Food Bytes: Long way to Okinawa (Okinawan Diner Nirai - Kanai)

Restaurant Okinawan Diner Nirai - Kania is something that *Shinta and I stumbled over one day, while visiting Mediya at Liang Court. It's one of the "older" restaurants there, not part of the newly outfitted areas at the 2nd and 3rd floor, but situated down in the basement.

The place is decorated like a bar with cosy wooden stools and benches. You can either sit with your friends in the little alcoves, or sit at the bar if you're alone. We like this place because even though *Shinta and I already have a few favourite "must order dishes", there are still lots more new ones for us to try and discover.




First order of the day is the Kawa Ebi or river shrimp that I absolutely MUST order each time I come. In fact, we usually come here because I have a craving for it. The little crispy fried shrimp come with a lemon (optional) and sea salt dip (nice kick but use sparingly) that you eat whole and as quickly as possible while its still warm. I could technically eat the whole basket myself, but *Shinta doesn't let me. Oh and its fantastic with beer!!!

The Seaweed Soup is a nice warm comparatively healthy dish that we like to order. It tastes nice and fresh with not too much "sea taste". I suspect the standard is not too consistent though, because I didn't like it as much this time as I did other times...

Stewed pork done the Japanese way! If you don't eat pork fat, or if you're the type who cuts away the fat, please don't bother to order this. You would just be wasting 2/3 of the dish! When you put the meat in your mouth, it just melts away. Try not to think about your arteries when eating this... Definately not something you can eat every week.

The next order was a new one for us. There's a proper name for it, but I can't recall what, so its probably more aptly just described as "Deep Fried Pork Knuckle". Pretty good and extremely unhealthy, I'm not sure which is "worse", this one or the one before. Basically the crispy skin and fatty meat fall off the bone very easily. It's also great to take the bone and suck the crispy bits off.

Seaweed Tempura was something we hadn't tried before. It was really good! Very light, a little oily perhaps for some... You can choose to dip it in the vinegar provided (rather than the usual tempura sauce) or eat it neat. Wished I had a mug of beer when I was eating this.

On all our previous visits, we had ordered the Taco Fried Rice. Not being a fan of tacos, I wasn't too fond of it, although *Shinta was happy enough. This time however, we decided to try the Garlic Fried Rice. It's probably one of the best I have ever tasted. The rice was a little more damp than normal, but still very fluffy. It was flavoured not just with garlic, but I suspect the cooked the rice in some meat stock of some kind, otherwise it couldn't have tasted so good. Excellent stuff!

The colour in the photo doesn't show it too well, but the sweet potato ice-cream was actually a very nice lavender purple. I always thought sweet potatoes were orange in colour, but the menu specifically said purple as well, so its probably some special type from Japan. It was sweet but not overly cloying. Nice.

This was our first time ordering the Crepe for dessert. The soft brown crepe was warm, soft and fluffy, tasting very much like gula melaka (palm sugar). This was probably due to the brown sugar used, which had also changed the color of the crepe from the usual light yellow, to a darker brown. As you can see, the crepe came accompannied by a huge bowl of whipped cream which matched the sweetness of the crepe quite well. The scariest part is that we actually finished the entire bowl of cream between us! I dare not think how many calories that was...

Alas it was a work night, we didn't order any alcohol. But you can definately consider trying one of their unique sodas or just go for the usual sake and/or beer. It's just nice to gulp down with the food while chilling out with friends.

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Okinawan Diner Nirai - Kanai
177 River Valley Road, #B1-01/02 Liang Court
Tel: +65-6339 4811
Hours: 12pm - 10.30pm
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The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Ice Cream is happiness condensed - Jessi Lane Adams (Cold Stone Creamery)

Originating from the US, the Cold Stone Creamery is now part of a chain in Japan. Usually the "normal" ice-cream in Japan is already much better than most that you can get in Singapore (suspect this is because of the superior milk and cream available there). Cold Stone Creamery takes it a level further, "chopping" up the ice-cream and mixing it with other ingredients to make it even more interesting.

The trick about this ice cream, is that the ingredients (ie ice cream, cake, chocolate, toppings etc) are not pre-mixed and then frozen together. Rather, they are individually chopped up and prepared on a specially cooled metal plate (ie "cold stone"). This ensures that the ice cream doesn't melt too much in the process, the ingredients are not frozen together becoming tasteless, and everything is in large chunks which makes eating it more interesting. Some places in Singapore do sell something similar (eg Island Creamery's pineapple biscuits during CNY), but it doesn't taste as good because all the items are mixed in small bits and frozen.

We checked out this branch at Level 5 of Lumine Est at Shinjuku. You can customise the flavours and ingredients of mix you want, or choose from their many suggested combinations. We decided to share the Strawberry Cheesecake and their Valentine's Day special, the Bitter Romantic Moment.

For the Strawberry Cheesecake, first goes the ice-cream spread, topped with chunks of crumbly butter cake...

... followed by strawberries and cream

This then gets chopped up into bits and mixed together before being scopped up into a wafer cup.

The finished product!

The Bitter Romantic Moment is a mix of bitter chocolate ice cream, raspberries, cacao cake and fudge. First was the bitter chocolate ice cream again spread out on the cold stone, followed by fudge and raspberries...

... then the cake is added and the mixture chopped up and mixed.

Tada!

I heard a rumour that Cold Stone Creamery is available in Singapore, but I don't know where the location is. Anyone able to shed some light?

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Sushi for the "Dai"-hards! (Sushi Daiwa)

Continuing on the series on Japan...

Tsujiki market is a place that is a must for first time visitors to Tokyo. Going early (read: 6am) is a must if you want to watch the fish auctions. Shan't bother to blog too much about the place itself, since there are probably a million blogs out there about it already.

Just one note: be careful when walking around and please avoid the little motor carts zooming around. Apparently some careless tourist got in the way and was hit by them. After that, they considered closing the market (its a serious place of business after all!) and I believe they did so for a while. Fortunately for the millions of tourists who haven't yet been there, they decided to reopen it to the public. But only the frozen tuna ones are opened, not the fresh ones.

Anyway the point of interest for *Shinta and I (having been there quite a few times already), is not wandering the narrow lanes of the fish market, but rather, the rows of shophouses just next to the main market. We go early, usually leaving our hotel around 5am (Shinjuku station is already packed at that time!) and hitting there around 5.30 or 6am.

You can easily identify the 2 most popular shops there by the long long queues which start forming around 5am. Sushi Daiwa and Dai Sushi. We usually go to the former, although I suppose there's no reason not to try the latter. The wait is around 30min to 45min even that early in the morning. People are orderly and wait patiently in queue. No such thing as "choping" extra spaces for friends. One person one seat. We even saw this driver waiting in line, only to exchange place with a rich looking lady dressed in formal japanese wear as he neared the front!

Once you've made your way to the front, squeeze into this really small counter restaurant which seats about 8 to 10 pax at the most. The place is really narrow with your back just inches from the wall. Lean forward and squeeze yourself in whenever someone moves in and out.

If you're not picky about your sushi, its easiest to just order the breakfast set. The uni (sea urchin) was very fresh and didn't have the too fishy small which puts a lot of people off it.

I'm not sure what to say about the toro, except that its fantastic. Huge slabs of tuna belly draped over a small ball of rice. Melts in your mouth!

The other fishes and prawn were also exceptionally fresh. They get the fish fresh everyday from the market just next to them, and that's why its so crowded early in the morning. Go late and nothing will be left and the good ones are all closed!

A very very notable difference about "real" sushi in Japan, is the proportion of fish to rice. The small wad of rice is there simply to support the fish, which should nicely drape over the ends of the rice. Eating sushi in other countries is very frustrating because the huge dollops of rice simply drown the key ingredient, and of course you're too full of rice after a few pieces to eat more.

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: The Best Steaks I Ever Had! (Satou Steak House)

Credit for finding this place goes to one of my best friends, who is also hot on all things Japanese, including food, fashion, sanyo, anime, dramas.... You know who you are! I also should refer you to this blog http://paulstravelpics.blogspot.com/2007/08/day-2-matsuzaka-steak-and-yakitori.html which helped us to navigate our way there.

Like many others before us, we combined our visit to Satou Steak House with a trip to Studio Ghibli Museum. The museum is a 20-30min train journey from Shinjuku to Mitaka, followed by a short 15-20min walk. We spent a few hours wandering around the museum, and exploring Miyazaki's wonderous creations of new words, before taking a 10 min bus ride (or its actually just 1 train station away) to Kichijoji.

As the restaurant is an extremely small 15 seater, we arrived very early hoping to beat the queue. Unfortunately it would open for dinner only at 5pm, so we spent some time wandering around the surrounding shopping streets, and most of all, admiring the queue at the Satou Meat Shop just below/next to the restaurant.

Apparently this is like the most famous beef store around, and furthermore, if you arrive before 5pm, you can receive a "special offer" on the meatballs. Hence we saw a long long queue of Japanese men / women / teenages all patiently queued up for almost 3 blocks (with polite "gaps" at intersections so as not to block human traffic).

At 5.10pm, we dashed up the extremely narrow staircase up into the restaurant, only to find another 4 people already happily tucked into their meals!!! Eating here is a very fast affair. Firstly, the menu is extremely limited. You can choose from different types of steak, but that's about it. Secondly, steak doesn't take long to cook. Thirdly, while the heat, smoke and smell from the grill in the open kitchen add to the atmosphere and experience of eating excellent beef, it definately discourages people from lounging around and taking their time.

We decided to go for the Matsu Beef (270g) from the "normal beef" sets, and the Tokusen Sirloin (270g) from the "premium beef" sets. On hindsight, we shouldn't have bothered with the normal beef set. Don't get me wrong, the beef there is very good. Its just that if you're going to order from the premium beef sets, you won't be able to appreciate the normal sets at all. So if you don't live in Japan, and can only make a few occassional visits there, don't worry about your pocket, and just order the premium beef set. The price depends on the weight of beef you choose, and a 360g steak is more than enough for 2 very hungry and usually-big-eaters.

Each set came with a side salad, and a choice of drink, the selection depending on which type of set you had ordered.

There were also 2 dips provided for the beef, but we totally ignored them after we had our first taste of the meat.

The Matsu beef set arrived first, huge chunks of meat with a side of beansprouts.


Doesn't it look great? Here's a close up of one piece.


We ordered our steaks medium-rare, and you can see from the photo the different layers of doneness. We had eaten most of this, when the Tokusen set arrived.


Are you drooling yet? If not, this next close up shot should do the trick.

Can you see the alternating stripes of white(fat) and red(meat)? The cubes simply melted away in our mouths. Even the wagyu steaks I had eaten in Singapore were nothing compared to this! We regretted not finishing the Matsu set faster, because once you started on the Tokusen, you can't really go back!

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: One Time Only. Sadly... (Sushi Kyubei, Shinjuku)

I've put off blogging about this place for a while now, because I couldn't really decide what to say about it. The sushi and sashimi here are fantastic. Truly truly good. Perhaps the best I have ever tasted? I probably won't have to describe the food much, because the pictures below will speak a million words about how good it is. At the same time however, its not a place I would a) recommend or b) bring someone to, unless they had a bottomless expense account to charge it to. This makes blogging about it very difficult because thinking about how good it was but not being able to go back to it again is very very sad.

By way of introduction, Sushi Kyubei is part of a chain, the main branch being the very very famous Ginza one. As we were staying across town at Shinjuku however, we decided to try out their new branch there at the Keio Plaza Hotel.

We tried going there for lunch thinking that the basic sushi set would be affordable. However when we sat down, we couldn't help but succumb and ordered the sashimi set instead. The restaurant is divided into parts, the small enclosed area we sat at, comprised entirely of the counter.

See that black ledge there? I had almost placed my camera there to take photos, and very very luckily I didn't, because that's where they serve the sashimi directly!

First up was the starters, little bowls of Ikura (salmon roe) and Ika. I love savouring the little balls of Ikura which burst with an explosion of flavour when pressed down slightly with your tongue. If I have the time, usually I like to eat them one by one, and roll it around a little in my mouth before bursting them.

Next came a series of 4 other sashimi. First was the lightly poached Buri (Yellowtwail) which was in season. Don't think we get it done this way often in Singapore, and I quite enjoyed trying it.

No prizes for guessing what the next one is. The photograph unfortunately doesn't do justice to the swirly layers of fat which melt in your mouth. I tried saving the Toro for last, but couldn't resist it in the end.

This was some kind of clam ark shell. We dipped it lightly in the salt to enhance the flavour. It's slightly chewy, but not too bad.

The last one below, was something so complicated that I've forgotten what it is already. The chef sliced the thick piece of raw Buri halfway through so that it formed a kind of pouch. He then stuffed it with chopped spring onions and ginger and seasoned with ponzu sauce. It was really yummy!

Next on the menu was 7 types of nigiri sushi. We started with fresh Ika (squid) which was very nice and fresh, slightly firm and not too fishy/sticky/chewy.

Then came the sweet Ebi (prawn). Luckily ours didn't come with the raw prawns unlike some other customers. For theirs, the poor beheaded prawn was still twitching away even as the chef placed it on the small wad of rice.

More yummy Ikura with fresh crispy seaweed. The chef grated some orange peel and dusted it lightly over the Ikura before serving it to us.

Next was Hirame (fluke) glazed with sauce.

The Aji (mackerel) came with a bit of grated ginger, which I was thought was unnecessary.

More Toro!!!!!!

Eel was done in 2 ways, one with the usual sauce and the other lightly dusted with orange peel and sea salt. Very very soft and melt-in-your-mouth.

In between the sashimi and sushi, they had also served us with Chawanmushi (steamed egg) and Clam Miso soup.


I didn't really understand why they felt the need to serve us cooked salmon, but since it was good, we didn't really bother to complain.

Just when we thought we were done, they presented 8 little pieces of Maki sushi with us, filled with a mix of types of fillings including fish and pickles.

The pickled radish was really really good! Totally unlike the supermarket preserved types, this was crunchy, juicy, and thankfully not coloured artificially with the bright yellow food dye.

They also made this little "sandwich" which although pretty, was unfortunately not to my taste because of the Shiso leaf inside. I know its supposed to be very costly and delicious, but for some reason I'm just not a fan of it.

To end off the meal, homemade coffee ice-cream!

The interesting thing about eating sashimi/sushi in Japan, is that you're not really supposed to mix/dissolve the wasabi in the shoyu, which is how Singaporeans usually do it. Instead for sashimi, you place some wasabi on the fish directly, and dip it in the sauce if and only if necessary. For sushi, most of the time the chef will directly glaze it with some sauce or shoyu.

We left the place feeling totally stuffed, and spent the next few hours both reminiscing about the wonderful meal, but at the back of our minds, worrying about how much damage had been done to our credit cards.