Sorry peeps for the lack of updates. Had been busy looking for jobs after I got back from Singapore and now that I'd secured a job, I got even busier with the company's work =.= So much happened within these 2 months and I don't know which to post anymore :P

Anyway, after 2 years (?) I can't afford to give it a miss. It's the only place (so far) where I could get my freshly prepared Tamago.

Of course in big cities, please be early else you would have to stand in line. For how long? That I don't know. Everywhere just seems to be filled with people and they come out of no where. Haha!
The words on the board means "Business in operation". I wonder in Japan, they do this as well hehe.

On my previous visit, I sat in front of the kitchen area where you can see all the action going on. This time we tried the tables. I manage to snap back shot of the lady boss (I think) of the restaurant.

One thing I love about Marutama is the free flow of water and tissue! Wahaha! I don't mind self service for such things LOL

On the table, there was also fried garlic slices. Looking all crispy-licious, I took one and popped into my mouth. Immediately after that, my face just scrunched up as it was SO BITTER. Too bad...else I would enjoy it as a side snack LOL

First arrived was the Dashimaki (Tamago with dashi) SGD 8.00 Not exactly cheap but its really nice to have piping hot tamago with dashi flavour. And not to mention, JUICY. However, I did feel they added more dashi to the eggs last time compare to the ones I had recently.

Since I came with my cousin bro, we ordered Char Siu Gohan (Char Siu Rice) SGD5.00 Unbelievable isn't it??? The egg is more expensive than the bowl of rice packed with pork! The char siu was great. With a bit of burnt like smell and sweetness from the onions together with fresh pork, thumbs up. Pickled vege that comes with it taste good too. Makes you even wanna gobble up the whole bowl.

The main character arrived at last, Aka Ramen SGD15.00 According to the menu, the soup is made of 7 kinds of ground nuts mixture with chicken soup (mild spicy). Well to me its not spicy at all. The noodles came with generous amount of spring onions, some Chinese parsley, 3 Tori Dango (chicken meatballs) and a lemon wedge. Yes we squeeze the lemon into the noodle for extra flavor.

Yumz...Springy ramen with thick soup but still not as flavorful as last time. Or is it because its a new soup base which had been brought to stove not long before we arrived? Could it be the recession that hit Singapore so hard that restaurant operators had to cut cost some how? But regardless how they cut, it still taste good and I can never get such food back in Penang.

Cousin bro and I both agree that Char Siu Gohan kind of over shadowed the noodles LOL

Total damage was SGD32.95 for 2 person. It was pretty filling although we only ordered those three items.

Location: #03-90/91 The Central, Singapore.
Contact: (Tel) 6534 8090 (Fax) 6534 8077

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This has got to be my most extensive walk in a city so far.

On the way from Novena to City Hall. I don't know why my cousin brother insist getting off at this station. During the ride, I saw an ang moh family beside me. Quite picture perfect isn't it?

Alighted the train at City Hall and walked through a series of malls such as City Link. I wasn't sure where I was until I saw these art displays. It means I am near Esplanade and I didn't even walked under the hot sun for a tiny bit.

While we were heading towards Esplanade Mall, there were several series of art displays along the way. Seriously, I don't get what is this :P

Although an art person, I gotta admit that I don't know what a toilet seat with a plastic apple and pineapple being put together means. Somehow its entertaining to us in a strange way LOL

Another series of display call 'Celebration of Life III' by David Joe Lim.

Metal sheets with patterns created using acrylic paint. Quote: "...Reflect the gleam of colours and energy before a viewer's eye as the dancers move into the rhythm and tempo of music."
Pretty cool. I wonder what music did he referred to when he created this artwork.

Out from the Tunnel, we hang out at Esplanade Mall and continued walking, passing by the 'Durian' Theater of Singapore hahaha!

From Esplanade to Fullerton One. Formula One race just ended about a month before I traveled to the island nation. It must have been quite an experience driving on the streets.

I was blessed with great weather for the first 2 weeks of my stay there. Weird. The sky would get very cloudy but somehow they clear off or there's no rain at all.

Behind Fullerton Hotel is the business district of Singapore or what my cousin bro calls it, "Singapore Wall Street". And he went on mimicking the morning business newscaster XD This is also the place where Flashmob performed (different day)...Haih...sadly I missed it. I didn't even know about it!


After much persuasion, cousin bro was reluctant to agree having dinner at Marutama Ramen until I said the word "my treat" =.=

With a map and good navigational skills, we walked from Raffles Place (Business District) to Clark Quay. I never seen this part of the city before and I never thought these buildings are still standing today. The place in the picture below is Hong Kong Street and by the time we were there, the area was quite deserted. Most of the shops were closed and called it a day. Pretty similar to Campbell Street in Penang except that the buildings are 3 storey high.

Headache from lack of sleep and almost died of thirst @.@ Saw a canned drink vending machine with imaginary hands luring me towards it. SGD 1.40 for a can of 100 Plus! I simply would not give in.

Central Mall at last...but I wasn't even sure if Marutama Ramen is in the mall.

Singapore's ERP gantry...Fortunately, they do not charge people who walk under it LOL

We checked the mall's directory and confirmed it there. About time because we were already half dead and would certainly die if we had to continue searching.

To be continue - Marutama Ramen

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Don't get me wrong here. I am not promoting Tan Tock Seng Hospital or whatsoever. But the fact that I am so katak di bawah tempurung, I can't skip through this place. LOL

The hospital was really huge and once you are in there, you weren't even sure if you had just stepped into a hospital. NO Dettol smell!

There is Delifrance and Subway too! Eeks >,< onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hr3acwTEpOo/SwAWonRCSLI/AAAAAAAADF0/dJ2imaDn4Sw/s1600-h/Inside+Tan+Tock+Seng.jpg">I left with awe. LOL Of course, to come up a building with top notch facilities, a lot of money is needed and I don't think I want to discuss it here :P

That day, me and cousin bro planned to get to Esplanade. So to get there, we need to pass through Novena Medical Center (Novena Square) and head to the MRT. Till my cousin bro complained he was hungry and I did not want to give in when he suggested to have lunch at TTSH Food Court :P

We somehow agree to try QQ Rice despite the outlet looks deserted.

There were a few choices of rice to pick such as purple rice, 5 grain rice, brown rice and so on. They were all kept warm using these wooden buckets. Pretty interesting.

QQ Rice also offers a wide choice of fillings for the rice. These are vegetarian fillings (e.g. mushrooms, vege, beans, seaweed etc)

If you don't like vege and prefer to have your rice packed with meat, there are also an equally wide array of fillings (e.g. seafood tofu, crabstick, bacon, even Ngoh Hiang!)

Many choice but no time to think what fillings to go with. So we quickly pick purple rice to go with mushroom, cheese and turkey bacon...LOL!

The rice ain't cheap though...if not mistaken SGD4.50 or sumthing...

Pizza kind of topping wrapped in rice =.= We didn't eat it immediately after we bought it. As a result, the rice smell of plastic :S Other than that, the taste was fine although a bit tasteless :P

Hot rice wrapped with plastic doesn't seems to be a good idea because plastic smell was strong. We finished it anyway. Kind of defeat the purpose of being a healthy food. They should find an alternate material to wrap the rice or something.

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Geee...Seriously I don't know what to say about wet market. Although I like to hang out in malls particularly air-conditioned ones, wet markets would always come across my mind regardless where I travel to. We can see lots of things there be it "tersurat" or "tersirat" LOL

Types of fresh produce, the quality and pricing says a lot about the locals as well as their lifestyle. Kovan Hougang Wet Market is only one of the MANY wet markets in Singapore.

There are a couple of stalls selling fish but this stall has the widest variety. Really fresh and they have grouper too. I saw a 东星班 at the another stall. Don't know what's the price though...

Halal poultry stall with some frozen beef in the chiller. Because they are kept in the chiller, the chicken seems to be pinkish and fresher too. Halal chickens are smaller compared to the normal ones. Don't know why.

Here comes a stall that caught my attention. The aunty sells 生鱼肉 (fish) and 活田鸡 (paddy frogs).

Super fresh and those frogs were plump too. Reminds me of the man who slaughters frogs back at Taman Connaught Pasar Malam. You wouldn't want to see how they do it.

I never seen such huge 生鱼 before. The aunty would slice them based on how much the customer wants. If not mistaken, half slab of it cost about SGD14.

In Penang, an uncle would normally sit beside a huge blue plastic tub with nets covering it. The small 生鱼 would then be slaughtered upon order.

One of the vegetable stalls in the market. Hardly see people selling asparagus in wet markets. Vegetables here are not bad.

Standard sizes...even the leeks are plump.

And clean too! Don't recall seeing any dirt on the vegetable and bad leaves were removed before they are bundled together. How I know? The uncle was just sitting beside these bunch of vegetables, carefully picking the leaves XD

Beautifully roasted items :DDD

But despite so many items, my aunt went for the other stall instead :S The old couple's stall located just beside the stall in the picture above. The old uncle reminds me of my grandfather LOL Hair style, Pagoda brand shirt and those shorts...just can't miss it ;)

Not as many items, and the char siew is red. However the roast pork was not bad. I was more curious on how the duck would taste like. They don't sell only drumstick, so we took a quarter of it and of course the lower part with the drumstick...hehe

I never thought the duck would be tasty! LOL The skin wasn't crispy but smells good. Must be the maltose syrup (麥芽糖 ) the uncle added when marinating the duck. The maltose syrup also contributed to the roast duck's colour :D Duck meat wasn't dried out. Still soft and juicy. Things got even better when the duck sauce was poured over it. It was great! Not too salty or watery. It doesn't have the strong bean paste smell with a tiny hint of wine. Probably the bean paste brand they get in Singapore are the better ones and also it all boils down to the uncle's/aunty's skills.

Hong Kong style roast duck? Should be. This is only an ordinary stall in a wet market. Those famous ones must be even better.

One thing is for sure...Never judge the outlook of a stall :P I almost finished the duck in one sitting LOL leaving only bones (with a bit of meat attached) for my poor cousin brother...wahahaha!

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I have been wanting to visit Singapore's wet market but wasn't able to do so until recently. It's either I don't have the time or I couldn't wake up :P Come on...where would you choose to go if you only have a few days time in Singapore? Ochard Road or wet market flocked with aunties?

Aunt and I decided to have some breakfast before making our way to the wet market section which is just next door.

Something we were very aware of was the Sunday crowd. Lots of people, lots of car and lots of stalls with long queues!

發記 is a stall selling fish ball noodles with a variety of noodles like mee poh(flat noodles), mee kia (yellow noodles), koay teow and bee hun. The uncle was very fast in whipping up super hot bowls of fish ball noodle soup.

Finally he prepared mine. By the way, its all self service here.

This bowl of regular Koay Teow Tng was priced at SGD3. I would say the pricing is similar to KL. The slightly higher pricing is quite reasonable because you can practically share this HUGE bowl of noodle with another medium eater.

The koay teow noodles is quite thick and the uncle gave A LOT =.= I would prefer to have thinner and less thick strands of koay teow :P Anyway, the soup was pretty good. Although a bit oily but the soup was boiled with lots of meat and LOTS of pork liver. Pork liver was very fresh and powdery. The fish balls were very bouncy and no fridge smell.

Aih...needless to say, this bowl of ordinary koay teow tng warmed my stomach pretty well. It rained a little that morning.

The stall also serves curry chicken noodles and dried style noodles. I haven't try dried style noodles from this stall but I do love the taste of Singapore style konlo as they add ketchup to the noodles. Hahaha weird but I like it :D

Of course I couldn't finish the noodles so I had to pack the other half home :S What more its super hot. So hot that I have a hard time snapping photos of it and also eating it :P

Happy reading~

Location: Kovan Hougang Wet Market (Morning-Evening)

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I haven't been to Ichiban for a few years now. Although Ichiban is not some high class Japanese food outlet, it's a place where I use to have my meals with my cousins when they are still in Singapore. So I make it a point to visit this place whenever I travel down south :) Still the food has to be good too right?

Haha I sat at the exact same place when I last came here with my aunt. The only difference was that the chef was cutting up piles of fresh salmon fillets.

We went to Ichiban Sushi on a Saturday so we had to wait for a while before our food was served. The restaurant was pretty packed.

Cousin bro ordered Nikutofu Wazen Set SGD 16.90

There would be the usual vegetable tempura...

A small bowl of teriyaki chicken with rice.

And of course the egg, tofu and beef hotpot...Just the bubbling sight of it already makes you hungry.

Sweetish flavourful broth with soft beef slices and silky tofu...The egg was really good too because it soaks up the broth while heating above the small flame. Good stuff~

Beef hotpot aside, my order arrived. Chasoba and Katsudon Set SGD 13.90

Ice chilled soba noodles were very springy but to some point it becomes hard after awhile. Anyway, one thing I realised was that the chasoba didn't come with raw egg anymore :( So much for the Avian Flu...The chasoba was really a lot and unfortunately my cousin bro weren't able to share this with me. His set was already filling enough.

Just to make things clear...I seriously saw the word there MINI on the menu. Suddenly my set came with a medium sized bowl filled with rice, egg, onion and a thick slab of fried chicken fillet on top =.=

Although full, I manage to stomach this bowl of Katsudon. It pretty good. The egg was cooked together with some onions and the slab of chicken chop. Similar to the Unagidon at Sushi King but Ichiban's Katsudon taste way better... hands down. The rice wasn't too wet or sweet. Just nice ;)

After the meal, I could barely walk :P And not to mention, we have groceries to buy as well...

Happy reading~

Location: #02-23 Hougang Mall
Tel: +6563867836

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