Ikoi Japanese Restaurant is a pretty well-known restaurant for Japanese buffet aficionados, who consider this to be one of the better places for having Japanese buffet. It is different from the usual Japanese buffet restaurant as it is an a la carte buffet restaurant where you sit at the table and keep ordering like the food is free.

Overall I felt the sashimi was pretty good but the rest of the food was just average only, not worth returning again for it. They also gave lots of complimentary soups, no doubt to fill up my stomach before I can order everything! Overall, I’ll never come back to Ikoi again. It really failed to live up to its hype.

Singapura Restaurant is really one of those old school Chinese restaurants which look like it was stuck back in the 90s. The food is also similarly traditional, in fact this was the restaurant that supposedly introduced cold crabs to Singapore! Their clientele is also pretty famous, one can see photos of Fann Wong and Christopher Lee, and even a recent one of SM Goh!

The food here is nothing fantastic actually. But one of their specialties, the prawn roll, was actually pretty awesome stuff. They rolled up a bunch of solid whole prawns in pig caul and then fried it. The result is a crispy and flavourful outer skin encasing the crunchy and juicy prawns inside. Their honey pork ribs are not too bad either but there is a strange taste to it, perhaps some spices they added to it. The meat falls off the bone fairly easily as well.

Overall not really a place that I'd return to, their hype didn't justify the small servings and high prices.

Botak Jones brings classic American dining to the neighborhoods of Clementi and when I'm always thinking of what to eat and no answer comes to mind, Botak Jones comes up as a good place to go since it's near my home and the food is pretty good too. Not to mention that you don't really have to wait very long.

This time I tried having the jumbo chicken hotdog and the steak. The hotdog was actually quite huge, true to its name. Tastewise, it wasn't really very special, just a normal jumbo chicken hotdog with a slightly spicy hint to it. The steak on the other hand had more flavour, being chargrilled nicely. It wasn't as good as eating steak at a proper steakhouse but at this level it was pretty darn good. Only thing was that the sauce didn't really do anything to enhance the flavour of the steak.

Wave House Sentosa is the fourth and newest installation in an archipelago of Wave Houses where giant artificial waves roll endlessly for aspiring surfers to try their luck. In the midst of all this surfing, Wave House Sentosa also has their own restaurant, bringing new Californian Asian cuisine to surfers taking a break.

The chicken drumlets were fairly decent but nothing to shout about. We also had a prime rack of lamb with vegetable risotto. The lamb was actually quite tasty but there was about bit of toughness here and there. The pan-seared scallops were excellent, seared perfectly on the outside with an exotic taste yet the insides were still tender. Finally the lava chocolate cake oozed out chocolate like a proper lava cake should, and it had an intense flavour to it as well.

However on the overall, it would be a place that I would come to just for dining out, but perhaps if I was surfing the waves at the Wavehouse, I might consider eating at their restaurant.

Ivins is a classic old-time favourite for Peranakan food and many families have been patronising their humble establishment for a long time, including mine. They’ve had a long time to build up their following and you can see that if you turn up late for dinner. There’ll be a huge throng of hungry people milling around outside, just waiting their turn to get in.

Honey pork – Lean pork strips stir-fried in special honey sauce
This is something I always order when I eat here. Sadly it is never served freshly cooked, so the meat tends to be tough but it still tastes delicious with that sweet caramelised crust.

Bakwan kepeting – Pork and crabmeat meatball with bamboo shoots in a clear soup
Another one of my favourite dishes, I always order 2 bowls of it because I love it so much! The delicious and hearty soup gets its characteristic flavour from the sautéed garlic and bamboo shoots.

Stuffed chilli selar – Crispy deep-fried selar fish stuffed with sambal chilli
This dish is priced according to the market rate everyday so the bigger the fish, the more expensive it gets. My family loves this dish but I don’t eat it so I can’t comment. But hey, the taste of fried fish with sambal chilli inside is easy to imagine.