Saturday, November 29, 2014

Takayama Diary Pt 2 - July 2014

Decided to explore the mountain on day 2 of our trip.




buses here are few and in-between, we ended up walking around, breathing in the fresh air. Even walked thru a tunnel! It  was a pretty cool experience though the cars driving past were deafening. 



A quick bus ride up the mountain and then we were at the Northern Alps, with a long ropeway (or cable car) that brings you all the way up. The ropeway was divided into 2 sections, with one being double-deckered - pretty awesome.
The view of course, was stunning. 



Rest stop in between where one can opt to go enjoy the hot spring or just dip your feet into a pond and relax

Even random lunch at the rest stop was good



Alas, it was a tad too misty that day so our view at the top looked like that. Still pretty cool though, being surrounded by so many mountains.

And back to our awesome dinner. This time we opted for Hida beef in Sukiyaki style and cooked in miso. 







The beef still as melt-in-your-mouth good as the day before. I could never get sick of this.

So my verdict of the ryokan experience?
It was great, just 2 days of being pampered with good food and resting in the peace and tranquility of the moutains and nature. Of course, 2 days were more than enough especially for city dwellers like myself who need the lights, sound and hi-speed internet. 



















Monday, November 24, 2014

Takayama Diary Pt 1 - Jul 2014


As part of our honeymoon, we headed down to Japan - specifically to Takayama in the Gifu Prefecture. It was our first time staying in a ryoken in Japan and having watched countless episodes of Japanhour, we were damm excited to get that full ryoken experience.

Our ryoken was located in a mountain deep into the prefecture, in fact we took an awfully long time to get there : Nagoya airport -> train to central nagoya -> train to Takayama -> 2.5 bus ride! Thankfully the scenery along the way was gorgeous, sprawling mountains and waterfalls, a welcome sight from the past few months of busy wedding planning.


Snacks on the train. I love the convenience stores in Japan, even the humble egg sandwich taste so good, what is in that soft fluffy white bread! Train rides in Japan are the best! Clean, comfortable, quiet and great food. 

We experienced the wonderful (and honestly disconcerting) Japanese hospitality the moment we got off the bus. 100m away from our hotel, the staff came out, bowed to us and ran over to get our luggage. This was a traditional ryoken so nobody could speak english and we basically communicated using sign language over the next few days; so thankful they were incredibly patient and polite. 

View of the hot spring in our ryoken. Gorgeous. Too bad we came during summer but the weather was still cool enough for a quick dip. 


Our traditional tatami room. I love the thick beds, we were hopelessly ignorant and didn't know what the many other small rooms were for haha 

Of cos, the best thing about staying in ryokens, other than the bathing facilities would be the food! Breakfast and dinner are provided here and those meals were the highlight of our stay, scratch that, highlight of our entire trip. 

So Takayama is known for its beef (hida beef) and our dinner options were various ways of cooking beef - tepanyaki, sukiyaki, grilled etc 

The start of our 10 course meal. I love how exquisite everything looked.  
Prepared with so much love! 











 The ridiculously beautiful hida beef. 




Grilling mah beef. Bitting into the meat was like hearing a thousand angels singing, I got goosebumps from how delicious it was, the fatty beef just melting away into your tastebuds. 
So damm good. Best beef I have ever eaten hands down. Sure I took a 20 hour trip to get there but damm was it worth it. 


Tiny clams in my miso soup that amused me







Breakfast the next morning. Doesn't matter how full I am. Just gonna keep eating because everything tasted so good.






Fresh produce, from the farms of takayama. 
Yes, I was darn lucky to be experiencing this. 


Sunday, November 23, 2014

Tamashii Robataya


Popped by for lunch after hearing so many great things about the lunch sets here and Im glad I wasn't disappointed.

Set lunches below - comes with salad, sashimi, mushrooms and dessert. Super value for money. 
Nuff said, of cos we went with the grilled beef.





Salad and sashimi were a welcomed healthy start to the meal (pics look like crap cos the lighting was really dim) 



Onto the star of the meal. The grilled beef was soft and tender and super delicious. Such a big piece too! 


With the creamy buttery mushroom dish


And oh yes we couldn't resist ordering the decadent truffle chawamushi, super fragrant though I dont think the truffle added any more flavour to the egg. 

Great meal but I would stick with the beef. Friend got the pork which was very tough urgh.

Do make reservations, place can get pretty packed

#02-01, 12 North Canal Road
6222 0316












Friday, November 14, 2014

Prego


Finally utilising our FAR card privileges at some place other than Mikuni 
Walked past Prego a thousand times but never actually dined here before; it kinda looks like one of those cheesy family-style Italian restaurants no?  Albeit slightly more classy


Started dinner with a cheese platter,  this was the small platter ($16) comprising 5 (!) kinds of cheese, dried fruits and crackers. Especially liked the small round cheese that had a really fragrant smoky flavour. Super worth it for so much cheese!


Crab meat linguine



Asparagus and pea risotto with slow poached egg

Definitely preferred the former. The linguine had great flavour and the crab meat was sweet and fresh. The pea flavour in the risotto was way too strong, overpowering everything else.

Portions here are huge! We could barely finish half of each dish.


80 Bras Basah Road
1F Fairmont Hotel
Singapore 189560

Monday, November 10, 2014

Omakase Burger


This has been on my to-try list forever, finally dragging my ass down to Turf City to sink my fangs into the much talked about Omakase burger.


First impression : woah these are some pretty expensive burgers, granted the use of quality beef and buns but hey, this place still resembles a fast food joint. You can't help but expect similar pricing.

We both got the cheeseburger with a side of sweet potato and truffle fries. 
Darn were the burgers good, and oh so juicy. In fact, these were probably the juiciest burgers i have ever eaten.  And I love the sweet potato fries, super addictive mmm.







innards of the burger. what a beauty.

So overall, I love the burgers though for its size, the price was a bit hard to swallow.
That said, everyone should at least try this once.



200 Turf Club Road
#01-05 Grand StandSingapore 287994


Sunday, November 2, 2014

Gyoza Ya


Mannnn the gyozas here were good


First up some other items. A disturbing looking egg plant with miso paste. Was ok but I prefer the version where the miso paste is baked with the egg plant.




Now for the star of the show.We got the prawn and the pork dumplings, both were great with crispy skin and soft juicy fillings with the pork being the better of both. Yummmm


Garlic fried rice was pretty decent too, nicely fried and fragrant without being too oily.

Cheap and good food in town yeah! Will definitely come back


260 Orchard Road, 
B1-02A Robinsons Orchard, 
Singapore 238855