Four Christmases, Noodle House Ken

Of late, best friend time spent with Kels has always revolved around movie+junk food extravaganza. Arming ourselves with the largest size of popcorn (trust me, its never enough) and other savoury snacks, the movie is never the same without the junk food.

this is the largest sized popcorn from Cathay Cineleisure and costs $7.80 with a drink (extra top up of 60 cents for iced lemon tea). Cinemas here are a total ripoff when it comes to popcorn and nachos but its like the only place we ever eat popcorn (k and i are huge fans of popcorn) and it does seem strange if we go shopping munching on popcorn.

There are many counters scattered around the 4th to 6th floor of the cineplex selling popcorn but obviously the nicest, warmest, freshest popcorn comes from the counter with the highest turnover ie the one at the 4th floor - but there was only once when the popcorn was really freshly popped and the sweet clusters were clumped together by the hot caramel and it was really warm and crispy, thickly coated with sugar! But ever since then all our popcorn encounters were less than stellar. Looks like we must observe when the popcorn is made and quickly chiong to buy the freshly made batch. Haha..we must be the only insane ones to watch the movie to get our popcorn fix.

This time we tried the nachos too. Again another ripoff at $4.80 with a drink...that can buy me a whole pack of tortillas (oh the one with a hint of lime is superb) and the cheese today is quite diluted according to kels who is particularly about her sauces. Seems pretty good to me still, possibly because I was ravenous.

As for 4 Christmases (which is a movie by the way, just in case), it had many subtle references to maternity which was uncannily relevant to what we are studying now (and an ominous reminder to STUDY) and the movie had us thinking about commitment and motherhood (and osces). It was okay-funny but some of the scenes tried too hard with their blunt and crude humour it vaguely reminded me of Stepbrothers. Definitely not Love Actually standards, where the interplay of relationships were much more interesting (and more eye candy too), this is more like a Meet the Fockers kinda movie. We were planning to catch Cape No 7 but the timing clashed with tea and tea was more important (we wanted to go Jones the grocer or Freshly Baked at Kiliney) plus Cape might have marked the start of a dreary weekend so we thought a comedy like 4 Christmases will be good.

We wanted to have dinner at Freshly Baked but to our disappointment they ran out of the sandwiches when we reached there about 7pm after our movie (they close at 8) so we adjourned to nearby Noodle House Ken at Orchard Plaza for dinner. I have been wanting to try this place for ages.

Orchard Plaza and the Cuppage Plaza houses a treasure cove of eats and this is one of them. Unpretentious place it is, compared to the nearby newly renovated glamourised/expatriate-fied Cuppage Terrace.

Noodle House Ken occupies 2 shop units, and there are also some tables outside where you can sit alfresco. The shop unit nearer the road houses the kitchen as well, and there are only bar seats inside. But it was a hot day and the steaming kitchen was just too uncomfortable for us so we moved to the next shop unit, which was equally small (minus the kitchen, of course) and was nicely air conditioned. We sat at the bar counter.
This was where we sat at. There are shelves of manga (all in Japanese though - really inspires me to take up Japanese so I can read these!) and Japanese magazines in both shop units.

I found the Japanese poster very retro and I really don't know whats up with the Chinese New Year lantern up there. Strange.

The nicely comfortable air conditioned second seating area. Don't be misled, this place was packed around 730pm and there were people waiting outside, but we took our time with our food and we discussed some questions (well we were supposed to be studying) and time flew by, leaving us the last to leave this restaurant. The background music was actually pleasant chill out type, and it was actually quite a nice place to catch up when there are less people around.

The menu was only a page long and consisted of some simple starters and ramen. Their ramen soup is double boiled for 8 hours and there is no MSG. They do not offer any desserts - I guess places like this, being a ramen specialist they offer only what they do best in, not like those generic places which try to be the jack of all trades and master of none. This place is like super Japanese friendly - the reverse side had the same menu but all in Japanese characters.

Cold Noodle $12

I requested a change of meat to sweet corn. This dish was really good! The noodles were really firm to bite and chewy, and the sauce was tasty and had a subtle sour twang to it - it is actually a sesame sauce. The vegetables added a crunch - and I particularly liked the bamboo. There was also some crabmeat which was rather generic yong-taufu type, and some strips of tamago. Oh the yellow mustard by the corner was really potent.

I love sesame seeds and when I found the sesame seed container I didn't even bother grinding it and just sprinkled the whole seeds on my noodles. (Okay at first I didn't know how to operate the grinder =p). The aroma was wonderful!

And when the noodles ran out, I liked the sauce so much I didn't want to waste it so I emptied most of the sesame seeds from the container so I could mop up whatever sauce left with copious amounts of sesame seeds - it is like sauce-coated sesame seeds and tastes of the sesame ahbaling interior..yummy!

Stewed Boiled Egg Ramen, $12

Kels really enjoyed her bowl of ramen especially the soup, which she said was really tasty. and....

the stewed egg! do you see the layers of yolk and egg white? she says it is really different from the other eggs she has eaten. And a huge one at that!

We spied the chef reading his manga on our way back. Haha! now we know that the shelves of manga are the source of entertainment for the chefs! This place closes late and will be a wonderful supper place for comfort food yay.

Noodle House Ken

150 Orchard Road#01-17/18 Orchard Plaza

Tel: 6235 5540

Mon-Sat: 12-2pm, 6pm-2am