along the busy Tanjong Pagar Road. Sinking into the atmosphere, seeing lovely couples in all corners of the restaurant enjoying their dates.

Buttergrill is a 2 storey high place for drinks and dining. They are unique as they have different kinds of home made butter. Even before entering into the restaurant I had absolutely no knowledge of it .

We started ordering beverages while waiting for the busy kitchen to have our dishes whipped up. Berries Power tasted refreshing and topped with Chia Seeds.

Healthy Lychee flavour mint drink which was recommended by the server was topped with Chia Seeds too.

Pu Pu Platter which is best to share among 3-4 pax come with a slab of Angus Sirloin that we requested to cook to Medium Well. It also includes a chicken leg, Norwegian Salmon Fillet and Whole King Prawn. Sides like scoop of mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables drizzeld with vinaigrette were served together.

With so many home made butters to choose from, we decided on the French Butter as it was best recommended for meat. The servings were already spread with our choice of butter and the spare are given on a saucer.

French Butter Being a moderate-size eater, we manage this platter quite well and finished them up even though we are just 2 pax, perhaps we did not order any other sides. Love the criss cross grill lines on the salmon fillet, remember to squeeze some lemon juice over it to remove its fishy smell.

Chicken thigh on the other hand was rather bland in taste, lacking the punch of marination. Prawns were fresh and served with caviar.

Food in overall is rather decent, nothing to shout at. Nevertheless, their grill with different homemade butter is still a different style of marketing that will attract curious foodie like us to try it out.

http://www.umakemehungry.com/2017/04/ronin.html

If you have not take a look closely, you will have miss out Ronin which is located at 17 Hong Kong Street. The facade is pretty usual like a office building and has no attention catching signage that make the place known.

As I went into the cafe, I was kind of shock with its crowd. Just imagine a place without signage, this cafe is surely doing good! The place was furnished in the industrial theme, dimmed but cosy with Menu attached to the wall. If you are looking for a great variety of food, then this place isn't quite for you as their menu is short and sweet, straight forward.

Be prepared to share tables with someone as I was told that the place was bustling with Cafehoppers during the weekends especially. Long Black is served in Hot and Cold with a dollar difference. Long Black has nothing to rave about as it quite ordinary. Perhaps we should have ordered their signature drink "Wicked".

 While the non coffee me prefers Matcha-Toned, it reminded me of my capsule drink from Dolce Gusto. The fun part about this is that those Green Matcha were sticked onto the wall of the glass and in order to experience the drink fully, I have to make a good stir in the cup.

Choice of Toast can be chosen, either Sourdough or seeded with Butter & Jam Lady Jam. We had something kind of mix and match on the menu with Eggs on our toast, scambled added with Pork Sausage and Portobello mushroom. Pretty ordinary.

Dirty Ronin does look dirty spreading on the Sandwiches and I guess perhaps this is how they name it after. These are quite challenging for fork and knife and I decided to use it bare hands. Sandwiches ingredients includes Chorizo (pork sausage), Emmental Cheese, soft egg, Miso Mayo and lettuce. The sandwiches wasn't quite for me as it was quite hard.

Overall, I felt that the place is more for coffee lover and nothing much about the food as menu was not extensive for us.

http://www.umakemehungry.com/2017/04/violet-oon-satay-bar-grill.html

Cheers to April as April is always Fabulous with food. I have heard of Violet Oon's Peranakan Food and always wanted to try thus wish was granted. However instead of going to the one located in Bukit Timah, we went to their latest restaurant located in Clarke Quay.    
I was not surprise of its interior as it was kind of along the line where a Bar's ambiance will be liked. However it still have a good feel of Peranakan Style (old school) amongst those modern furnishing, decking out in dark woods and authentic Peranakan tiles. Overall the place reminds me of their rich culture but with a revamp into today's settings.If you are hankering for Violet Oon's Peranankan Cuisine like me, fret not. Even though this is a bar and grill, they do incorporate many popular dishes like Ayam Buah Keluah, Kueh Pie Tee, Ngoh Hiang etc.     
Suitable for vegetarian, these Fried Bean Curds were served with julienned cucumber and fresh beansprouts. Bean Curds were sliced and topped with very yummy Violet's Signature sweet and tangy peanut sauce. A perfect go to start your meal if you are looking for some appetizers.

 One of the best Ngoh Hiang i ever had for it was not oily and these Ngoh Hiang tastes refreshing with the crispy deep fried bean curd skin cradling ingredients like prawn, crab and minced chicken with water chestnut seasoning as well as five spice powder. Dipped this fried Ngoh Hiang into the given sweet sauce or Sambal Belachan. It also goes well with the seasoned sides - Achar.

     
When it comes to Nonya Food, this is the classic. Spicy and tangy chicken stew with a few Buah Keluak nuts infused with fresh root spices of Lengkuas and Tumeric. I like that the Chicken meat was tender with generous serving of Buah Keluak however it still lacked the good taste that i find on the meat. Could it be the strong tumeric soury taste had overtaken the authentic taste?

 
 With a variety of Satay to choose from, each type of meat comes in a plate of 3. We had the large chicken chunks marinated in spices, grilled and served with thick flavour pack spicy peanut toasted sauce topped with freshly grated pineapple, steam rice cake, cucumber and red onion. Recommended! 
 You cant miss out this classic dish from the menu! I would say the all time favourite to order. This festive dish of braised mixed vegetables and bean curd skin in a rich prawn bisque is really awesome, love the part where the mushrooms were so juicy and plump. It may seems a bit oily but best of all its not cloying at all.

 Choose between Nasi Lemak Rice and Jasmine Rice. The Nasi Lemak Rice is served elegantly in a small little white pot, packed with alluring fragrance of the coconut milk.

 Loving the sweet ending to our meal with a scoop of Gula Melaka and coconut ice cream drenched with Gula Melaka syrup. What makes the good experience will be the toasted cashew nuts toppings.

 
 Overall, I find that it is a good place for gathering as well as chill out. The ambiance makes alot of difference and you will never feel as if like you are visiting the usual traditional Peranakan Place.

http://www.umakemehungry.com/2016/08/boon-tong-kee-kway-chap.html

Heading to Zion Riverside Food Centre, we decided to give the usual Char Kway Teow Stall a miss and go for something different. Reading the Signboard twice to confirm what I had misread during my first glimpse as I had associated the name with Boon Tiong Kee, the famous chicken rice restaurant. There is a few Kway Chap stall but being the typical Singaporean, we joined the stall with the queue as compare to the other which had none.

A good wait for about 20 minutes in the queue before we got our set of Kway Chap for 2 pax at $10. Portion of the set looks appetizing with big bowls of Kway in brown soup and ingredients being stacked up nicely with 2 kinds of chilli provided. Portion was worth $10 indeed.

Kway Chap Set for 2 - $10

No pork belly and no skin in the platter and in fact the interesting find in the platter was pork trotter meat which was so tender and served in smashed form among the savoury sweet braised sauce. Braised eggs, tender duck meat, intestines and Tau Gua was provided. I would say that I'm rather impress by the stack of food which was neatly placed in a sequence besides having a well prepared portion of innards without leaving any trace of smell.

I love the Kway for its soup has a slight taste of the herbs and not salty. Portion is definitely not for baby's stomach .
It will be good to drop by again and have a taste of its competing stall right on the left side.