Tomo Izakaya - Clarke Quays' $15nett set Lunches

Having cheap set lunches were the joys in my life but ever since starting work (think weekends PLUS public holidays and 6 calls/month) I've been missing out heaps on the wonders of set lunches. But I have reason to rejoyce cos I'm on annual leave! :D I'm going to maximise my leave by catching up on the hundreds of hours of sleep I've missed and perhaps if I'm feeling not too lardy tmr, I shall go down to borrow Inception dvd :)

Actually I had wanted to eat Pamplemousse for lunch today but Pamplemousse is CLOSED on Mondays! Sadness. Looks like the next time I'll be free to try it will be Sunday Brunch :(

I'm going to share one of my best finds ever - Clarke Quay is still having their $15nett set lunch promos at certain participating outlets - and if you have either DBS or POSB cards, you are entitled to further discount/offers on top of the $15nett set lunches. Spent quite a long time debating between Tomo Izakaya, Fremantle Fish Market as well as Hotstones, but we settled for the Japanese bento box lunch at Tomo Izakaya.

Had the bento boxes Set A and Set B for $15 nett each. Set A is the grilled mackeral and set B is the exact same sides with pumpkin croquette. I'd say to go for the fish instead of the pumpkin, even though the pumpkin croquette is so nicely fried and battered, and the golden pumpkin puree inside is extremely tasty, I somehow don't feel satisfied until I have a piece of meat in my meal (unless I've already psyched myself up for vegeterian lunch ;P) It comes with mustard leaf salad with sesame dressing, duck and spinach salad, 2 types of sashimi, pickles and miso soup. The rice they use is the normal long grain rice, not the nice glossy Japanese rice though I suppose for $15 nett it's alright? Pretty worth it considering it's in a restaurant and it's nett price.

And if that's not enough, if you pay using DBS/POSB, you'll get a returning dining voucher of $15 when you spend $30 bucks. Shiok or not?

3A River Valley Road

#01-04 Clarke Quay

Tel 6336 0100

I shall blog about part 2/3 of my delicious lunching on annual leave day 1 later.. more delicious food to come - including Spruce's Tacos and a sticky date pudding which is better than Marmalde Pantry's!

Alegro - and Guess the Mystery Person

Went to this fairly new Spanish snack place called Alegro at Clarke Quay for churros. Prior to this, I've only eaten churros at Disneyland. The churros there are coated with lots of sugar and cinnamon and taste wonderful - crispy outside, and soft inside. Actually, that's one of my better memories from Disneyland :P So with high hopes of having Disneyland-like churros, I happily went to Alegro.

It's a small hole in the wall restaurant, located near pretty the fountain (diagonally across pump room). Actually, I don't even know where it's nearby! Yikes! all we did was to zoom towards the food :D There's only a small outdoor seating area, where you'll probably get smoked out on weekends (even though I went on a Thursday, there were so many chimneys nearby). They have very limited seating - 4 tables but you don't really have to sit to have these snacks.
We had the Bocadillo de Serrano($9) is a baguette with spanish ham and Spanish sauce. The Serrano air-dried ham reminds me a bit of a less salty version of parma ham, and it's one of Spains most outstanding meat product (according to the menu). The baguette is toasted and comes with freshly sliced tomatoes which balances the savoury ham. We had the baguette cut into quarters cos we were sharing, but it usually comes wrapped. The server was so kind to put toothpicks to hold the bread together. Great service for such a small eatery:D The Empanadas ($7) are what we have taken to calling 'Spanish Currypuffs'. It's described in the menu as 'half moon shaped filled pastry pie filled with chicken, tuna or potato'. I think we somehow ended up with the potato one cos I didn't specify when I was ordering, and they didn't ask either :( Anyway, it's exactly like how a currypuff will taste like without the curry.


The hot favourite was the Croquetas ($7 for a full portion, $8 for two pieces in the mixed platter). The bite sized tuna and bechamel (white sauce) were served fresh from the fryer, and the combination of creamy, salty tuna and crispy golden brown batter was lip-smackingly good.

Last, but not least, we ended the greasy meal with the Churros Cheese Cake Bite Set ($8, pictured at the start of my post). It was regular churros with 4 pieces of creamy cheese balls wrapped in cinnamon infused churros dough.

The churros are deep fried and made fresh on demand. They have a churros making machine where the churros dough will be squeezed out from machine directly into a huge vat of frying oil.
The churros was entirely different from what I had expected it to be like. Perhaps Disneyland's churros are the Americanized version? The churros are very crispy, and much harder than I expected. Actually, they didn't really taste like anything, more like deep fried flour with icing sugar and chocolate sauce.

I was pretty glad we ordered the set and not plain churros, cos the cheese cake bites were really good. Soft salty cheese in batter doused with dark chocolate sauce. Though it was really hard to eat with the toothpicks provided, the effort trying to pick up a disintegrating cheesecakebite and the mess created by dripping chocolate everywhere is really worth it.

Their Mixed Berries Drink is pretty interesting, I'm not sure how to describe the taste, just that it's very fruity and has a very pleasant berry taste.

Can anyone identify the mystery person (from our batch) she aspires to eat as glamorously and as demurely as the people we see on TV.
*argh should have pixillated the photo more - everyone can guess who you are alr!!! :(

3D River Valley Road
#01-13 Clarke Quay
Sun-Tue: 12pm - 2am
Wed-Thu: 12pm - 4am
Fri-Sat: 12pm - 5am

Through the whole post I was spelling Alegro as Allegro, and thinking myself that I never knew that allegro, allegretto and presto was Spanish. (They're Italian btw).

Argh everyone who wants to go to Alegro must read this!

Say "HungryGoWhere" and be entitled to:

One for One Large Churros

One for One Cocktail

20% off a-la-carte

Vaild till Jan 31st

Haiz! Why didn't I read up hungrygowhere before I went! Could have saved 20% off my bill :(

Pump Room 2

The desserts at Pump room are probably the most worth-it items on the menu. Actually, it's probably one of their best things on the menu. I've tried 2 so far - the Honey Yoghurt Panna Cotta and the Sticky Date Pudding.I don't have the pict of the sticky date pudding, but the last time I tried it, it was good enough to rival Marmalade Pantry's. (Marmalade Pantry is somehow always my gold standard when it comes to comparing sticky date pudding).
My fave dessert there is the Honey Yoghurt Panna Cotta, which comes decorated with lots of berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries) and garnished with a mint leaf and a sprinkling of icing sugar. The panna cotta is extremely creamy, with the slightly sourish yoghurt taste, and a honey aftertaste. The bottom is filled with some berry puree. The texture of the panna cotta is pretty firm, more like a firm custard than a jelly. For $10++, I thought that the serving was really generous and big. This is an extremely satisfying dessert and I'm sure to come back for more. Pity I can't say the same for their main courses.Spicy Squid Rings ($12, found on their drinks menu, not the main menu) I quite like this finger food cos the squid is soft and chewy, the batter is light and crispy, and best of all they're very generous with their chilli powder and black pepper and whatever other marinade they use for it. It goes very well with the thousand island (?) sauce.
Sadly, the genre of music that night was terrible - it must have been some oldies night - cos I've never heard 9 out of 10 of the songs:( Super sad. The music did get a bit better in the second set, but haiz the songs were still a bit too old...

The Pump Room
3B River Valley Road
#01-09/10 The Foundry
Clarke Quay
Tel: 6334 2628

Yu Sai Shoku

Ya Sai Shoku is the new restaurant located where Tampopo was formally. Tampopo has moved from the basement to the ground level. We actually wanted to have the Tampopo ramen, but the bookings were full, and the walk ins were craaaazy (cos it was the long wkend).

Luckily, we found that there was a new restaurant where Tampopo used to be located. The speciality here is the Tonkatsu Ramen. There are 2 versions available - the spicy and non-spicy version - both cost $12++. The soup is milky, robust and not too salty. Like most other Japanese ramens, there's 2 little pieces of stewed pork (with lots of soft melty fat in between) and a half boiled soya egg inside. The egg was quite cooked so the yolk wasn't runny and nice. There's also a bit of bamboo shoots and spring onion (or is it leek?). The noodles were springy, chewy and of a fair sized portion. Overall, the ramen was passable - average but not really memorable. I suppose I won't mind coming back for the ramen - but only if it's along the way. This is the Kakiage -deep fried vegetables ($12.50) which is worth trying - fried to a crisp and that little piece of white paper at the bottom had minimal oil stains :D According to what I learnt from the tour guide in Japan, the little piece of white paper isn't used for absorbing all the oil - it's to see the skill of the chef - in that the tempura or whatever other deep fried stuff is properly done. The better the skill, the less the oil on the paper. I suppose that compared to all the other normal (not high class) Japanese restaurants I've been to, this must be one of the better dishes I've had.

They're having some sushi offer - where the 8 piece of sushi set costs $20 instead of the usual $28. Didn't try this dish cos it wasn't mine. but it looks pretty good.

The business that day was brisk, and the service was a bit disorganized and messy -for example, they forgot to get us water when we called for it, thought my friend who came late had ordered already etc. But they were friendly and helpful in recommending dishes, and best of all, the dishes came fairly quickly.

Michellelim Stars Rating:Yu Sai Shoku
Medi-Ya Super Market

177 River Valley Road B1-50

Liang Court Shopping Centre

Tel 63380393

The Pump Room

I consider Clarke Quay (Clarke Quay itself, not like those places around it like Liang Court or Central or Mohamed Sultan) a crappy place to get a good meal. The motto of the restaurants there seem to be exorbitant prices for average food.
We went there at about 8 plus on a Sat night, hoping that we could get a table inside (not just because of the aircon...) but then they were packed. We did get a hugeeeee table outside (which could seat 10).

We were super hungry, and I asked the waiter which dish was 'the most filling and the biggest' - which sort of stunned him, but he very professionally said that he'll check with someone - and came back with a list of things that were huge - like the stewed lamb, some fisherman's basket/platter (all the fried stuff) and hmm I can't really remember cos I had already decided to buy something cheaper and to scuttle off to get more food from other sources (was thinking of the kebab place whiched smelt delicious... but nv went there^_^)

Owing to my brilliant plan I was feeling rather stingy and settled for a $16++ Chicken Sandwich. This is one of the cheaper dishes on the menu, but it doesn't make it anymore value for money than the rest - it's a normal chicken sandwich (chicken breast, quite a small portion but it's tasty and not too hard) with avocado (yum!) and brie cheese (double yum!) with beetroot on a toasted foccacia bread. Taste wise, it's ok but totally not worth the $18.72. The bread is really thick compared to the filling. The salad on the side was pretty good - it's a sour balsamic vinegar dressing with lots of different kind of leaves. Stewed Lamb Shank with couscous ($28++)Ribs ($28++)Duck Confit ($28++) which the eater said wasn't very good (compared to Gourmet Plus, which I shall blog about in a while)Lemon Tart ($10++) which apparenlty wasn't fantastic either. But then again, I had a really good impression of the Sticky Date Pudding ($10++) and the Honey Yoghurt Panna Cotta with berries ($10++) the last time I went there. The Soft Centered Pavalova also looks yummy! But I've yet to try it...

Well, the conclusion is that everyone said it was unworth-it to eat here, cos the food standard leaves much to be desired.
Anyway, the whole aim of torturing ourselves with the dinner was so that certain people could watch the band - Jive Talking. The manager there, Jamie Hawkes was really kind too! Jive Talking plays on Sat nights and their music is really good - Got a huge repertoire , can play saxaphone and trumpet! :D And they always start of with this very nice song called Africa (by Toto).

Their target audience is older people (oh no I think I'm classified as 'older people' already!!! Horrors!! ) so they tend to play the music which was popular before like 2000?? The age limit for Saturdays is 21 for girls and 23 for guys.Anyway, apparently the sunday brunch here's really good... I should come back some time to try it (But I'm usually not even awake for lunch =\)

So much for the 'food' review... But it's one of my fave bands :D Mother's Day post coming up soon!

The Pump Room
3B River Valley Road

#01-09/10 The Foundry

Clarke Quay

Tel: 6334 2628

Nectarie le'Dessert Patisserie

Tried Nectarie quite long ago but then didn't have the chance to blog about it till now. It's another of those dessert places which sell tiny well presented cakes with slightly above average prices.I was feeling indulgent after eating a very healthy dinner it Isshou (at The Central). I ordered a Waffle with Alfonso Mango and Lemongrass, and added a scoop of Honey Lavander Ice cream. I quite liked the ice cream cos it was quite a large scoop, and the flavour was light and refreshing. It's a great change from the normal vanilla chocolate strawberry ice creams. The alfonso mango was sweet and tangy, and the lemongrass taste and smell went very well with the juicy mango. The waffle was freshly made and smelt delicious. Ahhh I feel like eating it again! (But it's so ex and im trying to save money!!! sighh!)This is another waffle with Jack Daniels Ice Cream. The ice cream is very yummy and the alcohol taste is really strong. And it goes really well with the generous amount of strawberries. The next time I visit I shall go and get a Honey and Lavander Ice cream waffle with strawberries topped with chocolate sauce. I think the waffle is about $13+ with ice cream and fruits. This is the Raspberry Chocolate dessert (can't remember the exact name) which has a mousse-like chocolate with a little hint of raspberry. I think it was about $6? Not too sure cos this wasn't my dessert though I koped some. But it wasn't really fantastic - maybe cos my waffle was so delicious!

This is some chocolate dome thing I shared but there was diminishing returns cos I was so stuffed from dinner plus the waffle (which was very yummy indeed!) I really can't remember how it tastes so it can't be that fantastic I guess. it's about $6.

I would rate the service as slightly below average cos the staff is nowhere to be found most of the time, and believe it or not they didn't have enough cash to break a $50 note for us - considering how late it was they must have really poor business if they didn't even have much cash in their register.

Nectarie le'Dessert Patisserie
Address:3C River Valley Road #01-05 The Cannery, Clarke Quay

Tel: 6305 6728

Shiraz

Complimentary starter of marinated red peppers, cucumber and olives. It's vinegared and very sour.

Dough (doogh) ($5++) is a traditional Persian drink which is made from yoghurt, water (or soda) and spices such as mint. It's a thin, sour drink and it's supposed to wash down the meal.
Iranian flatbread - with black sesame seeds. I think it's called the Sangak (at least, the description in wikipedia matches it). "Sangak is a plain, rectangular or triangular, blanket-like Persian flatbread. 'Sang' in Persian means stone or pebble and sangak means related to sang. This bread is traditionally baked on river stones (hence the name), and is occasionally topped with sesame seeds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangak)
The Appetiser was the Chef Signature Platter($23++), which consisted of 4 different appetisers -

Kufteh-ye-anar-o Pesteh: a round ball of minced lamb meat drizzeled with pomegranade sauce and topped with pistachio nuts.

Kashk-e-bademajan: roasted sliced eggplant with "Kash" sun dried youghurt, mint and fried onion.

Borani-esfanaj-a: a smooth blend of sauteed spinach ith onion, youghurt and garlic.

The last appetiser was an eggplant dish with minced lamb and youghurt but I didn't take down the name (which I cant pronounce, much more spell).

Shiraz specialises in Kebabs, and their food is halal. They have lots of lamb dishes, as well as vegetarian options. They also have rice dishes and stews, but the kebabs are highly recommended.

Boneless chicken leg kebab ($28) the chicken is tender and juicy, unlike some restaurants where the chicken is overcooked, dry and hard. The portions are generous, and each main course is served with a roasted tomato, fluffy rice drizzled with saffron and a salad. There is also a rice cake which is orange in colour - it's crispy on the outside and the rice is like the kind that you find at the bottom of the claypot.Darya Fish Kebab ($28++) - the fish is soft and flaky, but it was a bit too salty for my liking.
This was my favourite dish - the Soltani Lamb Kebab ($38++), which had lamb fillet as well as minced lamb. The lamb was well marinated, and the meat was soft and juicy, and done just right. I prefered the minced lamb kebab (on top) as it was softer and tastier than the lamb fillet.

Dessert was Sholeh-Zard ($9++), which is a traditional persian rice pudding, with saffron, rose water and cinnamon, topped with pistachios. It's served cold and is very refreshing.

This place is pretty pricey, dinner was $150+ altogether, for 3 people, so reserve this for special occasions (or bring your parents). The restaurant is decorated with persian lamps, rugs etc and they have efficient service.

Shiraz

3A River Valley Road

Clarke Quay

#01-06 Merchant's Court

Tel 63342282