Tag Archives: japanese

4 reasons why you should never go to Ichiban Sushi

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Last Sunday, the BF & I went to Ichiban Sushi at Changi City Point cos I was craving for Japanese and I don’t remember ever trying out Ichiban before.

Piss Factor #1
We got to the main entrance at about 6.30pm and there were maybe 3 couples infront of us. The restaurant was about 80% full but it still took us a good 30 minutes to get a seat cos the wait staff ignored the queue.

Piss Factor #2
We were given the table nearest to their kitchen. Please take note: DO NOT EVER ACCEPT THIS TABLE. I think it’s understood that the traffic there would be pretty much rush hour. That is perfectly alright with me. But it is not okay when employees scream into your ear everything single bloody time they enter or exit the kitchen. By scream, I mean scream. I had a massive headache after 15 minutes. It’s very unprofessional of a restaurant when staff shout at each other across the room.

Piss Factor #3
BF ordered beef teriyaki while I got the cha soba. His food came in 15 minutes. It looked and smelled really really really good! My tummy was growling away and I couldn’t wait for my icy cold noodles to arrive! I waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. I saw trays of cha soba go out to other hungry people =(

And so I waited some more. I WAITED FOR AN HOUR FOR A CHA SOBA. In case you don’t know what this is, here’s a picture:
All cha soba is made from is noodles, some ice, and a dipping sauce. It DOES NOT take 1 hour to prepare. My BF had already finished his meal a long time ago and was fidgeting around. Even though I was starving, I decided to cancel my order cos it didn’t make any sense to sit there and hear people screaming. I was still okay at this point since it’s a Sunday, and I am usually quite nice and passive cos I don’t sleep much on Saturday nights =p

The next thing that happened really pissed me off. They had the cheek to immediately bring out a serving of cha soba from the kitchen! The flow went like this: I flagged down a waitress to say that I wanna cancel my order, she said okay and went straight into the kitchen beside us to bring it out and say “but madam, it is already prepared”. It obviously wasn’t a fresh order since the ice had already melted. If it was ready, why wasn’t I served eons ago? I refused to accept the noodles and very adamantly told them that I WANT TO CANCEL. The waitress then launched into a broken tape recording of “madam, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.” Repeat that sentence about 20 times. That was exactly what she did.

Piss Factor #4
Went to the cashier to pay for my BF’s meal. There were only 2 customers ahead of us. We waited for 30 minutes to pay. Why? The person who was manning the cashier LEFT her station to go clean tables and attend to the queue snaking in.

This will be the first and the last time that I will ever go to any Ichiban Sushi. Their service standard is so ridiculously bad that even the harassed old aunties at MacDonalds far outshine them. Consider yourselves warned.

xoxo, chryst

GAMARJOBAT SURPRISE!

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GAMARJOBAT.

You know you just have to get tickets when an international act that your partner really likes comes to town?

So thats what I did, and I did it as some sort of a surprise for her.

Her: “So what we we watching?
Me: “Some random “street performance, might be interesting”
Her: “Okie!”

I was just anticipating her squeals when she finds out its GAMARJOBAT in the flesh! Before I continue..

Gamarjobat (Japanese: が〜まるちょば) are an award-winning comedy performance group comprising two Japanese comedians, Ketch!—who sports a red mohawk—and HIRO-PON—with a yellow mohawk.[1] The duo perform a variety of sketches, including mimes and physical comedy.

Back to my surprise,

Her: “We can’t go in there, I think there’s an event”
Me: “Really?” *Whips out tickets to usher*
Her: *Puzzled*
Her: *Looks at tickets*
Her: *SQUEALS*
Me: Primary objective met, moving on to secondary, getting a good seat!

The famous GAMARJOBAT briefcase!

What followed was an almost two hours non stop hilarity in every GAMARJOBAT sense. Honestly i wasnt expecting too much having seen most of their videos and all but are they full of surprises or what? The audience participation factors heavily in their shows and this one is no different. I am impressed at people getting up, play acting, making sounds and all.

GAMARJOBAT is tops I tell ya. Physical comedy in all its mohawk glory! There are few performances that I actually care about, I can be hard to please. However GAMARJOBAT ranks highly in my books, the other being CIRQUE DU SOLEIL’s.

I’ll leave you with video of their performance, note that it’s only a glimpse of the full show! So loosen that belt and enjoy the preview! Watch with the volume up cos they are really hilarious!

Dedicated to my other half that writes the sweetest letters.

When I’m not an imaginary tank commander on weekends …

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When I’m not an imaginary tank commander on weekends… is the second part of When I’m not a sister on weekdays…” post.

When I’m not an imaginary tank commander on weekends, I am an imaginary ship captain!

Modelled after the Arleigh Burke destroyers(Sampson, John Paul Jones) fresh from the movie BattleShip(Plot summary, 70yr old ship-1 High Tech alien ship-0)

Same ship but not my video, full credits to owner.

Two ships sailing together, taken by a friend one afternoon.

Ships are 1.1m long and sailing weight about 5kg

It’s nice when I’ve a pocket of time to relax by the waters. There will usually be a few ships so its a nice catch up time with friends as well.

Stay tuned for my new ship(currently building).. the great IJN Yamato

Don’t get too busy and forget to have some fun! :)

Menya Musashi (Musashi Ramen Shop)

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Ramen is really the comfort food for cold wet evenings. Steaming kitchens headed by the enthusiastic japanese head chef with so much pride in his creations, serving staff that greets customers like VIPs and the aroma of ramen broth makes up the whole journey of ramen!!

My housemate, Hideki-san, my gf and myself made a trip down to try the newest attraction in town. MENYA Musashi (Musashi Ramen Shop). This is the second MENYA MUSASHI outlet outside of Japan. MENYA MUSASHI has about 10 outlets within Japan and they are immensely popular.

Let’s go to MENYA MUSASHI!!

This is probably Miyamoto Musashi, the namesake of the establishment. Fans of Samurai culture and Musashi himself would be happy to find artworks of Musashi in a swordfight on the shop frontage. The spirit of Musashi is really here!

Shopfront. I love the classy black oh so japanese theme. Musashi is really in here.

Service was rather slow and staffs look tired, even Hideki-san commented on the service however it was dinner time on a public holiday so totally understandable!!

There are 3 kinds of broth for your ramen. White Musashi, Red Musashi and Black Musashi. Each of the three had very distinct tastes. We ordered White Musashi Ramen and Black Tsukemen. Tsukemen has the option for a complimentary topup of noodles. It goes from 1x to 5x. Feeling daring and terribly starved, Hideki and I went for 4x. Ramen Challenge hOOOOO!!

This is the White Musashi, broth is thick but smooth and the flavour comes out right at ya! The broth has bits of marrow fat and a perfect combination of chicken and pork, with dashi. Must Try!

Below is the Black Tsukemen Ramen with 4X TOPUP!

The Black Musashi dipping sauce. Scoop the ramen from the bowl, dip it into the hot broth and slurp the soaked ramen quickly and feel the texture and aroma!!

The noodles were very Q(chewy) and texture is excellent! Very different from other ramen wannabes. Timing has to be perfect each time. The eggs were also very well done, cooked on the whites and semi-runny on the yolks. Perfect!

This is it folks! The epitome of creation and pride! Tsukemen is very popular in Japan from what I’ve heard and I survived this 4x ramen challenge!! Hideki and I finished every strand of ramen *proud*!. However, i do eat a lot in general and 4x topup was really my limit. I suggest 2x to be comfortable. For smaller portion eaters, stick to 1x and get that nice fuzzy feeling without feeling bloated and ‘jelak((jelak meaning too much of a good thing that you get sick of it)’. Over-eating is never good in every sense, especially during dinner!

If thats not enough for you, after finishing your Musashi Ramen, you may ask the servers to top up your leftover sauce with the dashi broth so that you can drink it up like a soup. I did not request for this as after all that noodles, there really wasnt much broth left!!

So to top it all off, my ratings

Decor/Ambience:8/10 (Our area was kinda warm)
Service: 5/10 (Peak period, small delays)
Broth quality: 9/10 (Spirit of Musashi)
Ramen quality: 8.5/10 (So close to perfection)
Location: 9/10 (Cant go wrong with Raffles City, above Cityhall station)
Overall: Not perfect as it was busy time but hugely recommended!

To visit MENYA MUSASHI, please go to

Menya Musashi
01-16 Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road
Singapore 179103
Tel: 63356500
Open daily: 11.30am to 10pm

Stay tuned for my next episode of Ramen Adventures!

Note* This is not an advetorial but a true personal account.
Note* Please head down early, queues are commonplace.
Note* Images were taken on a mobile.

A little gathering & farewell

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Over the weekend, we did a little gathering at a japanese friend’s house as she has been transferred to Jakarta to take charge of operations there. So we all had lots of sake, sochu and a sincere home-cooked meal. I’ll just let the pictures continue from here…

Please give a moment for the image to load. Click to enlarge ;)

Missing in pictures were my favourite Yakisoba and all the pickled dishes. I must already be drunk from all that sake..

Special mention to the white rice.. I’m not a big fan of having white rice on its own but this one is really special. It has a nice kind of sweetness and you can feel the texture of each pearly grain. Not available locally as this rice was grown from my friend’s own family backyard rice fields in Iwate prefecture and processed traditionally, not the modern methods.

All the best Kaori!!