Pastamo

It’s been a while since my last visit to Circular Road, and I’m finally back in the evening to soak in the after-hours vibes of this bustling CBD area.

This time, we dropped by Pastamo, a Japanese-Italian pasta bar known for its affordable $19.90 nett set meals, which come with a main, drink, and no extra service charge. A pretty fuss-free spot to unwind after work while enjoying comforting pasta dishes in the heart of the city.

Entrance of Pastamo

It’s not too difficult to locate Pastamo along the stretch of eateries and shophouses at Circular Road. If you’re walking through the corridors, just keep an eye out for the LED-lit fork with spaghetti signage that makes the spot stand out from afar.

Facade of Pastamo

We also had a refreshing lineup of drinks to pair with the pasta dishes, the Tiramisu Latte with its rich coffee notes, the Strawberry Matcha that carried a creamy earthy sweetness, and the Iced Grape Jasmine Tea which was light, floral and especially cooling for the evening.

Peach Black Frizzy $8 , Strawberry Matcha $6  and Iced Grape Jasmine Tea $6

Before diving into the pasta dishes, we grabbed some bites with the Crispy Mid Joints. Loved the loose crispy batter bits that added an extra layer of crunch on the outside, while the chicken remained juicy and tender inside. Definitely a satisfying starter to kick off the meal.

Crispy Mid Joints - $10

The Fried Tortellini looked absolutely cute, and with its bite-sized form, it was dangerously easy to keep popping them into the mouth one after another. Crisp on the outside with cheesy goodness within, this made for a fun and addictive snack to share at the table.

Fried Tortellini - $12

The Spaghetti with Clams, Garlic, White Wine & Chilli delivered comforting aglio olio vibes with a light spicy kick. The pasta was coated nicely with the garlicky white wine sauce, while the clams added a natural briny sweetness that paired well with the burst of freshness from the cherry tomatoes.

Vongole

The Duck Ragu Tagliatelle featured slow-cooked duck ragu tossed with silky tagliatelle, creating a rich and comforting combination. The duck carried a tender texture with deep savoury flavours, while the creamy sauce and onsen egg brought everything together beautifully with an added layer of indulgence.

Duck Ragu

The Tomato Cream Crab Pasta featured spaghetti coated in a rich tomato cream sauce together with chunks of crab meat for added sweetness and flavour. The sauce leaned creamy and savoury with a slight tang from the tomato base, while the generous shaving of cheese gave the dish an extra layer of indulgence.

Tomato Cream Crab

Overall, Pastamo makes for a pretty cosy and fuss-free spot along Circular Road to gather after work over comforting Japanese-Italian dishes. From the addictive fried bites to the hearty pasta selections, the dishes leaned approachable and satisfying without being overly heavy. 

Front View of Our Order

Coupled with its affordable nett set meals and relaxed after-hours atmosphere in the CBD area, it’s definitely a pleasant place to chill, catch up with friends, and enjoy a casual pasta night in town.

Top View of our Order

Pastamo
Location: 17 Circular Rd, Singapore 049373

Tatsu

I have been craving for a delicious Teppanyaki meal for the longest time ever since my favourite restaurant at Jurong Hilltop closed down. Located in CHIJMES, Tatsu combined sushi as well as the Teppanyaki concept in the restaurant even though the seating is rather limited.

Tatsu @ Chijmes

We were quite lucky for no reservations were made on a weekend and gotten ourselves a seat at the counter. Despite the low ceiling with opened kitchen and confined air-conditioned environment, the air was still well-ventilated.

Counter for Teppankaki

They have wide varieties of raw fish and these fish are flown in from Japan 4 times a week to ensure the utmost freshness. I had their Mekajiki Sashimi and these slices were thick and delicious.

Swordfish Belly Sashimi - $12

We ordered the Wagyu Dinner Course at $128 as well as Wagyu & Lobster Course at $168. 

These were included in the Wagyu Dinner Course :

• Salad
• Slipper Lobster
• Scallop
• Wagyu Steak
• Assorted Mushroom
• Seafood Fried Rice
• Asari Miso Soup
• Dessert

And these were included in Wagyu & Lobster Course:

• Salad
• Lobster
• Wagyu Steak
• Assorted Mushroom
• Seafood Fried Rice
• Lobster Head Miso Soup
• Dessert

The set meal starts with a bowl of Salad dressed in tasty Japanese Goma Sauce. The mixture of greens, vegetables and tomatoes gave a refreshing start to our meals. 

Salad

Following the usual Teppanyaki Restaurant practice, the raw food will be served in a tray for our eyes before the chef places them down on the hot plate.

Combination of ingredients from the sets

As for the Seafood Fried Rice that we were having, ingredients such as prawns, salmon, cucumbers and carrots were included.

Seafood Fried Rice Ingredients

The chef is friendly and he started off by cooking the scallops as well as the slipper lobster (Crayfish).

Crayfish & Scallops on the Way!

Adding Oil

Chef Preparing the Seafood

The freshness of the crayfish was commendable. Without much seasoning, the original taste brought up the freshness of the seafood.

Time for Crayfish

The lobster was served with creamy sauce and tantalising.

Lobster

The charred edges and sauce over the scallops were addictive. I just could not stop at 1 after popping it into my mouth,

Scallops

Chef at work

Keeping the chef busier, we ordered another side dish on top of our meal. The texture of Foie Gras was rich, buttery and delicate. The charred taste as well as the fried garlic and spring onion toppings had given additional taste to the dish.

Foie Gras - $38

Soon these slab of Wagyu steak was skillfully cut up into uniform pieces and processed by the chef in front of our eyes.

Wagyu Steak

Checking the Doneness 

In no time, we get to enjoy these juicy beef cubes on the plate. Doneness of these beef cube was perfect. A handful of fried garlic slices were given to pair with these.

Wagyu Cube

The lobster head was made useful by cooking them in soup. Compared to the Asari soup, this was much sweeter.

Lobster Head Miso Soup

The last dish of the meal before the chef cleans up the hot plate. Surprisingly the bowl of fried rice was great. It swept my feet off for every pearl grain was well coated in flavour. The egg fragrance with the chunks of seafood within sums up a good bowl of fried rice.

Seafood Fried Rice

Moving on to the last dish on the menu before we moved our butts will be the creamy chocolate pie that was drizzled with chocolate sauce. It was quite a small portion which I think was not overly cloying for the palettes. 

Chocolate Pie Dessert

It was a pleasant experience in Tatsu for Teppanyaki and I do not mind splurging some money for occasions to enjoy a good meal like this.

Rating: 4 / 5

Tatsu
Location:  CHIJMES, 30 Victoria Street #01-08 Singapore 187996
Nearest Station: City Hall (EW13 / NS25)
Website

Beng Thin Hoon Kee Restaurant 茗珍奮記菜館

I have never thought that the traditional Fujian Cuisine Restaurant is housed among the OCBC Commercial building at Chulia Street with the main entrance through the carpark.

Entrance of Beng Thin Hon Kee Restaurant

It is not very often we get to visit such traditional restaurant nowadays with fabric flooring, round tables and chairs. In the past, we do get chances to go to such places whenever our relatives and friends invited us for a wedding ceremony.

Dining Floor

Wet Tissues Packets

The use of robot servers had kind of surprise me as I thought that the Chinese Restaurant will still keep their traditional way of serving food than adopting the technology to take over the jobs.

Robot Server

It was a birthday dinner for one of us and it's also the reason why we were here for some Authentic Fujian Dishes, highly raved by the Birthday Guy.

Longevity Buns

Starting off the meal with Prawn Ball Nghoh Hiang which is the restaurant's Signature. These starters were deep-fried to their perfection without being too greasy and a mixture of cucumber with shredded carrots as part of the plate.

Prawn Ball Ngoh Hiang

Let's start off by dipping the Ngoh Hiang in the sweet Sauce.

Ngoh Hiang

The Hei Zo aka Prawn Ball had a good balance of Prawn Meat together with pork.

Prawn Ball

The dish is well-loved for its delicate flavours and it seems like "Yi Pin Guo" 一品锅 to me just that the claypot was filled with tender Braised Duck meat. 

Braised Duck With Sea Cucumber 砂锅石参大鸭

The Sea Cucumber together with the duck was braised for hours and its really a stomach comforting dish for us.

Tender Duck meat

Here's my portion of the savoury gravy drowning the tender dark meat and sea cucumber.

Duck Meat & Sea Cucumber

This Signature dish features scrambled eggs tossed with carrots, springs onions, yellow onions, shitake mushrooms and was served with lettuce. 

Shark Fin Scramble Egg with Lettuce 桂花翅

We are supposed to scoop these ingredients onto the lettuce and wrap them up.

Shark Fin

I have never eaten such a dish before and I thought it was quite special to bite the fresh lettuce with crunch that wrapped the filling that was accompanied by the sweetness of the distinctive egg.

Wrap them in the lettuce

The Fujian Fried Noodles is one of their signature dishes. The presentation of the dish had already bought me over. The dish comes with the typical Hokkien style thick flat noodles and looked savoury in its thick brown luscious gravy.

The dish was tossed in light soy sauce, pork stock, prawn stock and garnished with spring onions, and fried onions. Beansprouts, deshelled prawns, tender pork slices were part of this creation and not forgetting the pork lard that makes the dish more fragrant.

Fujian Fried Noodles 福建炒面

The Braised Pork Bun is another classic Hokkien Dish whereby the pork belly was braised in soy sauce gravy and simmered.

Braised Pork Bun 扣肉花包

The pork belly had a robust herbal meaty flavour and the plain soft and fluffy buns held them in between.

Look at the dark sauce coating the Pork Belly! Yums!

I love braised food and the flavours of the pork belly were addictive.

Braised Pork Belly Bun

The food at Beng Thin Hoon Kee Restaurant is kind of an eye-opener for me as they served traditional Fujian Dishes that we will not usually find elsewhere. The dishes served are hearty with good portions size, suitable for communal group dining. Now that I have learnt of Beng Thing Hoon Kee Restaurant, I will not hesitate to recommend it to someone who is in the search of authentic Fujian cuisine like this.

Rating: 4 / 5

Beng Thin Hoon Kee Restaurant 茗珍奮記菜館
Location: OCBC Centre, 65 Chulia St, #05-02 Singapore 049513
Website

Koji

 Thanks to the pal who took the effort in arranging a meal here with reservation.

At the Entrance

The concept of Koji is a trendy and casual Japanese sushi and sashimi joint. They focus on quality fresh seafood which is affordable, catering the nearby office crowd. They also offer an omakase menu in the evening served along with sake and shochu. However, do make sure to make a booking in advance for Omakase Menu.

Entrance

The space in Koji is rather limited with about 20 diners in the high chairs sitting around the centre island kitchen. Diners can get to see everything prepared in front of their eyes.

Seating around Center Kitchen

Besides the usual menu they have, there may have more than what is offered in it. 

Additional Menu 

Do check out the boards plastered on the wall for special items or it will be best if we can approach the servers to check out for the recommendations of the day.

Menu Board

We were puzzled by the paper bag that was provided to every diner. When checked, it was actually provided to place our mask while we were dining.

Paper bag

Sitting at the bar top counter surrounding the central kitchen is an enjoyment to me always. I love how the staff prepare the food, especially slicing Sashimi in front of my eyes.

Preparation of Orders

As one of the Ala Carte item on the menu, the chill spiny lobster salad was sweet and tasty, evenly mixed in the sauce. Absolutely, a good starter for my meal.

Spiny Lobster Salad - $5

Sashimi Moriawase indicates an assorted Sashimi plate. This Kome on the menu consists of 10 pieces of sashimi namely, Tuna, Salmon, Great Amberjack, Sweet Prawn and Sword Fish.

Kome - $26

Our friend was in the mood for some Sake and after some hesitation over the varieties available on the menu board, we had decided to go with the 300ml bottle of Kansansui

Kansansui 寒山水 - $39 (300ml)

The sake cups that were used was pretty interesting as there was a glass rabbit in the bottom of the cup.

Rabbit in Bottle

So Cute

The dish was a special item that is not on the written menu nor the digital menu. The Barracuda was recommended by the server. The fish was made into both Sashimi as well as torched sushi, beautifully placed and plated.

Barracuda - $50 

Besides enjoying pieces of sashimi with soy sauce and wasabi. We have some slices of Barracuda torched and bundled with sushi rice.

Barracuda Sushi

When the plate of Barracuda was done and left with the bones, it was then taken into the kitchen and deep-fried to crispiness. Dab them into a dollop of Japanese mayonnaise given and enjoy every bit of the remaining fish.

Deep-Fried the left overs 

Good food is worth the wait. It took quite a while for the grilled squid to be served but it was all worthwhile for its texture and quality.

Grilled Squid - $18 to $22 

The dessert hits the right spot and ending my meal on a good note. The sea salt ice cream came in a faint blue in colour and I love the taste totally. It was fragrant, packing vanilla beans taste and added with the natural sea salt taste, it makes everything went well. 

Ice Cream - $8

The overall dining experience was pleasant and with the attentive and friendly services as well as quality food, I do not mind being back again for more. As the seatings are rather limited, I suggest that it will be better to make a reservation before heading down. 

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Koji
Location: 252 North Bridge Rd, #03-28A The Providore Raffles City, Singapore 179103
Website