See my full reviews & photos here=http://chefquak.com/2015/05/31/6-course-wagyu-or-seafood-set-en-grill-bar-on-28may2015/
saw on groupon a S$38 6-course wagyu set at en grill & bar & decided to go with some friends. i made sure i made the reservations before i bought the groupon deal. 3 of us picked the wagyu set (okinawan wagyu) & 1 the seafood set.

6-course wagyu set
we started with the standard japanese salad with ponzu dressing which i always like. there were like 3 thin slices of wagyu, quite marbled & sweet i guess, not much impact. very tiny helpings. they supposed to add up i guess.

wagyu meatball was ok. the crouton went pretty ok with the tomato sauce too.wagyu tataki was excellent, marbled & flavourful. the misoyaki? quite odd..didn’t taste anything, like any roast beef.

this was quite excellent! liked the roasted sweet potatoes. the wagyu was well marbled & tasty. not everyone agreed though. 1 friend thought it tasted like satay beef. i didn’t feel that though, & the beef was great for my taste. and the grilled onions infused much of the taste, very good. didn’t feel much of the foie gras, maybe we were busy talking.

the wagyu mini burger was excellent!^^i can have this again. good that it’s so small, i finished all the carbs. haha!

a slightly thicker slice!don’t know about the orange sauce. the wagyu was well marbled & flavourful. i felt the orange sauce diminished it. not that the sauce was not nice, but i rather have the grilled, intense wagyu taste.

it’s more braised beef than ragout tagliatelle. i guess it was ragout sauce + braised beef. well, as good as a braised wagyu could be. very nice pasta really.

6-course seafood set
1 friend had the 6-course seafood set. didn’t ask but it looked like the same salad with cube-cut sashimi maguro, salmon & maybe kajiki (swordfish). looked good.

this looked very appetising. the sliced scallop with plum jelly on cucumber quite interesting.

the friend was very impressed with the chicken mini burger she mentioned several times during dinner & afterwards on FB that it was one of the best burgers she had.^^the gindara like some of the wagyu servings was really thin to feel much impact.

looked like grilled with mentaiko then plated on the shells. if so they should be quite tasty & flavourful.

the uni & ikura capellini was excellent. ^^this the only one from my friend’s set i tasted. very flavourful, matching gordon grill’s and other places. i would be quite happy overall to take this seafood set.

both sets came with cheese cake & yuzu sorbet. the yuzu sorbet was superb, just love it!^^ cheese cake was the usual soft textured japanese cheese cake, which i like also.

overall, it was very good value set for S$38nett. as a great set meal i will certainly do this again.

for the purpose of having a good steak fix, the wagyu set did not really deliver a steak experience, not like what we had at- arossa (closed), or me@oue or at prime society i guess that’s not comparing apple for apple.

I just had salts egg prawns & roast pork烧肉 at a 13pax RI friends G20 dinner at peach garden @ metropolis the evening before, and that was good too.

We can see from the photos that the presentation & colours of the 2 dishes at tunglok were better. taste-wise they were close – the roast pork烧肉 about same, the salted egg prawns maybe tunglok a tad better.

We had the deep-fried cod fillet that seemed to be salted egg flavoured also. it was a well executed dish, somewhat oily. not really a preferred preparation for me.

the same dentist friend & mei mei had a birthday dinner for me in 2013 here at this same tunglok outlet. we had star garoupa fillet with broccoli & lily bulbs & that was very good. of course for me, steamed fish is the best. haha!^^

We had the elegant 三层楼, which is a tunglok long standing dish of fried bean curd on spinach & shimeji mushrooms. there was a newer dish of charcoal tofu with lily bulbs 百合.

Both tofu dishes were very nice!

Next was a string beans with egg plant. just mildly spicy (if any at all) & quite nicely done.

Another dish was a bit unusual combination, some squash with japanese edamame & slightly sweet sauce. can’t figure out this dish.

As it was a birthday, the restaurant provided complimentary longevity buns 流沙寿桃. they were presented together with our own birthday cake, and handwritten “calligraphy” by a talented restaurant manager. haha!

少年壮志当十一
英俊潇洒二十一
状元高中三十一
年龄岁岁四十一
成就显赫五十一
儿孙满堂六十一
回想当年七十一
福禄寿全八十一
享受人生九十一
要找北京101？？？

The message changes according to occasions, so the guy must have a whole bookcase of them. haha!^

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/05/28/a-relaxing-birthday-dinner-at-tunglok-signature-central-on-27may2015/
last evening, we had a birthday dinner for another close friend at tunglok signature @ central on 27.5.2015. ^^

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/05/28/ri-friends-g20-13pax-dinner-at-peach-gardens-metropolis-on-26may2015/

had a fun dinner get together among RI friends at peach garden @ metropolis on 26.5.2015. ^^
many of us had not been to metropolis. 1 who had been associated it with MOE as he is a professor at NUS. for another in a brokerage firm, it was CDP that came to mind.
i parked at the openair carpark before metropolis building, very well located next to the bus stop & MRT. there was a lift that took me to level 2 right by peach garden. :-)
place was new so looked somewhat better than previously at novena & also at miramar. the ala carte buffet menu with 1 free for 3 paying is for steamboat, so we decided to take the ala carte menu instead.
we ordered the roast pork烧肉, a recommended dish. it was good, same standard as the usual places like crystal jade, imperial treasure, tunglok & canton paradise.
we were deciding between peking duck & roast duck. they were same price , i think S$56 for 1 duck. more went for roast duck, which was also my preference.
roast duck was good too, very flavourful & tender, & skin was crisp. it was no better than canton paradise. i think the latter still more fragrant & tasty, my gold standard. haha!^^
soon hock was S$9/100g. we had 12pax (+ one who came a bit later on), so we ordered a 1kg fish.
i always preferred steam for a very fresh live fish to deep-fried, which is like second best. soon hock was excellently done, very tender, smooth, tasty.
i was quite wary i.e. distrustful (& weary) of peach garden’s wasabi prawns. it once came with a ton of green wasabi mayo. but looking back at the 2013 photos actually it was not bad. anyhow we ordered the salted egg prawn, which was very good too, though not quite my favourite. 
a friend ordered the claypot tofu with naibai 奶白. a simple dish but really quite well executed!^^
& we had the chinese cabbage (jinbai 津白i think) with enoki mushrooms. again a very simple dish & very tastefully (both sight & taste) done indeed! 
egg white dried scallops fried rice is quite a standard dish in many good chinese restaurants. i used to love it a lot at imperial treasure nanbei, especially with the xo chilli sauce.
somehow this one didn’t wow, quite average to me, not much wok hae. i think i can do better than that myself. my favourite now is the spicy seafood fried rice at crystal jade la mian xiaolongbao.^^
a friend managed to reach when we were down to the second last dish, so he ordered a fried kuay teow. looked ok i guess, like the usual fare.
the sesame red bean pancake was another standard dish. it was done pretty nicely – look & certainly taste also.
the last item was the custard bun流沙包. pretty good but i kind of tired of them (like i was tired of the crispy charsiew bao at timhowan).
a very enjoyable dinner & evening with friends.
the price came to S$414 nett for 13pax after a 15% credit card discount=S$32nett. of course we did not order much food too. we did not order expensive ingredients so these were average dishes but very well executed. price was ok, about there i guess.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/04/30/good-wagyu-steak-dinner-the-prime-society-on-28apr2015/

had a good wagyu steak dinner with wife at the prime society on 28.4.2015. ^^

it was raining. didn’t feel like cooking, didn’t want to go far so the prime society at dempsey seemed a good choice, only a few steps in the rain with a large golf umbrella.

place was not crowded, less than 50% full at 6.30pm and afterwards. we had a roll & butter.

service was very good. competent, friendly & polite.

my wife was here previously & had the wagyu & oysters. for me, first time. we ordered about the same things. oysters were S$5eaach, so with palate 50% for 2pax, it was S$2.50/oyster, quite doable. they were good too, juicy, plump, tasty, no metallic taste. i can have this again!

we ordered our wagyu steaks – 2 ribeye both medium as recommended by server. i asked to take photos of the wagyu. they decided they did not want me taking the chef preparation area, either that or it was some communication thing, so they brought the 3 different cuts to the table. it was fine by me, as i already said to the lady that it was ok if photo was inconvenient for them.

this lady said the same thing that sirloin had the fat on the outside & ribeye had more marbling at fat at the middle so more flavourful. she added that the topside was also an excellent cut. she said topside had to be cooked rare or medium rare & would be tough if medium. i had the impression that topside was usually not as good as sirloin or striploin & ribeye was best among the 3.

anyway, i am quite keen to go back & try the topside!^^

the 200g cut was a good size. it was very well chargrilled & medium was quite fine for me though i probably would not have minded medium rare too.

for me, it was better definitely than angus, not better than my own wagyu ribeye from mmmm, and of course one can never make comparison with the much superior –

excellent kagoshima japanese wagyu & miyazaki japanese wagyu at arossa (now closed)
A4 japanese ohmi japanese wagyu from me@oue.

the 3 sauces were very good for the wagyu steak. like the red wine sauce best with a dab of béarnaise. did not take much of pepper sauce.

excluding wine, it was S$98 for 2pax after 50% palate discounts. not as good deal as arossa previously, but arossa could not survive at tat price & location, no point right?

it was really enjoyable dinner. & i plan to be back to try the wagyu topside.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2015/05/01/nice-afternoon-cuppa-aeiou-on-28apr2015/
after a satisfying big prawn noodles at why eat har, a friend suggested going to a retro place for a cuppa on 28.4.2015.

i guess the 2 of us were diehard kopi guys, so we drove in 1 car to kind georges avenue to this place called aeiou.

aeiou didn’t sound very creative? don’t know. it could be that they are a group that is also into children education, edutainment etc.

inside was quite interesting, retro as my friend said. & there was a vertical landscape wall, though it didn’t look particularly attractive.

flat white was good, smooth & fragrant-

probably about the same as carpenters & cookalso
about same as assembly coffee w/o the standard of latte art (not a great differentiator for me)

my personal preference where coffee is concerned –

chye seng huat is better
dutch colony also better.

a torn tyre mirror? pretty cool idea. always remember to love…smile..hug…

i supposed cool chic cafe place can be a good way to bring traffic to the antique house. don’t know. :-)

we did not try the cakes, so my friend suggested we may go again with some friends for the yuzu cheese cake, slated caramel cake & lemon tart.