Saury at Itacho Sushi

 Itacho is having  a Saury promotion - the Saury (also known as sanma) which I haven't particularly paid any attention to till the promotion.

The roasted one wasn't incredibly tasty and I wasn't particularly impressed by it. It goes very well with the shredded daiokon, but I found it really cumbersome to eat cos of the many small bones.

However, the roasted saury is in a class of its own - I've been back twice just to eat it. It's fattier than the aji (mackerel) even though it looks quite similar at first glance. I love the charred taste from the roasting and the sashimi slices are nice and thick.

 The offer is really spectacular - I would totally go back just to eat the roll (roasted saucy with shredded cucumbers) or the sushi (on plain rice). It's garnished with a little blob of ginger, not that it's particularly fishy (I have great faith in Itacho Sushi's standards).

 Another of my favourite - the anago ($6) which was so super long that it was flopping over the side of the plate.

Itacho Sushi
Star Vista and other locations (Ion, Plaza Singapura, JCube, Bugis Junction etc)

Imakatsu

So after India, I was totally craving for Japanese food. I really didn't care if it was sashimi, tonkatsu or ramen - just as long as it was Japanese. (Yes this post is outdated - had it around mid-November but too much inertia to blog)

We ended up at Star Vista's newly open tonkatsu speciality place - Imakatsu. 

We had to try the Piyo piyo minced meat cutlet, just because the egg looked so oozingly nice in the photos, but I really didn't like it - I didn't like the smell of the marinated minced meat cos the taste reminded me of the kind of meat you find in those frozen gyozas. I'm not saying that it was frozen, but it really looked better than it tastes, and for $18 I would really much rather spend the same amount of money on a proper pork loin.

 Since we were sharing, and ordered the PiyoPiyo minced meat cutlet (as an al carte dish), we decided to go for the big pork loin ($27++) to share. It's a really massive slab of pork loin.

Check out the above photo - the hand is on the same level as the pork cutlet - no forced perspectives used here. I think it can be easily shared between 3 not so hungry people, or 2 hungry people (or in my case, 2 people with normal appetites). I don't think you should attempt to eat the whole thing by yourself cos you will most definitely get gout and high LDL. 

 The pork cutlet - meeting expectations - juicy, well breaded, and not oily tasting. Since we shared a set, we didn't get free flow of rice, but they gave us free flow of shredded cabbage.

I was quite annoyed that I had to pay for the drinks (fine I was pretty thirsty that day) so I paid $3.80 for my iced tea, and was told much later that there was no topup! There's only topup for the hot green tea. I initially asked if the tea was free flow and the server said yes. The server then asked if I wanted hot or cold (hence I assumed it was free flow for both). Obviously I said cold cos I usually get cold tea with my hot food. And to my horror, after paying $3.80 (before taxes) for my tea, I was told that there was no refill when I asked for one! The cold green tea doesn't even come from a bottle or can -_-


Would I go back again?

Well, considering that Star Vista is in close proximity to my house, and that the carpark there is one of the least painless (since there isn't much shopping to be done in Star Vista Mall), I probably would. But paying for my tea, and $3 something per cup is a major turn off for me.

I think I'll go back to Ma Maison Tonkatsu (my current gold standard for pork chop) to settle my pork cravings (considering the free flow of drinks, plus the carpark is half decent if you don't go during peak hours), and for a greater variety of pork chops.

Imakatsu
The Star Vista
1 Vista Exchange Green
Singapore 138617
Phone 6694 3111

After the oily cholesterol laden meal, we decided to wash it down with some awfully good chocolate, chocolate cake (super stacked 7 layered chocolate cake, no less) and the hei ice cream.
I'm now sadly hooked to the awfully chocolate milk - it's really thick and awesome, though paying $8 bucks for it means I'll only get it for special occasions. I suppose it's a blessing in disguise or not I'll buy a whole load of it.

Porn's Thai Food

I had the pleasure of dining at Porn's Thai Food on a Sunday evening. It wasn't very crowded, so we managed to get a seat straight away. I just got back from Bangkok a few weeks ago, and was craving for some good Thai food.

Many years ago when they opened their first outlet at Liang Seah Street, I went there for lunch. The food was not bad but because it was so out of the way I never went back again (as you can tell, I don't particularly enjoy going to the Bugis area cos I feel very old there). And forgot all about it (since I have a goldfish memory).

I wanted to order Tom Kha Gai, which is a less/non-spicy version of Tom Yum soup with coconut milk (partly because I have extremely low chill tolerance). However, I was unable to find it in the menu. When I asked the server about it, he instantly said that they would be able to cook it for me (at no extra cost), and recommended that I order the seafood version, as I had already ordered their fried garlic chicken. Also, our small 2 seater table didn't have their special offers menu. The server also straight away asked if we had a UOB credit card, as the tom yum soup was 50% off if we did.

Food wise, I think that they are comparable to the standard Thai restaurants.
I really like the Tom Kha Gai soup, which, without the UOB offer, would be about $13++. It was a really big portion (good for 2 pax), came with 4 medium prawns, lots of fish and mushrooms. I could see the galangal and lemongrass, which some Thai stores don't even have (which, to me, means that the spices came out from a packet). There was just the right balance of coconut, so that the soup wasn't too thick and cloying, and neither was it too watery.

The garlic fried chicken was extremely addictive, and the basket of chicken was devoured in a matter of minutes. Light crispy batter, and soft moist morsels of chicken. It was tasty on its own, and I didn't have to dip it in to the sweet chilli sauce accompanying it.

The pineapple rice came with some prawns, baked cashew nuts and raisins. The rice was very fragrant and there was a mild hint of curry powder. I would like to try their olive rice during my next visit.

The papaya salad was really refreshing and crunchy, but the only part I didn't like about it was that there was way too much raw garlic for my liking. I will order this again, but definitely ask them to tone down the garlic taste.

I'm very impressed by their flexibility - especially with being able to adjust the spiciness of the dishes, which is very important to me since I have extremely low and pathetic chilli tolerance. I was also very happy with their service (something that is very rare nowadays) well as the waiter's initiative.

It's pretty hard to find restaurants nowadays who actually bother to train their staff well, or who have staff who actually bother and take the initiative to inform customers about the in-house offers.I was so pleased that for once, I didn't feel annoyed that I had to pay 50 cents for my cold water. If you frequent Thai Express, I would strongly encourage you to give Porn's Thai Food a try - it's much more wallet friendly, and I personally think the dishes I had today were really delicious.

Porn's Sexy Thai Food 
Star Vista Outlet
1 Vista Exchange Green
#02-09 Singapore 138617
Opening Hours Monday to Sunday 11am to 10pm
Tel 66943501