Megumi Japanese Restaurant, Daily Scoop, Ohsho, Dessert Story, Ah Chew Desserts, Tong Shui Cafe

It was one of those afternoons when we had a morning tutorial with Dr Wendy then in the afternoon there was a slide show tutorial so we had the luxury of heading out for lunch. We settled on Megumi Japanese Restaurant (Blk 106 Clementi St 12 (Sunset Way) #01-38 ) after walking around Sunset Way. I read about this place in ieatishootipost.sg who raved about the charcoal noodles.

They offer lunch sets at $9.80++ with free flow green tea - there's a a choice of tonkatsu, tempura udon, unagyu sets. Seems like quite a popular place for the working adults - NUS or Biopolis overflow, probably.

Kaisen Don

But I still like my chiraishi don so I didn't choose any of the lunch sets. This kaisen don has tuna, salmon belly, the octupus was really juicy! Usually its rather firm and bland but this was tasty. So is the swordfish! But nothing beats the chiraishi don from Wasabi Tei. Quantity and quality Wasabi Tei is the bomb man. The chiraishi dons at Botan and Satsuma (both I blogged about before) cant beat Wasabi Tei either.

Tempura Udon set, $9.80

I tried some of Yiuming's noodles and they seemed pretty chewy to me =)

Unajyu Don Set, $9.80

I also koped some of Lijia's unagi and I think it is quite good - you cant really go way wrong with unagi. Its quite a big portion for 10 bucks too!

After that, we drove over to The Daily Scoop (Sunset Way) for ice cream. I find that the ice cream here is a little too watery for my liking- and it melts really fast! I see them mixing the icecream on a cold plate before putting it into the containers that you see below..

It seems like a popular place for the after-lunch crowd - there was even this bunch of people (and profs =P) with the NUHS lanyard...

I tried the cherry brandy, cha (earl grey) - I liked the latter's intense tea flavour.

I wanted to try the ginger crumble but they ran out. The chendol as well as the honey vanilla was rather weak - it was seriously on the watery side.

I tried the Pistachio too but I think the Pistachio at Tom's Palette is better. The Coconut was rather milky. Lychee Martini was what the girls eventually chose...shan't comment on the peach and strawberry and tangerine and other fruity flavours since I'm not a fan of them and I'd prob be biased against them

Peanut Butter, Amaretto

This was Stering's and mine. I like the peanut butter here - there were many bits of peanuts inside the creamy icecream. The amaretto was really chocolatey in a milky way - and there was marshmallows in the ice cream - in fact there was one huge marshmallow that occupied about 1/3 of the scoop you see above so that was an expensive icecream space- occupying marshmallow!!

Lychee Martini

Yiuming and Lijia shared one scoop- the lychee martini was more fruity than alchololic - I prefer the heavier alcoholic one at Seventh Heaven.

I joined Kelly, Jason and Sheryl to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (this is a delayed broadcast of our mini-cg outing=P) and of cos Kelly and I couldn't do without our usual popcorn... today's was quite good! Quite warm and thickly coated!

The movie was indeed a visual feast - but we really couldnt wait for Button to hurry grow up so he could emerge in his full Brad Pitt glory!! It was really disturbing paedophilic behaviour when the couple's ages didn't match during the extremes of ages. The part where Button left his family to live out his life exploring the extremes of the world before he becomes too young and dependent (and not remembering anything) was juxtaposed with how Cate Blanchett lives out her rooted, and settled family life and eventually marries someone else. A family grounds you - but it limits your freedom. Family and children brings different experiences that you'd be exchanging a life of irresponsibility and selfishness for.

Kelly left for dinner somewhere else and Jason, Sheryl and I moved onto Ohsho(#01-10 Cuppage Plaza) for dinner. I found out the hard way that parking at Cineleisure is INSANELY EXPENSIVE! We were rushing to catch the 420 show for the students discount BUT parking from 6-9pm is fixed for that 3 hours. So altogether I paid 9 bucks for parking!! Its even more ex than my students price movie ticket!! So of cos my movie ended after 6pm and we decided to eat in Orchard instead to max out my parking time - instead of going Mohamed Sultan (where I feel there's better food)

Crabmeat Omelette with rice, $8

I wanted to eat porridge and something warm and soupy so this was perfect! The omelette wraps around the fluffy warm steamed rice...

and is covered by savoury warm gravy... it was actually really yummy and is comfort food at its best.
comes with a bowl of egg soup

Chicken fried rice

Jason took the set with chicken fried rice and gyoza set. He thought the fried rice was really salty...i thought it had alot of wok hei and was quite tasty!

Gyoza

Jason had half and Sheryl had the other half. The gyoza comes either steamed or deep fried.

When we ordered, I ordered the crab omelette rice ala-carte, and Jason ordered the set of fried rice and gyoza, whilst Sheryl ordered the gyoza only. It didnt strike us to order 2 sets. But when they charged us, they charged us for 2 sets, helping us save one buck! Quite nice of them to calculate out what is more worth it for our food =)

Jason felt like a sorbet after that very salty fried rice so we ended at Dessert Story (basement, Heeren) for shaved ice. This is my second visit here - the first time Kelly and I tried the green tea shaved ice with red bean.

Durian Shaved ice

The durian puree here was really very fragrant, and went well with the subtly durian-flavoured ice.

Mango Shaved ice

Again, these layers of silky smooth mango-flavoured ice was extremely refreshing..the mango puree and pieces was a little too sour for my liking though, i generally don't like sour stuff much.

After that I picked Chong up from PS and we headed to the Mount Sophia area...we wanted to go to the new Timbre@ Old School, but there was a long long queue and leeching off the music while we were queueing - it was some folk music, slow going music that we weren't really interested in (it was a Saturday)...so we took off! Not before paying $2 for the per entry parking at Old School so expensive to recee that area! But the ambience here seems quite chill-out, its like in a bungalow in the middle of the Old School area, and the crowd generally an eclectic mix of after-work and youths.

And interestingly, we saw a bunch of people in school uniforms (definitely way overgrown) so we were wondering there was some event at Old School. Old School is actually the ex-MGS. But we realised that every Saturday, there's free entry to Zirca if you turn up in your school uniforms...

We then went to check out Wild Oats bar (Emily Hill). I've blogged about Wild Rocket before, and I was curious to check out the bar...Wild Rocket is at Hangout@ Mount Emily, a boutique hotel, but Wild Oats is actually in a different building, further in. There are quite an interesting mix of tenants inside, most into the film and arts industry.

Anyway the finger food here sounds nicer than the drinks (well, food first, over drinks, anytime!) but we were quite full from dinner so we didn't try. Drinks-wise, we were more of in a dessert mood, but those dessert sounding drinks sounded enticing - but not enough to make us stay! The music here was even more jazz(there didnt seem to be any dj or band playing then), and the place alot more quieter, crowd alot older. Perfect to just chill and chat the night away...but we wanted dessert. So we moved on.

Ah Chew's Desserts (Liang Seah Street) is the fail-proof supper desserts place to come to. We reached here around late 11 plus, and JiDeChi was closing already. This is the best time to come actually, cos the after-dinner crowd would have died down - but you risk running out of your favourite dessert!

Steamed Milk Egg, Plain

Original is best, the first time I had this I had it with ginger juice and boy was it throat numbing! I've had this quite a number of times now, and I always seem to have it cold, never had much luck with the hot version..guess i'd have to come here earlier in the day! As usual, it was silky smooth and had that perfect egg-milk balance of sweetness.

Black Sesame Paste, Red Bean Paste with Lily Bulb

I always have the pastes here as my second dessert - the sesame here is really the best I've tried. Chong really didn't like the red bean paste - I thought it was quite an acquired taste, and I began to like it the more I ate it although I didn't like the initial aftertaste. It doesnt really taste like the red bean paste you find in your ice-kachang- this tastes more like thickened red bean soup.

We then walked pass Tong Shui Cafe (Liang Seah Street) and we couldn't help looking at the menu - the instant noodles and the Durian French Toast sounded so good (even though we werent hungry) we decided to go in and eat more.

We sat in front of this tv but the cable tv was showing some super old Hong Kong drama... Tong Shui Cafe has an amazing mix of people - the waitresses here wear cheong sams, and there was a group of male vegans who were making a hoo-ha about the baked 'beef' toast - the waitress couldnt pronounce beans properly leading to a huge misunderstanding - I mean, if you are serious about being vegan, don't come here!

Beef Brisket Noodles

Nothing much to shout about, just comfort food that we are lazy to cook ourselves. We liked the tender beef brisket though. The noodles are skinny and yummy!

Durian French Toast

The moment I took a bite of this, I went wow and so did Chong - the durian was really sweet and caramel-like! When I ate it again with B he said that it tasted like kaya mixed with durian. Anyhow, it was really good cos the toast was fried crisp and slightly salty! It is like fried durian but its not oily at all, and the toast was fluffy inside. When you cut the toast, the durian paste just collapses as well - its buttery smooth and fluidy. It's really very good!

When I had it with B again, we ordered wrongly - we ordered the Durian D24 Thick Toast - you must go for the FRENCH toast! Fantastic supper food! Tong Shui opens till really late.

Many many more toasts to try from Tong Shui! I shall slowly try them all =)