Kushin-Bo

omgosh i was so full after this buffet! i got terrible indigestion and couldn't sleep at night cos of that :( haha but the buffet was GOOD!!! don't get me wrong haha. i thoroughly enjoyed it. just that i think too much of good food just doesnt have a good effect on me. oh wells.

ahaha look at those fat juicy prawns! that's the kind of fresh seafood you get at kushin-bo, with all the other stuff like mussles, clams and crab legs. i loved the myriad of sauces that came with the seafood. i drowned my mussels in lime and sweet chili and it was DELICIOUS. and the crab legs were super fun to eat! hahaha. honestly, yi and zhen HATE crab, but they had a whole lot of fun using the utensil to poke the meat out from one end of the hollow crab leg. when it's so easy to eat, of course it's delicious xD the salad bar was also really interesting, with a whole variety of salads (none of the boring veggies) like smoked duck salad, potato salad, SWEET POTATO salad (this was really interesting!), pumpkin salad, turkey bacon salad (haha so should you feel sinful or healthy i wonder?) and a couple of others.

there was also a teppanyaki counter, where you could order stuff and they'll cook it for you on the spot. i tried this egg wrap thingy which was really delicious! :) and there are also marinated like chicken teriyaki (not really good cos it was pretty dry) and all sorts of tempura (i LOVED the soft shell crab! it was beautifully done).

the sashimi was of course one of the highlights for me :) one thing though, the tongs are so annoying to use! or maybe it's just me :P seems like no one else had trouble with them -.- luckily one of the servers were kind enough to save the damsel in distress struggling with the sashimi which was flopping all over the place. how embarrassing! :P haha and he was so generous in serving the sashimi - i told him LESS, and there was still too much for me to finish.

the sushi too was pretty yummy, with sufficient variety. i must always restrain myself from eating too much carbo at buffets. if not i'll just feel soooo full. there are also dishes around to try, but i wasnt very impressed by any of them. the soba looked goooood! but i was trying to cut down on the carbo so i didnt try it :( sighpie. and i heard that the ginseng scallop porridge was good too! hmm coming from yi who doesnt really like the taste of ginseng (and she said that it was rather mild), i suppose you can give it a shot even if you dont like ginseng either?

one super interesting feature at this buffet were the little green teapots of soup! it was sooooo cute! :) and the broth inside was really flavourful :)

i also enjoyed the japanese soup in that kind of paper pot (omg i suddenly forgot what it's called!!). it was so healthy :) chock full of ingredients like cabbage, tofu, carrots, fishcake and glass noodles, it was such a wholesome dish.

lastly on to desserts! :D there was such an exciting range of goodies that i just HAD to try everything!!! even though i was super full already >.< i loved the fondue machine - there were quite a number of different cookies to go with it! :D and there were chocolate cakes, mango cakes, peach tarts (loveeee!), creme brulee, tiramisu (DELICiOUS! super rich though! and possibly the cause of my insomnia that night) eclairs, different types of chocolate, cupcakes, jellies, etc. so many to try!!! super awesome :)

and one more thing! the restaurant has this 'special offer' thing every one hour or half an hour or so, where a special dish is introduced, and it's only limited to 20 portions! my family got to eat the cheesy lobster!!!! OMGHHKP!!!! but i missed it cos i came later :'( sadddd. i would have loved it. fastest fingers first! go go go! :)

Kushin Bo

Suntec City Tower One #03-002

Tel.: +65 6238 7088

Lunch Mon-Fri $28.90++ (adult), $16.90++ (child)

Sat, Sun, PH $32.90++ (adult), $16.90++ (child)

Dinner Mon-Thu $41.90++ (adult), $16.90++ (child)

Fri-Sun, eve of PH, PH $45.90++ (adult), $16.90++ (child)

Honjin

i haven't been to honjin for at least a year already! it was one of the japanese buffet restaurants my family used to frequent in the past. in fact, it is one of the first japanese buffet restaurants i remember going to. and it was the place where i first learnt how to eat...SASHIMI!!!! :D haha how appalling i thought it was last time, and now, I LOVE IT.

so anyway, i just had to start with the photo of our platter of sashimi! (: what honjin offers is an a la carte buffet at $40++ per pax, and if you want shabu shabu, you have to add $8++ per pax. well...after visiting this place again after so long, i have to say that i'm glad we came here only because of the 1-for-1 offer we had. because for $40, i don't think it was very worth it. in fact, we were pretty shocked when we saw the menu, because it was just a single, rather sparse page of words. and that was it. gahh. disappointed :( but at least the quality of food was good i suppose.

we started off with the sashimi platter, where there was an assortment of raw fish like salmon, tuna, yellowtail and i dunno what else haha. i loved the salmon here. quite often i prefer tuna, but the salmon sashimi here had a very nice smooth texture with a firm bite which i really liked!

oh yeah i forgot!  before our food was served, they gave us a complimentary serving of this refreshing jar of raw carrots and cucumber with a lovely sauce! i was trying to figure out what was it, but no avail. i think it's miso mixed with other interesting stuff! (:

there was also a complimentary plate of sushi! it was lovely (: pork floss on top with crispy bits of soft shell crab inside. i absolutely loved it. such a pity that there were only two types of sushi on the menu! :( this was a special dish that wasn't found on the menu.

i'll just go through all the dishes i had:

1. salmon head: lightly salted with smooth skin, this was a typical japanese dish which was not bad (:

2. grilled unagi: i always love the smell of unagi, the smokiness of the flavour is just nice, and i took a few nibbles of it. however, i can never seem to stomach an entire piece on my own. haha :P i guess it's just me.

3. agedashi tofu: one of my favourite japanese dishes! this was a wobbly piece of tofu, extremely fragile and delicate, covered with a very light batter which allowed it to still feel healthy even though we knew it was not

4. grilled mushrooms: i really enjoyed these! the musk of the mushrooms was wonderfully fragrant and it was cooked in such a simple way that brought out the flavour of the fungi, and it was delicious

5. potato wrapped in bacon on a stick: okay i have no idea exactly which dish this was. nothing very outstanding in my opinion. i couldn't really taste the potato because of the overwhelmingly salty taste of the bacon

6. grilled scallops: this was another dish which i thoroughly enjoyed. the scallops were fresh and bouncy, with a chewy texture and the light grilled flavour was very yummy

7. teriyaki chicken: this was a hot favourite at the table. the sauce was very tasty and we mopped it up eagerly with the pieces of chicken we had.

1. breaded chicken: actually i'm not even sure it's chicken. but that's what mummy said. i didn't really like it though. it just felt soooo unhealthy.

2. grilled chicken wings: hmm i felt that the teriyaki chicken was nicer? this was pretty interesting though. the chicken was super skinny, but that made the skin really crispy after it was grilled though. which was quite nice.

3. salmon salad: there were three kinds of salads. we tried them all. we loved them all. the salmon salad had a generous amount of salmon sashimi atop the veggies, and it was further topped with a huge amount of tempura flakes! oh so yummy!

4. yasai salad: i have no idea what yasai is. based on my guess, i would think it's the sauce. which was delicious by the way! :D

5. fried chicken: ah, i really liked this! it screams 'unhealthy, unhealthy, unhealthy!!!' but i thought it was really well done! it was flavourful, of course not like kfc, but i would say that it came pretty close, which was really great! i loved it.

6. chicken caesar salad: one dish that can't really go wrong, as long as you have the sauce xD

the soft shell crab in honjin is really well done! it's crispier and tastier than all the other soft shell crabs in other restaurants! this made the maki really yummy!

the fried garlic rice was another favourite. even looking at the picture now, i imagine the aroma of the garlic hitting my senses, and spreading through my mouth to the back of my throat. oh gosh, it smelled DELICIOUS. and tasted superbly awesome!!! i really have to learn how to make my garlic rice like this someday. more oil maybe. that's probably the only complaint i have about this dish. it was really oily. but i guess that's how it was so garlicky and tasty.

1. chawanmushi: a smooth wobbly egg with a fairly generous amount of ingredients. nice!

2. assorted tempura: i liked how the batter was light and didn't feel too unhealthy. but i didn't each much of it :P

3. fruit platter: there was a complimentary platter of fresh fruit at the end of the meal (:

4. su soba: this is the first time i've tried hot soba! hahaha. i always thought that it was served cold. anyway, it was a pretty interesting take on the normal soba. not bad! (:

5. macha ice cream: loveeeeee!!! each of us got a scoop of this (:

6. cha soba: simple & good.

i probably wouldn't be coming back here anytime soon. the quality of the food was good. but the variety for a price of $40 is simply not really worth it! and the service could have been better too. we were taking our time going through the meal, and it's not like we really took a very long time! but the staff kept hinting that they wanted to chase us out, by repeatedly asking whether we wanted dessert, and finally, at the end, they just simply asked, "can we bring the dessert out now?" i felt that it was rather rude? the restaurant wasn't even crowded!! tsktsk. so nope, won't be coming back.

Honjin

140 Robinson Road, Chow House #01-00

Tel.: +65 6222 2243

Lunch: 11.30 am – 2.30pm

Dinner: 6pm – 10.30 pm

Momiji Japanese Buffet Restaurant

omg where else in singapore can you find such an AFFORDABLE AND AWESOME JAPANESE BUFFET?!

honestly, i wasn't really looking forward to a buffet because 1. i'm trying not to overeat and 2. i'm super broke :( :( but for the sake of my dearest OCIP team, i went anyway. plus the idea of a cheap jap buffet was too good to resist :P and it was really the right decision! :D this is really one of the BEST CHEAP JAPANESE BUFFETS EVER xD the best deal we got: normal student price for weekday lunch is $16.90+, and passioncard holders get 10% off, so....the final price we paid was $15.40 :O isn't that amazing. and the variety and quality was really worth the money! (:

i was literally squealing with delight when i first laid my eyes on the buffet offerings. the sashimi was fresh and yummy (: there were so many lovely types of sushi, i didn't know where to start! actually, a word of advice, it is probably not a good idea to start with sushi/any carbohydrates during a buffet since it fills you up real fast. but then again, i'm a buffet junkie, so anything works for me xD

these were the ones that made the final cut xD ooh you know how i love inari (: the lovely sweet beancurd skin filled with tuna or egg, yum yum! i loved the sashimi-wrapped sushi and the one with soft shell crab inside (:

ooh all the sinful food. haha loved the onion rings! (: (: seriously, it's really rare to find this kind of onion rings nowadays :'( most places now serve the kind with the stringy onion inside -.- but i still like the burger king version, which is the one they have here! try the fried salmon skin as well (:

to balance out the unhealthy fried food, there is also an area with steamed goodies (: the chawanmushi was silky and tasty, and the dumplings were lovely too!

clockwise from top left: chicken teriyaki, stuffed tomato, cheesy mussels & oyster, sweet & sour dory fish, tofu, fried udon, fried rice. i loved the dory fish!!! :D the stuffed mussels/oysters are quite interesting if you like these kind of food. and the udon was pretty good too!

lots of drinks to chose from as well!

the selection of desserts includes cakes & mochi, but the bestest part was the......CHOCOLATE FONDUE! :D :D :D i think i've either been deprived of chocolate fondue for way too long, if not it's really good. i absolutely loved it! :D my favourite is the waffle thing dipped in chocolate. :D

Momiji Japanese Buffet Restaurant

PoMo Centre #03-11

Tel.: 6338 3122

Lunch 12pm-3pm (last order 2.30pm)

Dinner 6pm-10pm (last order 9.30pm)

haha okay i realise this is more of a picture-spamming post rather than a review :P sorry!!! super busy with school stuff (even though it's only just going into week 3 >.<). but i'll try to blog properly as often as i can!

Hanabi Japanese Restaurant

School’s started! (: It was not such a nerve-wrecking experience after all, thankfully! (:

Anyway, on sunday, went out to ‘celebrate’ the end of my long long holiday with dinner at hanabi. haven’t been there for quite awhile already! they are pretty famous for their ala carte buffet, which is considerably affordable at $33.00++ for dinner (: click here for the full menu! 

When you go to a japanese restaurant, what is the one thing you definitely MUST eat…?

Sashmi!!!! Haha x) I only started appreciating sashimi a couple of years back, and now I love it! :D but not without wasabi…I still can’t really stand the slightly fishy taste if I don’t have wasabi with it. The sashimi platter has 4 kinds of sashimi: salmon, tuna, squid/octopus and some kind of white fish. I absolutely LOVE salmon and tuna (: (: the sashimi here is fresh and tasty. Yummm!

Haha you know I’m a ‘tofu-person’ right? I always like eating Japanese agedashi tofu. Actually, the one back in my jc was by far the best I’ve eaten, and I’ve not been very impressed with all others I’ve found. But it’s still tofu anyway, so I liked it ;)

My family loves garlic, and we LOVE GARLIC RICE! :D :D :D the garlic rice here is not as fragrant as that in sushi tei (oh that one is AWESOME – a must try!) but people who do not like the strong taste of garlic would probably like this subtler version, which is tasty in it’s own way.

In this dish, I have the best of both worlds (: my favourite sushi is the inari, and I love soft-shell crab as well! So hanabi is sooooo smart, and they came up with soft shell crab inari! (: ooh I’m in heaven! :D haha. I was slightly disappointed with the crab though, because it was not crispy! ): if not, it would have been the perfect sushi :D

Wow, okay this is a complicated array of dishes. :O lol

1. shio saba fish – we actually ordered both the teriyaki and shio (salt) version. I preferred the teriyaki one, mainly because of the sauce. I felt the shio saba fish was rather dry :/

2. octopus! – my sisters love this. I still find it kinda gross to pop that tiny octopus into my mouth, but I have to admit, it’s tasty! :P

3. veggies – healthy eating, right? (: they were slightly salty though…

4. some sort of marinated chicken which I really liked! :D the sauce was really tasty, and the chicken was super soft (:

5. the chicken wing version of above – but this one was not as nice. The chicken wings were a bit TOO roasted, and therefore kinda hard and dry :/

6. shishamo – EWWW! :P okay, this I really don’t like. Eeks. Everytime I think of all those gross little fish eggs, I get turned off

7. salmon teriyaki – this was nice nice nice! :D I definitely prefer salmon over saba fish (: this was a very yummy version, and the fish was nice and soft (:

8. baked salmon (I think?) – it was too hard and burnt!!! >.<

9. teppanyaki pork – quite nice and tasty (:

Lastly was all the sushi. We didn’t want to order it at the start so that we would not be filled up with all the carbo. At the end, I was full to bursting. The sushi was practically oozing out of my ears :P haha, oops, not a nice description :P but the sushi was pretty good! (: from left: tuna avocado, salmon avocado, salmon skin sushi and spicy soft shell crab sushi. I liked those with avocado inside! (: made it seem healthy x) haha. The salmon skin sushi did not impress me much. The spicy soft shell crab had an interesting sauce, as seen above, but I was kinda too full to appreciate it’s taste :P

Hanabi Japanese Restaurant

331 North Bridge Road

#01-04 Odeon Towers

Tel.: +65 6338 6626

Lunch 11.30am-2.30pm (last order at 2.15pm) Adult: $29.00++, Child: $18.00++

Dinner 6.00pm-10.30pm (last order at 9.45pm) Adult: $33.00++, Child: $20.00++

Tell me what your favourite japanese buffet restaurant is! (: