Tomo Japanese Dining - Episode May

Given my short attention span, I would be the first to admit that I never thought I would still be amazed at the food at Tomo after sooo many dinners. But seriously, each omakase never failed to bring about new experiences, new tastes and new favourites.

On my most recent visit, the meal started off strong with a anddelicious homemade cold tofu that had a wonderful texture and flavour enhanced by a murky century egg yolk dressing. There was just something about that savoury sauce that I could not quite figure out so I had to dig the secret ingredients out of Chef Andrew.

Ah ha! He had added a little of sukiyaki sauce and chicken rice chili to give the sauce the extra edge. Talk about innovation!

The Hokkaido Don was another highlight. It appeared to be a mini chirashi of sort, because a small serving of freshly cooked sushi rice was topped with a variety of very fresh Hokkaido selections of top notch quality. Everything was to be stirred together with sticky grated mountain yam (i.e. tororo) with additional flavouring from torn nori and chopped spring onion. I added a wad of wasabi and drizzle of soy sauce and the whole dish just came together like a complete jigsaw puzzle, wholesome, and stomach filling. I especially relished those moments when an ikura or tobiko popped , releasing the freshest of brine.

No meal at Tomo is ever complete without sushi. I would have to ask Chef Andrew for his spicy tuna gunkan again next time. It was soo good! The twist came in the form of crunchy tempura bits mixed in with the chunks of chopped tuna and the sprinkle of sesame just gave it a touch of nuttiness.

Oishi!

Tomo Fine Dining
6 Raffles Boulevard
#02-03, Marina Square, Singapore 039594
Tel: 63384486

La Noce

I guess it is rather scary how focused I could become when I choose to be. Like how I knew I was going to order the squid ink pasta even before I reached the restaurant.

A recent feature on the proliferation of neighbourhood Italian restaurants brought me to La Noce one day. Perhaps it was the built-up anticipation but the restaurant failed to wow me. The food was average at best, although the service was pretty good.

La Noce's squid ink pasta cooked with squid in its own ink ($26) was off the menu but available on request. Slightly unique in that it was a 'black on black' version, i.e. black squid ink pasta cooked with squid ink, I found the pasta much too oily (there was a puddle of oil leftover in the empty dish) and not quite there in flavour. In fact, I had to salt the pasta because it was a little too flat-tasting.

Then there was just too much garlic. I already had quite a bit from the seafood soup. Coupled with more garlic from the pasta, it should not come as a surprise that I had garlic farts later on. Oops!

Before all that though, I started the meal with complimentary bread made from their pizza dough. Thin triangular wedges of crispy pizza bread that had been sprinkled with herbs made a fragrant entrance. It was still warm and made a pretty decent pre-meal munchie.



I was feeling like soup and I do love the Italian seafood soup so I split an order of the zuppa frutti di mare ($14). A thick red soup studded with seafood and cherry tomatos arrived piping hot and looked so appetizing I could not wait to dig in. I was not disappointed with the freshness and quantity of the seafood. Despite all the glaring presence of tomato, its flavour was somewhat muted. But it was overall still a tasty soup; the fresh seafood saved the dish.

La Noce
3 Chu Lin Road

Bamboo Grove Park

Tel: 6877 1986

Roti-boy

Have you gone through the "Roti-boy" phase? The franchise seems to have disappeared now. But luckily, I never really craved for it. Even if I do, I can now make my own. I picked it up from this cake-making course I am taking right now and the recipe I am going to share is from that class.

Do you know that the crispy sweet topping on the Roti-boy is actually a cake batter? I didn't, until the instructor shared that bit of trivia.

Anyway, this recipe makes a very soft bread with a sweet crispy topping. But the topping turns moist the next day, so make sure the ants stay away. The main difference lies with the filling. Instead of using pure butter as filling, we used instant custard instead - less work, less sweet and less bad for you.

Coffee & Custard Buns
(Make 15-16 buns)

Bread dough ingredients:
100g butter, softened
60g sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
15g instant yeast
20g milk powder (optional; adds fragrance)
350g bread flour
150g plain flour
200g water

Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients together and beat until a smooth and elastic and shiny dough is formed. Rest the ready dough for 25 min.
2. Cut the dough into 40-50g each and then let the dough portions rest again for 5 mins. Make custard filling.

Custard Filling:
100g instant custard powder (get this from specialty bake store like Phoon Huat)
250g cold milk

3. Mix cold milk and instant custard together and whisk until thick and put in the fridge to set.

4. Wrap the filling with the dough and let rest for another 1 hour. Preheat oven at 200C and proceed to make the topping.

Topping Ingredients:
100g butter, softened
90g sugar
100g eggs (about 2-3)
80g plain flour

20g instant coffee

5. Whisk sugar, butter, eggs together until well-mixed.
6. Add coffee and plain flour and stir well.
7. Using a piping bag, pipe the topping on the bun in a swirling and circular motion until the entire bun is well covered.
8. Bake until golden brown, about 15-20 mins.