Been eating quite a bit of Korean lately, especially since many Korean chicken joints have set foot in SG. Many are doing brisk business with crowds and queues at peak dining hours. My most recent visits were to Chicken Up at Century Square, and Ssiksin Chicken at NEX.

Chicken Up

Located at a corner of Century Square, opposite Starbucks at Tampines mall, Chicken Up has both indoor and Al fresco dining areas. Other than fried chicken, they also serve up a few Korean delicacies to add some variety to the menu.We picked out two types of fried chicken, a noodle dish and 2 sides for sharing. Onion Bomb $12++, Kimchi Fries $18++, Jabchae $14++, Ganjang Wings $12++ and Spicy Up $18++.The Onion bomb was much smaller in size than expected, taste alright with the unique batter dressed with Korean spices. The Kimchi fries was a disappointment, fries were not well executed, and the sauces wasn't nice at all. The Korean fried glass noodles, Jabchae, was good but too pricey for a vegetarian dish without seafood or meat. As for the fried chicken, the Spicy Up had crispy skin and tender meat but wasn't well marinated, meat was completely tasteless. The Ganjang soy sauce wings fared better though but also lacks wow factor.

To end the meal we ordered the photogenic and overpriced Melon Bingsoo $20++ for sharing. The rock melon itself was good but overall not worthy of its price tag.

 

Full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2015/08/korean-chicken-craze-chicken-up-ssiksin.html

Full review & more pics - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2015/06/king-crab-buffet-dinner-at-momiji_12.html

Evil sista saw a value-for-money King Crab buffet ad on social media, and initiated an impromptu dinner on a weekday. We picked the City Square Mall outlet as it is conveniently located along the NEL. The Jap Buffet restaurant on the 5th floor was pretty huge, spanning over 3 shop spaces.Unlimited supply of King crabs, Snow crabs and also Sapporo beer (till 1930h) at only $39.80++ for weekdays. Full payment must be made at the cashier before entering the restaurant.The dining area is spacious but table to table spaces is very tight. Buffet spread occupies a third of the restaurant space, consisting of 150 selections of Japanese food, sushi, sashimi, chilled seafood, teppanyaki, shabu shabu, agemono, yakitori etc. etc. And the dessert spread includes Haagen Dazs ice cream, chocolate fondue and waffle making station, on top of the usual cakes, pastries and fruits spread. Check it out here...The varieties were definitely impressive, but how was the taste? Hmm...I would say go for the chilled seafood, fried foods (agemono), chawanmushi in the steamer, sushi & sashimi, and refrain from touching the cooked food. The cooked food were cold, like they've been sitting under the aircon for over 4hrs at least, tastes awful!

Oh by the way, the DIY waffles and the ice cream were awesome...save space for them!Cold and disgusting!Not bad, chicken wings were niceNot badSeafood quite fresh, avoid the tofu!Not badTastelessNot freshTastelessGood!Good!Thumbs up!

Even though the food here is more misses than hits, there are some gems to be found and are rather worthy of the value-for-money price tag. Just come with the right expectations (keep them reasonably low) and whack the King crabs, sashimi, beer and Haagen Dazs ice cream!

Momiji King Crab buffet prices and restaurant info:

Full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2015/06/dolce-tokyo-313-somerset.html

First birthday gathering on my birthday month! I chose this place for two reasons, one is I haven't try this restaurant before, the other is that we, MOF Citizens, get to enjoy free birthday dessert during our birthday month.

We arrived early, the restaurant was practically empty before 7pm, on a weekday.After checking out the menu, we realized that this place is more a coffee and dessert eatery instead of a dinner venue. Main courses selection is rather limited. We ordered one mains and one dessert each and an appetizers platter for sharing.Mixed Crostini $18++, consists of 6 toasted bread with tomato concasse and 6 types of toppings (mushroom, unagi, tamagoyaki, shrimp, kani mayo & smoked salmon). This platter turns out to be the best dish of the day. The combination of the crispy toast, diced tomato and the variety of toppings were nicely done and really tasty.My Unagi Bento $19++, was pretty good albeit simple looking. The grilled eel was soft and flavorful, the tamagoyaki and pickled seaweed was palatable too.My friend's orders, Unagi Omu Curry Rice $18++ and Mushroom Egg Ben $15++. Both dishes were well received in terms of taste, however my friend complained that her unagi portion was too little for her liking.The desserts were perhaps the most disappointing items we had to pay for this meal. Despite having an extensive selection, we somehow managed to picked out 3 that were all not nice! We should have gone somewhere else for dessert, sigh.Please don't be fooled by their appearances, these desserts were either overly sweet, or hard and chewy, or not very fresh. Plus they are pricey too. And, my member birthday dessert cannot be redeemed here, felt cheated

Well, that sums up our dining experience at Dolce Tokyo. I have mixed feelings with this place and properly wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is looking for good food.

Full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2015/05/mothers-day-afternoon-tea-at-landing.html

We are back again at The Landing Point for afternoon tea, one of our fave places for tea. This time happens to be Mother's Day eve and the restaurant is offering a different menu just for the weekend. Instead of the usual 8 sweets and 8 savories, they are having 12 sweets and 7 savories tea set...we're gonna get a sugar rush! We made advanced reservation via Chope and got instant confirmation. There was a baby shower event going on when we arrived slightly earlier than 3pm, the waiting staffs gave us a sofa seat near the corner.We enjoyed a quieter ambiance there, however, it became a nightmare to get attention of the waiting staffs when we wanna replenish our food and drinks. Whats worst is that we are situated between two bigger groups of diners, and were being overlooked by the staffs constantly! The drinks that we ordered shortly after being seated came only after 30mins and multiple reminders...duh!Selections of TWG teas and Coffee (hot/cold)

The food came before the drinks arrived, served on a 3-tier tray, containing two tiers of sweets and one tier savories. The scones were served separately by another staff.Top tier - Carrot Cake & Lemon Cheese Frosting, Mother’s Love Chocolates, Mini Cupcake & Chocolate Cream, Double Flavored Macaron and Crème Brulee tartlet.Middle tier - Mini Salmon Quiche, Herb Brie Cheese on Hazelnut Cracker, Smoked Duck Mango Salsa on Semi-Dried Roll, Purple Potato with Ricotta on Saffron Roll, Smoked Salmon Sandwich, Truffle Egg Sandwich and Semi-Dried Tomato with Mayo and Cucumber Sandwich.Bottom tier - Coconut & Mango Cake, Kueh Lapis Cake, Lime Tart topped with Fresh Blueberries, Chocolate Opera Cake, Pistachio Financier and Rose Chocolate Mousse Cake.For the savories, we only fancied the Smoked Duck sandwich, Truffle egg sandwich and the Smoked Salmon sandwich, which we ordered replenishment several times. We were less impressed with the sweets though. I quite like the tangy Lime tart and the Crème Brulee tartlet but didn't order extras due to slow service from staffs.

My order for 2nd round of drinks, Cafe Mocha with latte art. It was pretty good.Near to the end of the tea session, we noticed that a special item was being served to the table beside us, we wanted to ask about it but the staff walked past us again and vanished quickly into the abyss! After some waiting, we managed to grab attention of another staff and voiced our displeasure to him. He managed to seized a few of the special items (not stated in the menu) for us and it turned out to be the best tasting savory item of the day!The Mini Lobster Tartlet, a different rendition of their all time favorite Lobster Cornet was simply delicious! We think that it should be included in all special occasion menu for afternoon tea.

Our Mother's Day afternoon tea, ended much better than when it began. But we couldn't help but feel that their special occasion menu was lack luster overall in terms of taste and quality, and the slow service didn't justify for the price hike. We much prefer to come on a regular weekday afternoon and enjoy the original menu with Lobster cornet, Chocolate caramel tart and Lemon tart.

The Ajisen Gourmet Town at level 3 has recently gone through a facelift and re-opened with the popular franchise brand Osaka Ohsho 大阪王将, the Gyoza King from Osaka. Other than gyoza, this place also serves up Jap style Chinese cuisine.Value for money set meals and new enticing food replicas on display.I arrived before 6.30pm on a Friday evening and managed to beat the queue and get seated in less than 5mins.They are now using the iPad electronic ordering system. Just tab on whatever you wanna order and click 'Send Order', and the food will be served in a couple of mins.Hubby's Mapo Tofu & Double Cooked Pork set $14.90++. The Mapo Tofu is not spicy at all, such a big difference from the yummy Mapo Tofu we had in Osaka! The Double cooked pork 回鍋肉 was just so so only, nothing to rave about. Hubby also didn't find the gyoza special.My Chicken Tenshin Han set $13.90++, is a fancier variant of the Signature Fuwatoro 天津飯 set $12.90++. It was a thick omelette egg wrapped fried rice with roast chicken cubes.This dish was indeed rather yummy. The thick omelette was light and fluffy with a texture of smooth steamed egg. The fried Koshihikari rice with roast chicken meat was flavorful and tasted good with the thickened clear gravy. I enjoyed this dish as there is no comparison with anything I've eaten in Osaka.
The gyoza was good but not great, however at the price of $3.90++ for 6pcs and $7.80++ for a dozen I don't mind eating this again. The skin was quite well made with good resiliency but I would've prefer the pork filling to be more moist and juicy. Overall, it was a decent dish.

The egg and carrot soup that comes with every set meal was forgettable.Overall, I'm not too impressed with the food served here at Osaka Ohsho. I would save the 10% service charge for something else and just buy takeaways from now on.

For full review - http://midas400.blogspot.sg/2014/03/dinner-at-osaka-ohsho-nex-ajisen.html