Ramen Champion @ Bugis Iluma

Another weekend right ahead! Are you running out of lunch/dinner ideas?

If authentic Japanese ramen interests you, then be sure to check this place out at Bugis Iluma.

Ramen Champion is a Marché-style (or food court-style) dining place where you can choose to dine from a selection of food stalls, charge all your orders to a card given, and only pay when you exit. Well, as the name suggests, Ramen Champion is all about ramen! You can find six ramen stalls there, each carrying their own specialized ramen flavor representative of different cities in Japan!

Here's an overview of all six ramen stalls at Ramen Champion:

Gantetsu [Sapporo]

See Gantetsu's menu

This one was actually recommended by a friend. But both wx and I were turned off by the massive portion of corn on the pics. 3-year award winning ramen from Sapporo - miso soup base with classic yellow ramen noodles.

Menya Iroha [Toyama]

See Iroha's menu

Toyama's ramen - the black shoyu ramen! Menya Iroha has been a 2-year ramen champion in Tokyo. Specializes in the black shoyu ramen and traditional miso with chili mara ramen.


Tai-Sho-Ken [Tokyo]

See Taishoken's menu

One of the most famous ramen shop in Tokyo. Known to have invented the tsukemen ("dipping noodles") soup broth - made from pork, chicken and anchovies, and served with soba, either on the side or in the soup.

Ikkousha [Hakata]

See Ikkousha's menu

Rich pork bone soup base with thin flat cut noodles is this Hakata ramen shop's killer combo. Ikkousha pays much attention to its ingredients. It is said that their pork bone soup base does not have the strong smell of pork bone that most ramen shops have. Their chicken gyoza is pretty good as well.

Bario [Tokyo]

See Bario's menu

Listed by Guardian UK as one of the "50 best things to eat in the world," no one should ever miss out on Bario's Jirokei (Jiro style) ramen. Super milky-white rich kyushu-style tonkotsu (pork bone) soup with thick and heavy bread flour noodles - the Bario Ramen!

Tetsu [Tokyo]

See Tetsu's menu

What used to be a small shop in quiet town is now one of the top spots for ramen in Tokyo (like a chain ramen cafe). You'll probably see Tetsu in Tokyo as much as you find a fast food restaurant in US. Tetsu's signature is also the tsukemen soup broth with soba on the side.

What kind of ramen (soup base + noodles) do you like?
Which ramen at Ramen Champion will you go for?

Find out which ramen we went for on first impression and whether we like it on the "Ramen Championship Adventure" series!

• Trial 1: Who's the Ramen Champion?
• Trial 2: Not just your "noodles in soup"

Soya Bean Pudding

Recently fallen in love with this dessert at RamenPlay:

Soya Bean Pudding!

Taken with Instagram @ RamenPlay, Bishan Junction 8

Rich soya bean fragrance, slightly sweet, nice presentation of colors white, red and green. It's like eating the beancurd dessert but in pudding form!

*thumbs up!*

Rating: ★★★★★

Making a Return...for REAL.

I decided to remove the previous post and scrap all my pending drafts so I can have a clean start again. Yes, I can feel that an urge to come back now, after a whole year of no-blog. I've also been increasing my activity on Facebook and LinkedIn, hopefully for Twitter as well. I took up Instagram photography lately too! More cat and food photos. I've had plans to link up a FB page to this blog, posting from FB will a lot easier and less resistant for me, so going to make that happen as well.

Finally, a comeback photo to kickstart it all. These days I need a milk tea (teh-si) a day to keep myself going at work.

This was taken with Instagram @ The Prata Place

This might be old news to you, just because I have been MIA for so long - but have you seen the new Blogger interface and template design (am using one now)? Foodbuzz is not going to like this - all my ads are gone now. :p

I'M ON A DIET (!!)

Hmm I have not updated my foodie adventures for over two months now. Getting busier with my day job and have no time to keep up with the updates. And sadly, you will see less and less good food recommendations from me for the next month or two (at least), because I am now on a special DIET, which just doesn't allow me to anything and everything I want anymore. In the meantime, I will try to compensate with some mouth-watering food shots that has been piling up all this while. :)

Now a little more about the special diet! I heard of this from my sister, proven to be effective by big-size colleague of hers, who successfully lost 19lbs in 3 weeks just by following the diet framework. But before I share any details of the framework here, I shall take on the challenge and see for myself the effectiveness. The overall idea is simple: Each day you would have something more to give up (eating) for the rest of the week - mainly sugar and carbohydrates. (Yes, no carbo!!) The best part - NO EXERCISE REQUIRED and you are free to eat ANY AMOUNT you like.

Starting my 2nd week on the diet today (it begins on a Sunday, ends on Friday. Saturday is a Free-to-Eat day!). 1st week was just tough. Inexperienced and lack of preparation, there was hardly anything left for me to eat by Friday. This week, I made plans - bought lots of veggies and mushrooms (the best duo for this diet) from Fairprice earlier. Oh, and eggs too!

Erm don't ask me the result from 1st week just yet. Because the "sotong" (blur) me forgot to weigh myself before I started on the diet! Hehe but according to my sister, who is also experimenting the diet with me, she has lost 3kg by Friday. This was really a great encouragement for the both of us, because we were almost giving up by the end of Friday. Seems like our determination is paying off. Now we just need to persevere.

Lets keep it up!!

Paradise Inn @ Thomson Plaza

Wanted to have Sakae Teppanyaki the other day, so headed to the nearest location at Thomson Plaza only to find out that the Sakae outlet there had already closed down. :( The storefront had been replaced by a Chinese restaurant - Paradise Inn. I dined at Paradise Inn @ West Coast Plaza before, but the food was not too impressive. Anyways, since we were already there, we thought we would give it a try.

Whenever we dine at a new place, we love to try the special and the new. So this was our first pick - Fragrance Tea with Lavender, Rosemary, Chrysanthemum and Dried Longan for a refreshful start!





Next, we went for a typical Chinese dinner setup - 1x vegetable, 1x meat, 1x tofu or egg, 1x soup.

For soup:




As you can see from the photo, soup at Paradise Inn looks professional - big pot, continues to be heated while you dine, plus lots of ingredients ("liao") in it!



The egg trio refers to: chicken egg, century egg, and salted (duck) egg. A usually very flavorful vegetable dish, but we find this one a bit too watery and bland. The Soup Restaurant serves the same dish and is a lot tastier.




Looks good, taste good - Soft and not too oily!



Here's a mistake we tend to make whenever we see Ma Po Tofu on the menu. Bottom-line: If you like your Ma Po Tofu to taste what the name suggests (ma po), then never order this dish in a non-Sichuan style restaurant! You will only be met with disappointment. To us, this was just a normal tofu with minced meat dish.

All in all...

• Old Cucumber with Pork Ribs Soup, Rating: ★★★★
• Chinese Spinach with Egg Trio, Rating: ★
• Dong Po Pork, Rating: ★★★
• Ma Po Tofu, Rating: ★★