Birthday dinner with lala

Early on the 19th, I recieved a card from Stella. She had stayed up almost all night to make it. Written on it was a funky message for me.It was a really nice pop up card complete with our pictures and a nice little message with it. Despite her claims that her art isn’t good, I really liked it a lot. Thanks dear!
After hanging around, we headed out for dinner. Dinner was at a nice little Japanese place called Chako, located around the Hong Leong Gardens area. I really loved the place. Stepping inside, it was almost as if I were transported to 70s Japan (although I’ve never been to Japan). This was complete with old Japanese music playing through the cassette player in the background.
Inside with the counter behind me :

Black Tea :
The sake has eyes. They stared at us all night.
Sishamo:
Sashimi Platter. Really good, although it really filled us even before the main courses came. Really great stuff anyway.
We had to wait for quite a bit for the main courses to come (apparently this was the warning when we checked out reviews online), but the food was really great. Stella had the pike mackerel set, and I had the unagi set.

Stella looking cool and funky with her food:

Really delicious. I’m a fan of grilled unagi, but this one was broiled with egg and sesame oil. The flavour was not overpowering but it was so freaking fragrant. Really awesome stuff man. I would gladly come back for this anytime. One thing about Japanese food that I appreciate is its simplicity.

The both of us:
Next, we headed down to Rochester for some desserts. Funnily enough, the band that we’ve been looking for all this while were playing there. Drawn in by their voice, we ended up at One Rochester for a beer and some dessert. Was nice just listening to music and enjoying each other’s company.

What a great night =)

Shinjuku Izakaya

Damn, this has got to be one of the best meals we’ve had in a while. While looking out for some place to have some sake after a little ‘dinner’ of blood cockles and lala, we chanced upon this little hole in the wall place in Cuppage that Stella claims resembles the authentic izakayas that she had a chance to visit in Hawaii. The mood was complete by the fact that we were greeted with a very polite “konbanwa” by the lady boss the minute we entered, and the fact that we were the only Singaporeans when we were seated.

We ordered a couple of side dishes, and washed it down with hot sake.

Edamame:

Rows of various kinds of sake/ japanese alcohol:

Deep fried shrimps. Lightly salted and crispy. Fantastic with beer I’m sure.

Our sake. They utilized this simple but effective system of keeping the sake nice and warm. Basically a metal flask is placed inside a concrete/stone container which is in turn inside a wooden container, preventing the heat from escaping.

A very happy girlfriend =)

Ika sashimi, with real grated wasabi.

Shishamo

Finally, we were still itching for some food, so we ordered a mini ramen. Turned out to be fantastic stuff, for just 6 dollars. The soup was nicely salted, and the flavours from the meat and bamboo shoots were so nicely integrated into the whole dish. Really good. I might have one of that myself if I weren’t too full by the time.

After dinner, we headed to the Apple store to get Snow Leopard, but stocks hadn’t arrived at that time yet so we just headed home. What a nice way to end the uber long week that we both had. Although the bill was above the average amount that we were used to paying, there’s some added joy gained from paying for something good once in a while, and this was definitely one of those instances. We’re definitely coming back.

Today

Spent a day after Syntax today shopping for new year clothes for Stella, and basically just hanging out. Headed to Funan to get the WD TV which cost me about $199, an okay sum considering from now on my mom can probably watch all my video goodness like Heroes, Psych and Criminal Minds from the comfort of our large screen TV in the living room. Stella checked out some of the netbook prices and kinda settled on the Eeepc. Had some icecream before heading down to the Wheelock area.

Met Lalang at Borders for a little textbook transaction and had a chat before we headed off for some more new year shopping and dinner. Had a good time just catching up and talking about random stuff like dirty toilets and overly low urinals (don’t ask).

Shopped at Taka for a bit and after buying Stella’s dress, both of us were really starved so we headed down to Waruku to settle my sukiyaki craving. Seriously I think Waruku has some great food for the kind of price that you pay for it.
Ponderng about what to eat:

Beef slices waiting to be cooked:

Stella’s meal of beef with eggs and udon soup. Really nice too.
Checking out her food :
All in all, it was a great day, with great company. I think I hardly spend time outside with the  girlfriend that much, so it was nice just walking around and looking at stuff, and just chatting over dinner for a change. Sometimes it’s good to go slow for a bit as the pace of school starts heating up.

HK day 3

As Cheryl and Erwin couldn’t join us for breakfast this morning, the both of us headed down to take some pictures and have our own breakfast. We had to check out at around 12 so we had a bit of time to just explore the little shopping mall that our hotel was located at.

Finish-owarimashoo

Japanese oral is over, and despite me feeling that I screwed myself somehow, and despite all that sounding incredibly sexual, it’s finally owarimashoo for me. Now just the exams to study for and it’s finally the holidays.

Sushi Kikuzawa

For our lunch, we decided to head down to Sushi Kikuzawa. Stella discovered this about two weeks back, and we’ve been looking forward to try it. Apparently it serves really good sushi and sashimi, sits a maximum of 12 and is owned and run by a japanese chef. I’m sold already.

Us at the train station :

View from outside. Foooood! :

The chef, Kikuzawa-San at the preparation counter. You can see the slabs of raw fish that are contained in the cold fridge in front of the table. The ambience felt pretty traditional, and with all the hais that were ringing out from behind the counter, you know you’re at the right place.

We were first given a sashimi platter as starters for the buffet. One would have to pay if you wanted another plate. The fish was really fresh and you could taste the sweetness of the salmon. I’m not a big fan of tuna (toro), but I found this one really good too.

Some light soup with chicken and vegetables. This was light and refreshing.

Chawanmushi. Really nice. It wasn’t as salty as the ones you would usually get in other restaurants, but it was light and delicious nonetheless.

While we were having our starters, the sushi had already started arriving as and when the chef finished making them. Since the nature of the blogpost is linear, I’ll just have to pretend that they arrived after the chawanmushi. heh. Below is the sushi list at the back of the menu, and there are other dishes inside as well, but we got full just attempting to eat the different kinds listed below.

Hotate – Scallops scorched with a mini flame gun. Awesome. You could taste the difference in textures between the scorched top and the raw bottom. Nice.

Unagi and amaebi

Ika and Shake

Stella. Haha no she is not a kind of sushi although she looks quite tasty =P

Ikura. I love this. I think we had two of these. It really melts in your mouth.

Bonito. Frankly I didn’t really like this one. Felt that it tasted a bit too pungent for my liking. I’m fine with the bonito shavings that you often see curling up on takoyaki.

Swordfish. This was really good. The ones I often have somehow either taste too salty or fishy. This one was just right and it just went down well.

Fugu – the famous dangerous pufferfish. Again, this didn’t do it for me, and I think Stella agrees with me. We were wondering what all the hype was about and unfortunately this turned out a little blah. Maybe the fear of death makes things taste or feel a little better. haha.

Natto. A kind of fermented bean dish that is apparently only found in Japan. Heard that it was kinda smelly but decided to try it anyway. Haha well….it did taste pretty nasty, but Stella seemed to like it. Maybe I’ll try it again if I ever go there again. Good experience though, I’m glad I tried it.

A little late, but we decided to order some sake. Pretty refreshing and we were able to go on with another round of sushi.

Takoyaki.

Another round of sushi – Unagi and Tai I think. I still can’t get enough of unagi. Good stuff.

I ordered this salted squid cold dish, and damn, it was salty! I don;t know what the sauce was, but it was pretty pungent and fishy. Stella and I think that some squid ink was mixed in with that. I managed to finish the thing in the end though, since it wasn’t a lot anyway. Washed it down with sake.

Finally, for dessert, jellies. I had the peach and Stella the lychee one. It was a nice roundup to the whole meal.

Verdict? it was an awesome meal, and we actually stayed for almost two hours. Horribly stuffed after that, but definitely no regrets. For a pretty decent price of $29.90 for lunch buffet, this was defnitely a great experience, and great food to boot. I’ll be coming back here.

Us after the meal :

After lunch, we did some shopping at Wheelock followed by a movie at Cathay – Talk to Me. That was a really good movie and we enjoyed it for its black humor and social commentary.

And finally, a light dinner for the both of us, and a bit of practicing for the japanese conversation class for today.

I was really glad for the outing. It was most refreshing and I felt a lot better spending a day out with the girlfriend and just doing stuff. Stuff that does not have anything to do with school. Can’t wait for the exams to be over and for the holidays to be here man. Now it’s just Japanese Oral test tomorrow. I hope I survive 5 minutes of talking tomorrow.

So I haven’t been doing well in Japanese. I’ve been failing most class quizzes and only passing barely, and also barely scrapped through the midterms too. It’s especially disappointing as I always believed that what one cannot do with talent, one does with hard work, and I have been spending quite a damn bit of time on the subject. But I just don’t seem to be doing well. Maybe talent as an important factor of learning is really something that I’ve underestimated then. Of course, the alternate explaination is that I have been studying the wrong way, and despite the 10 hours of work I put in each week, nothing really goes in. That’s possible too.

exskewer me, sake please

Had a wonderful dinner with Stella last night at a nice little Yakitori place at Cuppage with warm sake in the rain. Nothing beats the great company that she gives me all the time. The little salty sticks of meat and hot sake really did the job too. Went home feeling tired but happy for the little time that we managed to squeeze out of out busy school schedules.

On a not so light note, I’m kinda worried as I’m not doing too well for Japanese language. And I think I just flunked this weeks vocab test. Damn. I’ve gotta work a hell lot harder if I want to master this.