I went to the much-raved-about Ippudo sometime this week. So raved, that my Japanese colleague was exclaiming that it’s the most authentic ramen that she has had in Singapore.

Fortunately, just the day before we went, they started allowing bookings (criteria being you have to spend at least $20/pax before tax), so we didn’t have to queue! :)

They have 3 varieties of ramen, namely “Shiromaru” (Light), “Akamaru” (Rich), and “Karaka” (Spicy).

I had the Akamaru ramen with tamago. And well… for some reason I feel a bit bad for saying this, but um it really wasn’t that good. I mean it was a yummy bowl of ramen but… there was nothing really wow about it. The pork wasn’t particularly succulent or melt-in-my-mouth, the soup wasn’t exactly bursting with flavour, the noodles weren’t really Q…

Well perhaps it takes a true Japanese to know how awesome this is. Possibly like I wouldn’t expect a foreigner to have the same opinion about which stall serves the best kang kong or chilli crab?

We also shared:

• Gyoza – Really average gyoza. I’ve had better at food courts, unfortunately.
• Potato salad – Yummy and creamy. :) At least something’s good!
• Ramen salad – Um… sadly another miss.

Was at Plaza Singapura over the Good Friday weekend and there was absolutely no escaping from the 20m (or longer?) tall poster hanging right smack in the middle of the mall advertising for Itacho.

I never mind having Japanese food so, tee hee.

We had:

• Roasted egg with spicy salmon ($3.20)
• Cold cha soba ($4.20)
• Curry roasted chicken rice ($12.00)
• Yellow-tail sashimi nigiri ($2.00)
• Tamago nigiri ($0.90)
• Roasted salmon nigiri ($1.20)
• Pumpkin tempura ($4.50)

I just wanna say oh. my. god. The yellow-tail was so good!!! Technically I didn’t have it sashimi-style but still. It was melt-in-my-mouth pure fresh goodness. I dunno what they did to make the texture so perfect but it was!

$2.00 for a piece ranks slightly exensive in Miss Cheapo’s eyes here but it’s worth it.

The cha soba (which is my new fav dish), on the other hand, was meh. The soba’s texture was fine but the tsuyu (the soup/sauce you dip the soba in) was quite tasteless unfortunately.

The rest of the food (minus curry rice which is pretty much the same everywhere), was above-average tasting too so that was nice. :)

Above you will find my non-sinful indulgence for today!

Minnie n I had lunch at Ootoya just now after gym, n I actually consciously chose something healthy! I’m so proud of myself teeheehee. I had cold soba (awesome), mini maguro don, n we shared torotoroni soup.

Everything was yums! Amazingly, after I ate everything I ordered + a quarter of minnie’s salad cos she couldn’t finish, I still didn’t feel absolutely stuffed. In fact I’m already feeling a bit hungry now 2 hrs later. Nouuu hehe. /sheepish