Planning for one sushi lunch (preferably ) in november,
wanted to know a few things

- miyako sushi (do they do they same style of tamagoyaki as jiro/mizutani/harutaka? http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1302/A13020...

- sushi saito , ( been before, so i might want to try other places, any reason to return?? i like the sushi here and atmosphere, tsumami , aji, uni kuruma ebi were very memorable )

- harutaka ( read reviews that sushi is not as good as saito , thou i might want to try because i would like to focus on jiro style sushi on this trip. )

- mizutani ( tamagoyaki was the best i have tried, sushi rice was good, but i didnt quite like the atmosphere )

-yoshitake ( what kind of tamagoyaki? this restaurant is also another kyubey trained?)

anybody care to comment on the above list only???
looking at places below 20000yen each,if possible below 18000yen ea for lunch

I have heard about kyo aji, and heard some people getting a reservation there without recommendations.. so i might want to ask the hotel concierge to help me make a reservation.
i have short listed a couple of hotels that i might be staying, any other hotel recommendation in this price range ? or any other hotels that are less expensive to stay but equally good at making reservations?

hotel new otani
park hotel

which hotel is better in making difficult/ michelin restaurants???
thanks

hello
will these good value hotels help make a michelin reservation??

hello aso
its been 3 years and the YEN has gradually depreciated to favourable levels from the last time we spoke when we met at aroma fresca..
just wondering, aroma fresca is now casa vinitalia or ???

it could be transportation cost ... ippudo at singapore costs alot much more than in hk.. maybe the downtown rental is more expensive here?? there are much more downtown areas in hk..

is there any northeastern chinese meat skewers in NYC and boston??? they dont tend to migrate to the states, from what i know, the states has alot of southern chinese cooking like hunan, sichuan and guangdong i presume...
for hokkien at old airport road.. .here are a few that are rather popular... i've never eaten at these stalls thou.
lor mee at Xin Mei Xiang Lor Mee #01-116
whitley road prawn noodle
and the blanco court kway chup for teochew.

My trip a few months ago
Caprice doesnt make it for me,
Regarding the service - 1 of the french staff( i assume is the maitre d), not the wine sommelier(who had rather good service), looked at me from head to toe when i entered the restaurant, i dont know if this is what u call a 3 star michelin service? I was late for lunch and i assume they were closing for lunch, I was in a jacket , and wore chinos and boat shoes. The rest of the servers were fine and good, except for that particular person.
Food wise, the ingredients didnt match up for me, for the lunch menu. not quite the same standards in tokyo where the ingredients were top class.. the food ingredients here tasted like restaurants in singapore, all these french techniques and skill is useless if the ingredients dont speak for themselves. Only the fish with the sea snails was slightly better, the sea snails are good but i can feel some of the taste is somewhat lost during the course of time and transportation. Maybe dinner is different, i dont know. but the sunday lunch menu wines are great thou. these are included in the sets. desserts are pedestrian, thou they offered me 1 more dessert)

also i tried yung kee, relatively expensive for hong kong standards , goose is relatively fat , but skin is not really crisp, my partner prefers this to joy hing. Dishes like fried calamari are not acceptable to my standards, soggy and all.

Joy hing, i liked the goose here quite abit ( imo better than yung kee ), there is a slight charcoal roasted taste to these goose.. and the price is very cheap, although u have to share tables in the very packed environment. the partner did not like the food here, she says yung kee is better and this style of roast goose is common in hk, also maybe because it didnt have her roasted pork ( siu yok) , the rice here is pretty bland.

Mak Kee, the broth is good but not mind blowing spectacular, but at that price it is very expensive, will not do it again.

tried tim ho wan famous baked char siew bao at the ifc mall.. not bad, they were freshly baked, but i felt it needed more time in the oven. the bun is pillowly soft, and has a sugary crust

most of the posts here are about singapore food, but i dont really find them to be particularly great, especially the frog porridge(poorly made cantonese style porridge, is only frequented by locals because i think it is overhyped and they like frog meat, but the cooking is not great and even a layman can cook that kind of porridge) and the lorong 9 beef horfun( it is precooked and is served within a minute, its even faster than Mac Donalds!)
i recommend ethnic chinese cuisine, like sichuan, or chinese lamb skewers if u are trying to get a great and decent value to ur meal, and because there are many chinese nationals around the vicinity in geylang . sichuanese restaurant like Song ji at lorong 13 along the main road is great for its sichuanese dishes and is famous for its crab fried in dried chilli and nian gao(glutinous rice cakes) (not singapore style thou), the shop is from shanghai and has many branches over in shanghai..

for lamb skewers head to liu da ma( inside lorong 11, this branch is newer), or bbq box nearer to lorong 3 at geylang ... each skewer averages around $0.80 to $2 ..

there is also Ji Gong Bao ( along the main road at lorong 9 beside the thai restaurant diadin leluk), which means sort of like a chicken claypot hotpot - cooked in sichuanese style i think, be sure to tell them to have less spice coz it is rather spicy.. and i have noted, all these restaurants dont seem to have many locals, and cater more to the chinese nationals here.. all these eateries open till late like 3-4am and are among the top eateries patronised by chinese nationals. Also popular is the hotpot/steamboat here at lorong 9, but not a fan of that.. eat all u can for around $25(which is a little on the expensive side for steamboat, there is cheaper in bugis)..

As a local in singapore, I would suggest u get ur singaporean food not in geylang, but at the old airport road hawker centre, it is near the dakota MRT(if i am not wrong, VERY NEAR to Geylang) , hawker centres close rather early like before 9pm-10pm.. Some famous stalls are Mattar seafood for the crab, the crab here is good but the wait is long. Others like the char kuay teow from Lucky char kuay teow stall or the stall in front Lao Fu Zi. Also is the immensely overhyped soybean curd Lao Ban Beancurd, queues are very long for this. Also the western food stall is good here, Holy grill is the name ..

also around geylang, head to joo chiat, where u can have the famous tian tian chicken rice over there. Or u can head to balestier, they have boon tong kee for chicken rice or bak kut teh ( pork rib soup), many bak kut teh eateries around there too.

There is also lavender food court, where u can get the famous singaporean style wonton noodle at Kok Kee ( which i think is overrated ) , local satays and some local seafood style. Nearby there is also a dimsum place which opens from evening till morning. Swee choon dimsum,. dimsum here is cheap and relatively good, but prices seem to increase every now and then. u can have a basket(4 pieces) of xiao long bao for around $3.50 , if that is ur kind of chinese food revelation. Everything here is not bad, just dont try the sichuanese style food here like the mapo doufu etc.

bourdain ate at the geylang claypot restaurant in the layover series, but i dont recommend that, it is 30mins of wait, and its pretty generic tasting although the ingredients here i say are slightly more plentiful and fresher in terms of taste.

kki's owners are huge fans of hidemi sugino, i know the owners adapt some recipes from hidemi's recipe book

kki's tiramisu is the best i've tasted anywhere... u might think its just tiramisu, but then the mascarpone layers here is very light, i wonder how they do that..

i've heard of iroha, morihachi and magosaburou .. any other good yakiniku places that i've missed out..
Looking for variety of meat cuts, taste needs to be good even for average cut of karubi, and looking into more value for money .
Don't wanna eat some premium beef but with just 5 slices on the plate..

just wondering will i be able to get a table at caprice or 8 1/2 otto if i didnt make any reservations for lunch.. esp caprice on a sunday afternoon

would like to get opinions on the following inputs..will be looking more into lunch than dinner..

these are the restaurants that i have short listed. would like to gather feedback in terms of uniqueness , quality and cost value factor as compared to the places in singapore and japan .. only have time to do 1 of these.. and also will i make it in time for reservation if there is a need??

caprice - food seems to be rather traditional and hence i might be underwhelmed based on other places i have tried..

pierre - i have not tried pierre gagnaire's food yet... looks fun, but am afraid that it would be a risky bet, and no recent reports on this one???

otto 8 1/2- some recent good reviews here... generally abit letdown by the italian fine dining in singapore, how does this compare ( i dun like osteria mozza, forlinos and the likes, operetta is ok thou, decent but not impressive) .

liberty private works - fully booked....

some places that i will go for quick meal etc....
for roast goose/meats ,
yung kee, joy hing

and wonton mee

maks , ho hung kee

and tim ho wan

any other recommendations in Tsim sha tsui, wanchai and central area??

any recommendations for the ala carte and tasting menu at latelier robuchon?? planning to cut down the cost of a whole dinner meal , hence i might not want to get the discovery set... able to get 1 discovery set and another dining partner orders ala carte???

yes some of the service staff have some "attitude" . i went for dinner the last time .. for me most of the dishes didnt really resonate with my tastebuds. maybe its me not liking french food anyway... but their fish main was the most incredible thing i ate in my life.

hey,
have u tried restaurant andre by andre chiang?? if u have how would u compare it with waku ghin??? price point andre seems much cheaper...

i would give Osia at resorts world sentosa my utmost recommendation. the pre dinner menu(till 730pm) is a steal.. for $38++ 3 course( not avail on fridays, sat, eve of and pubic holidays) .. the ingredients used are of top quality and executed almost flawlessly, and most of the times, the ingredients used in the singapore western dining scene left me totally unimpressed along with their shoddy execution(many names come to mind, like otto). if u ask me for a comparison, the dinner at osia was much better than the lunch at jaan(when andre chiang was there).

i had their signature stone hearth bread. appetizers for me and my dining partner were, mesculun salad( good parmigianno used) , grapefruit and some other veges. the other 1 was ocean trout (good fish and taste). mains were pan fried barramundi(very moist) on some potato puree with shaved asparagus(i think) and beef with some sides of funghi( very aromatic and earthly tones), sauce was excellent .
desserts were abit generic but good . also had the seafood ice experience, interesting dish allows for many tasting. there was one testube pop candy like thingy , didnt taste the seafood inside, didnt know what it was.. maybe my dining partner ate it.

ambiance at Osia is very spacious and nice with open kitchen concept and a bar sitting. service is excellent. The rest of the casino restaurants are simply too expensive and of no value to me.

was wondering, have u tried shinji by kanesaka??? waiting for ur review before anything....

sorry for OT, looks like kanesaka's branch in raffles hotel has opened..
http://soshiok.com/critic/article/12608

heard about this place serving a5 wagyu at cheap prices.. anyone been there before?? no1 人気 at tabelog..

just found out about it too, hows the pizza there?? looks good from the pictures

anyone knows what is inside ryugin's alacarte menu??

there is argento aso, enoteca pinchiorri, bice tokyo , giglio.. argento aso is the only michelin place out of all these... i believe most of these restaurants might need a reservation in advance for dinner.

will be reading ur reviews first before heading down to the actual restaurant...
the problem with dining in singapore is that the produce is not quite top end yet...i feel. i am paying close attention to kunio tokuoka's restaurant kunio... is singapore his first overseas restaurant outlet?? and is the restaurant directly related to his main kitcho company??

for sushi i think you should just venture out on your own. For michelin starred restaurants other than sushi, im sure the establishment can accomodate both of you.

lunch is easier to book, but usually the restaurants save the best for the dinner... more dishes..

cepage by the les amis group won a michelin star..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aLjI731yfjhk

im wondering if they mentioned saito's place wrongly , as it isnt located in ginza.. or they might have mentioned another sushi saito... 3 stars for them... very wonderful news for saito(the one near american ambassy

*edited http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/new...
it really is sushi saito at akasaka... congrats to them(from 1 star to 3 star in juz 3years)... chef saito is very friendly... on the other hand.. i wonder if his mentor kanesaka has anything to say...

looking forward to ur review... i believe both okuda (koju) and yamamoto trained at the same place (青柳) .. if ryugin's focusing more on traditional now, it seems like they are going to take on koju head on..

quintessense is too hard to call thru even for normal folks who call at the opening hours and 2 months before... it is better to make reservations yourself for those dead hard to book places... they have no problems in english for the french restos..