梅光軒 - Baikohken ramen

I knew I mentioned that I was going to post about White Dog Cafe (that mushroom soup place) today, but since I just got back from Baikohken, I thought I might as well post about that instead. The impression's still fresh in my mind and the ramen's still fresh in my stomach, after all. :)


A shot of the interior. I remember being really surprised at how small the place was; it was like one of those tiny little family-run restaurants you see in Japan - practically a little niche in the wall with 15-20 seats, max.

You can see Brudder looking very amused at being photographed. The little area in the background on the left's the little kitchen that they cook the ramen in; just behind Brudder you can see a little picture saying "namara umai", whatever that means.


Here's what I got - corn and butter miso ramen with added charshu! $13.50 for the ramen plus an additional $2 for the charshu. The menu's actually pretty limited, if I remember correctly, all they have is four different kinds of ramen - normal, corn and butter, charshu and vegetarian. The only other variety you get is the kind of soup your ramen comes with - shoyu (soya sauce), shio (salt) and miso. The only other things I remember being in the menu were gyoza (which I ordered to try), dry ramen, and various drinks, including the ubiquitous japanese beer.

Anyway, back to the ramen. The servings were huuuuuge. As in so huge that I had trouble walking after dinner. And all I had before that was rice for lunch ages ago. So don't go unless you have a really empty stomach - don't say I didn't warn you. The soup was pretty good too, not as salty as some ramen I've tried. And the charshu was, to quote Brudder, godly. Imagine really thick and tasty slices on melt-in-the-mouth goodness. It was so good I almost regretted not getting the charshu ramen instead (which comes with twice the amount of charshu(!!)).


I also ordered gyoza since I wanted to see what high-class gyoza was like. Answer: Almost like normal gyoza except crispier and more garlicky. Not really worth the $5 tag for it (as Brudder said, $1 a gyoza is the reason why he doesn't normally order it whenever he goes for ramen).

In general, Baikohken is a place to which I'd go again - I've even decided what to try the next time I go (shoyu charshu ramen)! Try to go on an empty stomach, and remember to order ramen with charshu!

The service was of the typically-fantastic Japanese kind, but the place isn't air-conditioned, so you might want to avoid it on a hot day. Thankfully, they also serve a free-flow cold mugicha (麦茶 - roasted barley tea), which helps wash everything down nicely. Ramen costs from $13-15, depending on which you order, so be prepared to spend around that amount, with perhaps a couple of dollars extra if you decide to add toppings or share gyoza with a friend.

Baikohken ramen
7 North Canal Road

An appetiser

Right. I think this blog has been stagnant for long enough. That, and the pictures have been accumulating nonstop for ages now.

So what I'll be doing will be trying my utmost best to post at least one place per day over the next few days until I've covered my backlog before I forget everything bout the places I've gone to. Brief posts for now, and perhaps more detailed ones as time goes by. :)

So let's start with the long-awaited Outback Steak House:


This is an onion thingy that they're apparently famous for. Imagine this huge oily crispy onion ringy thingy that comes with a dipping sauce. I didn't touch it that time round due to a horrible sore throat I had on the day, but it looked the same as always - good, yet ever so sinful. I think it was under $10, which is pretty decent for an appetiser that the whole table can share.


The very same onion after it was attacked by six very hungry diners. :) (not including one somewhat-sad diner with a sore throat who was trying not to drool over it)


This was what I had - Salmon. Was the only practical thing on the menu due to my horrible throat - everything else was either crispy or served with fries. Not exactly the kind of thing you go to a steakhouse for. But then again, it was during Lent and I was abstaining, so it was the only thing I could've gotten, anyway.

I remember it as being pretty good, a really juicy piece of salmon for a pretty decent price of 20-ish dollars. Don't ask me about the veg. Not a terribly hot fan of boiled stuff, so it ended up on the plates of the girls.


What Jacq had - I managed to take a quick shot of it as she was directly opposite me. Notice all the blood, ugh. I'm not really a fan of stuff that looks vaguely alive, but according to her it was really nice and juicy. 20-30ish as well, I think. Oh, and it came with this really interesting-looking mashed potatoes that we thought was ice-cream at first. It had bits of potato skin in it, which was a very unique way of presenting a very otherwise-normal dish.


And finally, one thing that really amused us was the way they served their (free) bread - it was literally skewered by this huge knife and served on a wooden cutting board. Can't really remember much, aside from the butter being really light and fluffy! I heard some people go there just for the bread... Not me, though. I go for the onion that I can't eat due to a sore throat. *grumble*

All in all, it was a pretty good (and typical) night at Outback. Good if you like typical western food, and I guess I should mention that they serve a really mean chicken. I can't remember what it was called, but I seem to recall quite a few people having it that night. I should prolly go there again to try it out.



Tomorrow: French toast at this HK Cafe opposite Novena and possibly mushroom soup at this place whose name I've forgotten (if I have the time!).

Nude Food

We passed by this place while searching for a place to dinner at Vivocity yesterday:

Didn't manage to eat there as we weren't really looking for Thai food, but I think it would've been quite an interesting experience, heheh.

Anyway we ended up in White Dog Cafe, which is supposedly quite well-known for it's Triple Mushroom Soup. Took a bunch of pics; food will be reviewed sooner or later. Which is whenever I have the time to get down to it.

Sun with (NOT 'and'!!!) Moon restaurant, Wheelock Place

Since someone(glares in general direction)'s perpetually putting off blogging about our visit to Sun with Moon, I guess I'll have to do it. Because it's 2am and I can't get to sleep. And even then I'm blogging about this place that I can barely remember about. But what can you do. What are you doing up and about at this time of night, dear reader? Hmmm?

Anyway. I can't really remember much about our visit - will have to go again, hinthint - except that some of the food came in funny metal bowls in wooden containers that came with a gimmicky hourglass so you know how long to let your food "cook". Guess they don't have enough space in the kitchen. I didn't take any pics of those as I was too focused on my shitty rice - more to come about that later.

Service was somewhat tolerable I think.

Okay, on to the food (like any Singaporeans care about service hurhur). The chunks of beef they put in their stew were humongous:

Isn't that utterly HUGEmongous??? (the beef, not her nose) I swear to whoever that this pic has not been altered or photoshopp-ed in any way. Biggest and juiciest chunks of beef ever. There was half a cow in our bowl of stew.

And the rest of the stew (which I also did not take any pics of) that the beef came in was pretty fantastic too. Flavourful (I see this word in food blogs all the time so I assume it's a pretty good catch-all phrase when it comes to food), meaty, and goes really well with rice. It had veggies in it too, which were on hindsight pretty unmemorable (veggies normally are).

As for the shitty rice:

It wasn't allll that bad - we called it that because it literally looked like shit on rice - but it wasn't too good either. It was overly normal, which isn't really a good description when it comes to food. Imagine salty bak chor on japanese rice that had been shaped by a bowl and you've got Sun with Moon's shitty rice. Oh, and I got one extra pea on my serving than what the picture in the menu showed, so I guess it wasn't all that bad.

Would I go back there again? Yes, to try the other stuff they had in the menu. Like one of us mentioned, this is really high-class Japanese dining, man. No plebeian Japanese food like Katsudon and Ramen here, nooooo. You want that kind of food, you go to the food court like the good little peasant that you are.



So, all said and done, what's next on my review list? A visit to Outback Steakhouse in Millenia Walk and one to that Hong Kong restaurant opposite Novena. To come when I next get insomnia; don't hold your breath.

First post!

...because Denise is nagging me to.

Okay, here's a preview of pretty much what this blog will be about:



Interested yet?

Anyway, if I know you and you're interested to join our little foodie group, leave a comment to this post so I can add you as one of the authors of this place. So you can post and stuff in the future. You'll need a blogspot account though, so jolly well go get one.

Luckily for me, Denise is still choosing a blog skin so I can ramble a bit.

Oh I know. Here're some of the names that we came up with for this place while brainstorming - try not to groan too loudly:

the korma sutra
themakanpeople
makansutra
elderberries
fellowship of the wok
fellowship of the foodies
snacks in the city
holy chow
unholy chow
kung food fighting
gastronomica
gruel and unusual punishment
tarragon of virtue
read this and get hungry
speaking ingest
thiswillmakeyourtummyrumble
whine and dine
whining and dining
whiners and diners
(you can almost see evolution taking place)

See if you can guess who came up with what; no prizes though.

Till then.