TOKYO: Torisoba 156 (Ichikoro) 鶏そば十番156

Nick and I have been walking past this certain ramen shop everytime we are in Tokyo, but for some reason everytime we are craving ramen close to the apartment, we always walk straight to Afuri ( click to read) which was then my favourite chicken ramen.

This time we flipped a coin and decided to try this particular ramen shop - Torisoba 156.

Apparently although this ramen shop just started a few years ago, it already has multiple branches including one in spain! 

Nick and I had the Tori Paitan Aosa ramen 900yen

It comes with chicken slices, soy egg, seaweed and bamboo shoots

Boy, the soup was to die for ! We finished up the whole bowl 

We super enjoyed ourself so much we sacrificed trying another restaurant we really wanted to try ( French place) for another night of satisfying food at Ichikoro the next night. 

This time I ordered their boiled chicken.... 390yen

Which tasted ordinary but came on a nice plate.

Nick had the ebi kara tantanmen 980yen 

It was nice but a little too spicy for me.

Afuri or here you may ask... hmmmmmm

difficult decision! I think it really depends what you feel like that night, something abit more creamy ( Ichikoro aosa ramen) or Afuri clear broth. 

Or if you just feel like chicken ramen, you may always have both since theyre so near in other anyway hahaha. 

156 Ichikoro Ramen 

Opening Hours: 11am-4am
Days Closed: None
2-1-10 Azabu-Juban, Minato-ku, Tokyo
東京都港区麻布十番2-1-10

TOKYO: Nakiryu 鳴龍 ( 1 star Michelin)

It was a perfect morning in Tokyo. Just nice for a little stroll in the park and a nice date with your partner.
Nick decided that it was perfect for us to spend some time together doing one of our favourite things in the world... Looking for good food.

Christian has been recommending this ramen place for us repeatedly. Every trip he hears us make to Tokyo he'll be like " YOU MUST QUEUE FOR THIS RAMEN"

And finally after 3 trips... and after I've ticked off most of my top must eats, I was like " Okay Nick, lets go to this ramen place Christian has been raving about"

It first started with a LONG TRAIN ride.

I've realised something about Christian's recommendations. It's always somewhere far from everything. The last time he recommended Mutekiya ( click to read) , it was so far but it was so good!  I still say that it's the best tonkotsu ramen in Tokyo.

Anyway, Nakiryu opens at 11.30am, Nick and I got there at 10.45 ( 45 mins early) and there was already 50+ people in front of us.The queue was till the opposite site of road.
Which is terrible news because the shop is small and there's only 10 counter seats.. so.. That means... we would be on the 6th seating

When you finally get to this side of the road, you're in the next seating so yeah you know you are not too far away from your pipping hot ramen.

Most of the people queuing are tourists, duh. Only tourists have so much time on their hands right. Only the person behind me was Japanese. He was a dude about my age who had just finished running. He says it was going to be his first time trying as well, and he decided to try because it's michelin and he was free that day.

Although the weather looked nice and sunny, IT WAS SO COLD.

I was freezing like a little popsicle on the opposite of the road. Thankfully after 2.5 hours, we made it to the opposite side of the road which means.. next seating!
And there is a small stairwell. So Nick, myself and japanese dude after me took turns hiding in this stairwell away from the cold wind....

FINALLY AFTER 3+ hours. Oh did I also not mentioned, I made 2 trips to the nearby family mart. Once because I was so hungry and thirsty, so I got Nick and myself green tea and Egg mayo sandwich to share. 2nd time was because I really needed to pee because of cold diuresis.

Okay, biology lessons time!

When it's cold, your body tries to conserve heat by constricting the blood vessels in the skin to lose less heat to the environment. However, if you constrict the blood vessels to the skin, it means relatively more blood accumulates in other parts of the body and that raises blood pressure. Hence in response to the raised blood pressure, the body wants to get rid of some volume to bring the blood pressure back to where it should be, so the levels of a hormone called anti diuretic hormone (ADH ) will fall. With reduced ADH, the kidney produces more dilute urine and that translates to an increase in urine production.

And by the way if you leave the queue without any good reason ( they come out every so often to check if anybody left the queue ) , they will also strike your name off the waiting list. Nick told them I had to go to the toilet twice.. The guy probably thinks I have a terrible bladder lol.

So yes, Finally after 3 + hours... WE GOT IN !!!!!

We were so excited because we were NEXT IN LINE to be seated!

A little bit about this ramen shop Nakiryu. It's the second ramen shop in tokyo to get a Michelin star. The direct translation of Nakiryu is crying dragon. Which is rather apt, because although I am not a dragon, I almost shed some tears in exasperation and desperation while waiting for my turn. 

The menu

There's a huge variety, but the thing to eat is their house special dandanmen. Dandanmen is characterised by it's spicy soup and distinctive use of sesame seed. 

I know especially asians will have this mentality, wah queue so long, better eat everything. But sorry hor. Everyone is limited to just 1 bowl of noodles. 

But trust me, some people take so long with their bowl of noodles, there was this korean american dude who was like wtf he took 45 mins with this group because they all were just taking pictures and chatting. WTF BRO. CONSIDERATION PLS. 

Anyway, this shop is cash only. when you go in, there's a vending machine. You just have to put money in it, and they give you a ticket and you exchange the ticket when you're seated.

Nick and I both ordered the dandanmen ( regular 850yen) and the braised pork on rice 350yen

A close up shot of the braised pork on rice which I thought was much more enjoyable than the dandanmen, the pork was oohhllalalalalla so good!

Did I find it nice?

YES!

Did I enjoy the experience?

UM....

I definitely did not enjoy the 3+ hours in the freezing cold.

Did I think it deserves the Michelin star?

UM...

I don't know as well. It was much tastier than other dandanmen, and to top it off there's a very clear production chain. Like one dude is only in charge of cooking noodles, the other dude is in charge on putting condiments 

Maybe that's what michelin inspectors give credit for. Good professionalism reflected by clear inndividual scope of work. 

Will I come again?

Definitely not. I don't think 3 hours of my time is well justified. 

At least the middle dude working there is good looking hahahahaha. 

Nakiryu 

SKY Minamiotsuka 1F, 2-34-4 Minamiotsuka, Toshima-ku 
Tokyo 

Mon 11.30am-3pm

 Wed-Sun 11.30am-3pm, 6pm-9pm

closed Tue

TOKYO: Tsuru TonTan + MariKart

Let me tell you the story of how Nick and I met..
.
.
.
Rewind back 8 years ago.

We first met at Jazz Night. It's just another fancy event name for get drunk night.

Fast forward a week later, we went on a camp organised by the Singapore Association.
An activity that was organised then was Go Kart. It was my first time go karting and mind you, I still didn't have my driver's license hehehehhehe.

And I naturally have a competitive streak in me right, less now after 8 years in laid back Australia. But yes, please remember I was all fresh from the Singapore system, just finished my A levels and you know how it is with Singapore exams right, it's a bell curve, if your friends gets an A, you may not be able to get that A. Hence, you have to be the best and beat the rest.

So I totally beat Nicholas Go karting, though he likes to add that it was because when I was supposed to slow down during a turn, I sped up and overtook everybody. And he likes to also add that it's dangerous and putting everybody at risk.

Oops.

And I've never done anymore go karting since, until...

MARIO KART !

This is something that I've been wanting to do for ages but always got too lazy to make an international license.

But we since we were planning to drive in hokkaido and needed an international license, we thought, hey, might as well.

It was a great experience I totally loved the attention I got while on the roads. People waving to you, taking pictures of you, it was AMAZING !

Nick and I signed up for the 3 hours drive - Tokyo tower, shibuya, rainbow bridge, shinagawa.

My amazing crew. 

Some of you may ask if it's dangerous. Yes it is... Especially when you're going full speed on the rainbow bridge, it's like if you lost control of your kart.. that's the end. of . you. 

But it's good adrenaline pumping. 

And it really helped that we had a great burmese guide whose name I unfortunately do not remember.

Nicky the Tigger

Piglet at work.

Okay Marikart here is your promised blog review ah tho few months late, thank you for giving me blogger's discount :p 

BTW, 3 hours of driving is really no joke, we were so hungry after that.
And while we were deliberating on what to eat, we remembered Nick's cousin telling him about this popular udon chain with queues reaching up to 1hour. ExceptI am a huge fan of udon. So I said, okay, queue or no queue, lets go.

There's a vast menu available at Tsurotontan, regardless if youre a carnivore or vegetarian I'm sure youll be able to find something to your liking. The only thing i'm not sure about if it is halal hmmm..

Nick got the dry udon with mentaiko.

I had the mentaiko cream udon with seafood

As you can see, the bowls that they used are MASSIVE. The founder decided to use a large bowl to leave a lasting impression. 

Indeed it did, however, please note that large bowl doesn't mean large serving ah. hahahahah

It was enough for 1, but definitely would not recommend sharing. 

Did I enjoy it?

YES! 

Was it worth the 30 minutes queue?

YES!

Was it enough for me post 3 hours of driving?

NO! 

TsuruTontan

Multiple branches all over Tokyo

TOKYO: Torisho Takehashi 鶏匠 西麻布店

Man, I'm really starting to get angry at myself, for not churning out posts on time. So yesterday we wanted to recommend this restaurant to some friends, and you know... the main reason why I started this blog is because people kept asking me where to eat for mostly Tokyo, and it's so difficult to repeat yourself time and time again right, so I thought okay, if I have a website to direct them to, then I can save on energy and decrease repetitive movements of my thumbs so lesson the risk of osteoarthritis hey.

And so I turned proudly to this trusty blog and realised.. oh shit.... I haven't blogged about this.
I really need to buck up the next few days because I'm saying bye to unemployment by choice, oops, no I meant, clinical leave haha, next week. So it's gonna be back to being a DOG. oops I meant Dog. Oops i meant, Doc...

As much as I love yakitori I feel that I haven't exactly explored many yakitori places, the only ones I've been to is the Michelin starred Birdland ( click to read)  and the chain restaurant Torikizoku.
They belong to the ends of the spectrum respectively. Birdland is expensive, torikizoku is very affordable. So whether torikizoku is quality meat???? I don't know. Actually every meat in Japan is quality meat la, its just a matter of finness

I decided to try out this restaurant whose oyakodon was the first thing that caught my eye.
And incidentally, I found out they serve yakitori too.

As usual there are differences between english and Japanese menu.
Thank God I was a good student who studied mandarin well, at least I could figure out some words in their Japanese menu and make the orders.

All the chicken parts for service that night. 

We started off with some tebasaki ( chicken wings)

Yes, it has been brought to my attention that thai and japanese chicken wings always look very atrophied. I wonder why. 

Maybe chicken wings are supposed to look like this, and all the wings i've been eating since young have all been injected with growth hormones hmmmm...

Food for thought hey

And behold our yakitori skewers!

I find this website really useful for ordering yakitori - it shows you the different yakitori skewers and their respective names, read here and here

Our waitress recommended this hotstone chicken which Nick enjoyed. It is something like our stirfried chicken, but more flavourful. 

We had their recommended semi raw chicken.....

It was good !

AND BEHOLD THE OYAKODON

It was lovely! definitely one of the better oyakodons I've had 

They unfortunately didn't have chicken uterus with attached yolk ( Kobukuro ) the day I visited; apparently it's not something that you can get everyday. So if they happen to carry stock that day, PLEASE ORDER IT. I heard it's really creamy and nice. 

Remember at the start of the post I mentioned about birdland and torikizoku being at both ends of the spectrum? Torisho Takahashi is just nice in the middle; maybe slightly veering to the birdland side but still very quality meat and service for a good price .

Torisho Takehashi 鶏匠 西麻布店 
7-17-19 Roppongi Freg Roppongi Second 

First floor 

Tel: +81 50-3467-1360

SINGAPORE: Pura Brasa

While it may seem that Nick and I haven't been eating out much given my *again* relatively long hiatus. I should have no excuses given I am currently on leave. Many people have asked if I ever feel bored being on leave for so long. Surprisingly, no. And to be honest I think I've never been happier in my life!

I've been chilling at home, roasting my coffee beans, perfecting my latte art, enjoying different types of coffee brewing, meeting up with friends. 

Life is good. I think Life should be this way. 

Last night saw us at dinner with Pura Brasa with Nick's parents and some friends. I've always enjoyed a good spanish, I remember years ago Nick's and my go to place for spanish was catalunya, just overlooking the Singapore River, it was a good view but a pretty pricey restaurant to be frank :/

So that closed down. And we went spanish-less for awhile. Until Minerva recommended Pura Brasa. From Dr Google, Pura Brasa is a spanish high quality restaurant chain. Singapore is their first overseas venture. The birth of Pura Brasa was by Josper, an internationally recognised brand of charcoal oven. This restaurant was meant to give ideas to Josper's customers and teach them how to implement the grills and ovens and variety of Josper's application. 

We kicked off the night with their happy hour 1-1 beer deal ( 3-7pm).

For starters - Grilled mussels 

It definitely wasn't the best mussels I've tasted. Hands down unbeatable mussels would be Belgian Beer Oostende in Adelaide Rundle Street..

But still good mussels from pura brasa anyway. I would have liked it more if there was more sauce i could eat the mussel with. It was quite dry. 

My favourite spanish omelette with chorizo 

This spanish omelette is good and I highly recommend !

We also got the battered squid which I clearly missed a photo opportunity because it was so good and snapped up before I could even realise. 

A quick vegatable dish before our winning mains 

It's really very difficult to cook a good octopus/squid. Undercook it and you risk getting diarrhoea, overcook it and you risk a rubbery feel.

This octopus leg was perfect ! 

And a signature to have in all spanish restaurants - Paella. 

The rice absorbed the seafood flavours so nicely. 

My big winner of the night - Spanish pork ribs cooked in 2 stages - 20 hours at 75degrees then finished at 400 degrees in the Jasper oven

And lastly, the 1.6kg wagyu tomahawk. 

It was good, but if I were to choose between the porl ribs and the tomahawk, definitely the pork ribs

It's a really nice environment. We had 8 people for dinner last night and they put us on a round table which is amazing, food can be shared so easily on the lazy susan. Furthermore it was right at the end pocket of the restaurant where you are almost impervious to rowdy drinkers if any. 

The service staff were top notch. We brought our own cake for the birthday girl and the service staff were so thoughtful to include a candle as well as sing a birthday song. 

Before we left they said " see you again", I think they will definitely see me again. It was food so good, it left all of us singing praises. 

Even my bulldog beefe, who is a fussy eater, he only eats prime pork ribs ( I sneakily dapaoed some ribs and wagyu for him because poor boy he gets very upset when I'm not home) enjoyed the ribs tremendously. 

Pura Brasa
5 Wallich Street #01-16 Tanjong Pagar Centre Singapore 078883
tel: +65 6386 9678
Weekdays 11am-11pm, Weekends 11am-12am

SINGAPORE: Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer

I have always told people that IF you were to go into F&B or actually any business, your target audience should be the females. Because only females have the power to summon BOTH other females to part with their money AS WELL AS their male companions. That's like 100% of the human population !

I had this conversation with an ex male classmate few days ago. We were both at a cafe which *in my honest opinion* sells expensive coffee

Me: Ya it's expensive huh the coffee.
Male Friend: $6.70 for a coffee! It's going to be my first and last time here. My $1 hawker centre coffee is better.

Compare it with my female friend whom I had the same conversation with yesterday

Female Friend: ya $6.70 is expensive la but the milk is so nice! I have drank couple of times already

After being in Australia for so many years, I've integrated into their coffee and burger culture. I get burger cravings maybe once a month? My cousin is the person I get most of my foodspiration from. It's like.. he goes everywhere to eat. To be honest I have no idea how he can sustain such a lifestyle because I definitely can't with my meagre doctor salary lol. But hey, to each his own perhaps he has some investments that are lucrative.
So Nick and I found ourselves at Black Tap over the weekend. Hailing from NYC, Black Tap I heard serves one of the best burgers. We came  to satisfy our burger cravings, but secretly I also came for their crazy shakes.

I've never had much faith in crazy shakes, especially not after my bad virgin experience was with 50SIXONE in Adelaide ( read here). It was nothing but daylight robbery except they didn't rob a bank, they robbed me. It was expensive and it tasted bad. It was SO SWEET. Artificially sweet to make it worse.

But I am an instagram whore, and aesthetically pleasing ( tho may be non practical and inedible ) things sell.

We finally managed to get in after 30mins of queueing. After being in Singapore for the last few months, I've come to a conclusion: People in Singapore are either well to do or they don't mind spending on food.
It's like every relatively expensive place I go to, there's a queue. I attempted to make a booking for the 4 day pop up sugalabo event which cost $1450++ per person for an 8 course meal and it was all booked out. So yeah....

Nick iniitally wanted a peanut butter crazy shake, but at a price of $22 we can only afford 1. I'm allergic to peanut butter so...... I chose the girly strawberry shake :D

It was.. surprisingly good. haha. 

We shared a spicy korean bbq wings - it wasn't spicy at all which is good $13

The white sauce was SO GOOD. It tasted good with fries too!

I had the Texan Burger $25

They usually cook their patties medium, but I chose to have it medium rare because I feel that beef should be eaten medium rare for the best taste. 

Nick had the Chilli Cheese $24 with onion rings

I really enjoyed the burger ! It was such a huge serving I couldn't even finish the fries.
Overall I really enjoyed myself, tho I wish the queue wasn't so long !!!

Happy me with the not so bad tasting crazy shake :D 

Black Tap 
Marina Bay Sands
11am -11.30pm
No reservations