This is my second try at Koh Grill and thankfully, there wasn't much of a crowd when I went for early lunch. This is the second generation of the Shiok Maki which is the salmon plus prawns combination. The first generation is the salmon and unagi combination. I'm sad that the cheese wasn't really hot when it came to our table and I don't see why it couldn't be as there wasn't many people there yet anyway. It's not bad but could've been better. I had the Set F bento which consist of soft shell crab, unagi and salmon sashimi. The unagi was super disappointing. The picture on the menu show a generous slice of the deep red/brown unagi that we are all familiar with but the one that came was small and black. I know pictures are for illustration purposes only but that's quite a big difference. It tasted charred which overwhelms the taste of the eel. The soft shell crab was okay, nothing special to crow about. The highlight of the bento were the salmon sashimi which were thick and very fresh.

Danro is a Japanese hotpot buffet restaurant opened by MOF and is located at Serangoon NEX mall. Basically you get to take as much food as you want at the buffet table which consists of a mix of raw food items (meats, seafood & veggies), cooked food, sauces (they have a row of different sauce which you can mix and match to create your own 'customized' sauce) and other ingredients to add to your meal like rice, noodles and eggs. Do note that I saw a sign that says they will charge if you have too much food wastage so only take what you can finish. The beef and pork comes in these black bento boxes shown in this photo. But frankly I prefer the pork to the beef as I felt the beef was a bit tough (even though I cooked it till it was barely done). Other items like chicken are pretty normal stuff that you find at most buffet lines. They have several broth for you to choose and the pot can hold 2 types of broth. I think the miso broth is not bad for cooking. It's quite salty but adds nice flavour to the meats when you cook them in it. I do not like the spicy broth...it tastes kinda muddy and wasn't very pleasant.

Finally I got to try the famous Tian Tian Chicken rice that beat Gordan Ramsay in the cooking challenge. The chicken were really moist and juicy and smooth which was really nice. The rice was a tad bit too oily for my taste though, and I wish they had some ginger to accompany the meal. I prefer the chicken rice at Far East Plaza but still, Tian Tian is not bad. Prepare to queue as many people will line up for it even before lunch hour starts.

Department of Caffeine was one of the hyped places for brunch that I really wanted to visit but sad to say it was a disappointment. I tried the their D.O.C Breakfast Platter of scrambled eggs, bacon wrapped meatloaf on brioche. This was a rather....flat dish. The eggs were nicely scrambled but the meatloaf tasted like bland luncheon meat. The 2 fried items were fried cheese which was not bad. Skip this order. I also tried their latte and for a place that has a name like this, I had higher expectation. Sadly, it was rather lackluster (coffee lacks body).

Had one of the Christmas items - The Prawn Bitsque (I know it's supposed to be spelled Bisque but that's the way Soup Spoon spelled it on the menu). It's basically like an intensely flavored prawn noodle soup. The taste of prawn is very strong (I think they used the prawn shells to achieve this) and it has bits of prawns inside it but it is rather watery instead of the thicker consistency of their other soups. I didn't feel very full after eating this so skip this if you're very hungry. A little disappointed because I was hoping for a creamier type of soup. There's nothing chunky inside to help give the dish more 'heft' so I probably wouldn't order this again.