Must Try

For a quick and satisfying lunch, make a beeline for this Halal-certified Lanzhou beef noodle house. Expect a complex and robust broth (simmered with more than 15 spices) with fresh noodles hand-pulled on the spot. Pick your noodles (ranging from thick to flat) for the flavourful Signature Beef Noodles (from $8.90). Spice fiends, the Mala Spicy Beef Noodles ($9.50) with that extra kick is made for you.
Photo by Burppler Jonathan Lim

For lunch, this place offers a few value-for-money rice bowl options. This is one of the two that were highlighted in the menu with a “Recommended” tag, and I found it pretty decent for the price.
The tsukune was indeed large, juicy and really tender but it lacked the crunchy bits of cartilage that I love (Tori-tama at Robertson Quay does a great one if you are looking). The nanban is essentially a slab of boneless deep fried chicken dressed in a light, tangy vinegar-like sauce, and crowned with a heap of creamy tartare. Interestingly, its crunchy coating is not as hard as the ubiquitous karaage’s due to the presence of egg in the batter.
Every lunch set comes with salad, a bowl of miso soup and a small dessert. See what I mean about it being very good value-for-money?

Putting up this dish’s name in Japanese because we couldn’t find it anywhere on the menu book (after tons of flipping from back to front HAHAHA), until we spotted a small whiteboard hanging on the wall full of Japanese words. We ended up comparing them with the translated menu on their website. Crispy golden brown coating with a filling of mochi, cheese and mashed potato - this combi is hard to go wrong. Add a squeeze of lemon for a slight zest!

I love the taste of their latte and ambience. Not to mention their service is TOP notch and makes customer feel welcomed. They even let us try their cold brew which was on the house. Highly recommended!

Fresh out of the fryer from the people that brought you Chir Chir and Masizzim comes Kogane Yama, a specialty tendon restaurant that joins the glut of other tendon joints that have been proliferating the F&B landscape in the past year or so.

What sets Kogane Yama apart from the pack is your ability to customize your tendon bowl, right down to how spicy you'd like your sauce. Pick from 4 bowls — Chicken($13.80), Prawn($13.80), Vegetable($11.80) and Mixed($15.80). Then select your choice of rice, udon or soba. Lastly choose from 4 levels of spiciness for your tentsuyu sauce.

Want more? Add $2 to make it a set meal with chawanmushi and miso soup.

Personally I preferred the rice over soba or udon, as these were too toothless for my liking, even after having taken into account the time spent on taking photos.

< Invited Tasting >

Taste: 3/5

A refreshing change from the usual udon options you’d expect! A bed of freshly made udon topped with 7 ingredients - spicy minced pork, bonito powder, garlic, leek, green onions, seaweed and an egg, toss them well for a stronger flavored dry style udon. The raw onions may be a tad strong and stinging if you're not a fan but it's easy to adjust to preference. We also added tempura crumbs into ours (available unlimited at the self-service counter) for that extra crunch!

Found this place while exploring Haji Lane on Burpple. An assorted platter of mezes- hummus, babakanus and various dips shown in the picture. It comes with lavash bread, and served ballooned up. I love hummus, so this was a treat! This is best shared among 4 people.

Made my way to Suntec early to check out the Tempura that is making its rounds on social media that had got me rather intrigued. Having tried Tempura Tsukiji Tenka for lunch just a day before, this way leaps and bounds better than that. Coming with more ingredients such as a slab of chicken breast, two tempura Ebi, long beans, fried baby corn, crab stick, squid etc., this was not only just generous but executed very well — despite drenched in a sauce, they remained relatively lightly crisp and with the right texture for almost all of the elements. My favourite has to go with the long beans and baby corns for the lightly salted flavour, and if there is one item to comment on it would be the fried chicken breast which admittedly could have been a little more tender but still works out great in the bowl itself. What binds this bowl so well for me was the spicy sauce — lightly savoury but full of kick as it exudes a punchy spiciness that isn't quite as expected from a Japanese joint; perhaps a little bit more than moderately spicy for me that makes it very appetising to finish the entire bowl of rice. If it all feels a tad heavy handed however (it fits well for me though), feel free to help yourself to the free flow ginger pickles that gives a satisfying zing to refresh the tastebuds. A definite must-visit in my humble opinion that really would give Ginza Tendon Itsuki a run for its money. (PS: there's a set available at $19.50++ that comes with Udon along with the Tendon, but with the portioning so generous I doubt one would ever need double portion of carbs.)

One of their signatures and a must-try! A little bit pricey, but oh so worth it. The lobster meat has been (conveniently) scrapped out, mixed into a creamy concoction before being stuffed into the empty lobster shell and baked for a short while to brown the top crust. The cheesy mix really boosts the flavour of the lobster, but yet isn't too gelat so you can probably order this as your main (it's so good you wouldn't want to share). Super rich and creamy, you will find yourself scraping (in vain) the empty lobster shell for more.