Rikyu at Fairway Club

What's there in Fairway Club? Well, although I had been staying in Jurong vicinity all of my life (at least till now), I had only been there less than 5 times and can vaguely remember that there was a chinese restaurant (Yun Nan) when I attended a wedding. Besides that I can hardly remember there was a Japanese restaurant.

Fairway Club

Formerly known as Sobasei Japanese restaurant for over 20 years, Rikyu is just located opposite the Chinese restaurant in Fairway club, just beside the concierge.

Sobasei's entrance

Irrashaimasse, which means welcome in Japanese was heard when we stepped into the emptied restaurant. As this was our first time dining there, we were a little uncomfortable upon seeing such emptiness. However, the crowd starts coming in after a while.

Furnishing of the restaurant was entirely authentic Japanese culture with grids decors and some private rooms for events. The dining place was spacious and large, brightly lited with elegant decors. There are also two tatami rooms and two private dining rooms, ideal for family gatherings, business entertainment or private events catering up to 100 guests.

Interior Decors

 As the first customers for dinner, we were guided to the seat with a good view of the driving range through the window panels.

Window View with Driving Range

 To ensure the quality and freshness of food, Rikyu receives two air flown deliveries per week from Japan. Although the restaurant name was renamed, the extensive Sobasei menu was left unchanged. It comes in a clear booklet form with lots of items. After flipping the booklet for a few times, we were still quite at loss of what to eat. The server suggested that we could take up their promotional set item which was displayed near the entrance.

Menu

Here's the displayed set of bento near the entrance.

Each table has a set of condiments on them, just like most of the Japanese restaurant. 

Condiments

Ordered the Unagi set meal as well as sushi bento set. The unagi set meal comes with a good portion of Japanese rice with warm grilled unagi coated with sweet tasting sauce. Seaweed was added to enhance the taste too.

Part of Unagi Set - $25 ++

 The Unagi set also comes with a bowl of fresh salad, pickles and miso soup. Love the freshly prepared salad that was served chill with goma dressing.The dressing makes the bowl of salad "alive" added more nutritional value to it.

Salad and sweet sauce

Items of the set comes one by one and was prepared fresh from the kitchen. The croquette and fried ebi (prawn) was fried to golden brown, presented in a elegant dish. Doused them into the given dipping sauce, perfect!

Tempura & Croquette

My heavy dinner comes in 6 portions on the bento box. It was interesting to me as I had never had my meal in such form. Service was attentive with a cheerful lady helper topping up our cups of tea once in a while. She had also advised me to finish up my soba first when she saw me keep munching those sashimi instead.

The sashimi was fresh, surprisingly. Love the thick pieces of fresh meat accompanied but the soaring gush of spiciness that went up to the top of my head everytime when wasabi was added. Another surprise given was its saba fish. While I'm expecting the strong fishy smell from most saba fish even after squeezing the lemon juice onto them,theirs saba fish wasn't as bad.

Their handmade buckwheat soba noodle was specially done by the team of supporting a skilled force of chef.

Sushi Bento - $32 ++

The chilled noodles together with the garnishing and soba sauce is a good alternative to replace the Japanese rice if you want to go for a lighter meal.

Spring Onions for Soba, Wasabi for sushi and dipping sauce for tempura!

These cute little bowl of chawanmushi came towards the end of the meal, scalding hot on the ceramic. It's texture was extremely smooth and flawless. Though it was plain with just a slice of mushroom, it was already good. These bowls of steamed egg was pure, tasted like there was no MSG added.

Chawanmushi that comes with the set

Attended by a friendly lady who manned the cashier counter, for those who are driving, you need not have to worry about parking fees. There will be a complimentary ticket given when you to go out of the carpark gantry. During payment, I had forgotten to take back my credit card and the lady rushed out and returned the card to me.

Fortune Cat

Overall, I had a very good impression on their service and I would recommend for decent Japanese Food, if you want to avoid the noisy shopping malls, this is definitely a good place to dine in but do take note that they are not operating on Sunday.

Rating: 4 / 5

Rikyu Japanese Restaurant
Location: Fairway Club, 11, Japanese Garden Road, Singapore 619229 Tel: 6261 1211
Operation Hours: 11.30am – 2.30pm & 6.00pm – 9.30pm (Mon to Sat)
Call 6266 1102 for more information/reservations.

Xin Xin Fried Oysters No More!

Xin Xin Famous Fried Oyster has been a "Question Mark" in my mind for a long time as she was never in operation everytime during my visit at lunch time. After more findings, I learn that they are only in operations from 2pm till 10pm.

It just happened that I was there during there one Sunday night for dinner and finally saw that they are in business.

Ordered a smaller portion of their Fried Oysters.Though they were very crispy, I felt more like eating thin fried crispy tasteless fried pancake, perhaps with some burnt taste. To make it worse, the number of oysters is too miserable. Though this is not the worst Fried Oysters I had eaten, the plate of fried oysters were just below par.

Rating: 2 / 5

Xin Xin Fried Oysters
Location: Blk 726 Clementi West Street 2, #01-187, Singapore120726

Bee Hoon Goreng Ayam

Looks like there was a change on their signboard since my last visit. Well, as compared to their previous photo, there were new dishes added at the corners and was considered "Power". As you walk down the Hawker Centre in Ayer Rajah, you will have notice that most of the Muslim stall's sign board would have the word "power" in it and somehow they had suggested that the dishes were additionally spicy!


Well, Mohamed Hanifa's Muslim Food was known for its spicy dishes among my lunch kakis and I'm somehow mentally prepared for the amount of spice.

Mohamed Hanifa

A plate of Bee Hoon Goreng Merah (Red) would cost $3.50 but I had changed my order to Bee Hoon Goreng Ayam instead and paid an additional $0.50 for the "upgrade". What I like about ordering Goreng dishes was that every plate was cooked to order and serve hot right after they were scooped up from the wok. If you were sitting beside the stall, do enjoy the "session" of hearing the "clanging" noises made during cooking.

The Bee Hoon was not as spicy as I had expected and falls within my ability of chilli intake. These Bee Hoon were shortened in length added with fragrant eggs bits, beansprouts and vegetables fried together with onions. It was tongue scalding hot and one has to be careful during consumption. To sum up, the dish was very moist which fits my appetite.

Bee Hoon Goreng Ayam (Merah) - $4

Rating: 3 / 5

Mohamed Haniffa
Location: Ayer Rajah Food Centre, 503 West Coast Drive, #01-62, Singapore 120503

Hai Hua Wanton Noodle

Another busy food court at night in Bukit Batok Area after the ideal dinner hours for me. The place was full house and we had to share table with other patrons. I walked up to the Wanton Noodle stall and was assisted by a Fillipino helper and ordered Chicken Shredded Noodle from her.

Hai Hua Wanton Noodle

Meal was served to where I'm seated in a short while. Had the spicy version of Ipoh Hor Fun as requested and the amount of sauce given was just nice to mix well with the plate of Hor Fun. Ingredients were pretty usual with mushroom, vegetables as well as shredded steamed chicken.

Shredded Chicken Noodle (Ipoh Hor Fun) - $3 / $3.50 (Small / Big)

Here's a close shot of the Shredded chicken Noodle. When we come to it taste, I would like to mention that the meal was rather ordinary, neither good nor bad and if you are just around the corner like me seeking for decent meal, Hai Hua Wanton Noodle stall be be one of your choice.

Close up of my meal

Do note that they are also selling porridge, Chicken Feet Noodles etc.

Rating: 3 / 5

Hai Hua Wanton Noodle
Location: FoodClique, Blk 347 Bukit Batok Street 34 #01-252 Singapore

Indonesian Express [Closed]

Indonesian Express, another place we had explored during lunch time. If you happened to pass by the stretch of shop houses you will find it rather difficult to choose among 3 cuisines, Indonesian, Thai or Peranakan as they were quite well known in the vicinity.

Indonesian Express

This is the back gate of Indonesian Express. If you are coming from the HDB carparks, you might see this.

Back Door of Indonesian Express

Seats were limited given the amount of space in and in front of the shop houses especially during lunch time. Pricing was already very attractive as every set comes with a glass of drink, to make it even better, they had offered patrons refillable drinks at the drinks counter. WoW! No Wonder the Lunch crowd! However they only operated during the weekdays for the lunch hours.

Self Service & Queue

The Ayam Penyet meal looked scrumptious! Look at the crispy bits gathered in the middle of the dish with succulent thigh meat fried to a golden perfection accompanied by the eye catching greens. I bet your stomach is calling! :) Besides vegetables and fried chicken, the basket come with fried Tau Gua too.

Ayam Penyet - $6

Another signature dishes as recommended by their stall front signboard, Ayam Penggang. Just half a dollar difference from the Penyet, we get a nicely presented dish with a dark patch of Chicken Thigh on the middle of the plate. Not that it was over cooked but it was the sauced used and reacted during the BBQ session done by the kitchen helpers. The best part was that they had separated the curry gravy on a little container place by the side of the rice. It has good fragrance from the coconut milk and perfect combination if you were to pour some over the white rice. Two types of chilli were also available from the self service counter. Caution, they were very spicy, especially the belachan!

Ayam Panggang - $5.50

A close up of the chicken thigh. Delicious! Tempting isnt it? The colors combination of the thigh meat and the bright fresh vegetables were just too appealing to the eyes. The meat was flavourful and juicy. Yum Yum!

Close up of the delicious Ayam Panggang

Do remember that they only operated during lunch hours, do drop by and check it out if you have got the chance!

Rating: 4 / 5

Indonesian Express
Location: Blk 517, West Coast Road, #01-569 , Singapore 120517 
Operating Hours: Weekdays, 10am - 3pm

Hong Ji Zhou Pin

Visited Blk 505 Jurong West Market on one of the Saturday afternoon in Novemeber and realized there were a number of new stalls. One of them was Hong Ji Zhou Pin with queue piled up almost to the end of the hawker's shelter. Specializing in porridge, Hong Ji has about 16 kinds to offer and every bowl comes with crispy fried fritters.

Hong Ji Stall

Ordered the sliced pork and pork balls over lunch with cut fried fritters topped with fried and spring onions. The texture of the porridge was smooth and not grainy. The bowl of porridge was flavourful and not starchy too.

Sliced Pork & Pork Ball Porridge - $2.50

Ingredients like pork ball and sliced pork was well marinated which was rather fine for chewing. Quite a generous portion as compared to the ratio of porridge in the bowl.

Pork Ball

There is another stall selling chicken and fish porridge within steps away from Hong Ji. Seems like they have met some competition now. Hong Ji portion has more content as compared to theirs which was of watery version. Price was definitely cheaper here too!

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Hong Ji Zhou Ping
Location: Jurong West 505 Market & Food Centre, Blk 505 Jurong West St 52 #01-191 Singapore 640505

Arubii 食堂 [Closed]

Arubi Shokudo, another interesting place introduced by my colleagues for its value for money portion and quality Japanese Food. Considering an afternoon during weekdays, the coffeeshop where Arubi is situated was rather quiet. Beside Arubi, there is one other stall opened in the coffeeshop only where the rest were pitched dark, not lited up. But based on hearsay, this Japanese stall had been operating for a very long time and has been a frequent place for Japanese staying nearby.

Stall front with Patrons

During the time of visit, there was only a lady who manned the stall. It was really nice of her to tell us that we had to wait for a while for dish to be serve as she was rather shorthanded. All of us ordered a different kind of dish but luckily she was quite efficient and had our dish all served within 15 minutes of waiting. I had ordered a Beef Teriyaki Set that comes with rice, soup and beef teriyaki with vegetables.

Beef Teriyaki Set Meal - $5.50

Be amazed by the portion of meat given by Arubi Shokudo - it was shocking. Beef tasted alittle spicy with peppercorns grinded like what the lady told us upon ordering. The slices were not too thin and not too thick, just nice with sesame seeds sprinkled all over the yummy meat. It tasted good alone even without the rice.

Beef Teriyaki - Yummy!

Considering the quality and portion, I will recommend this place! Will be back again for its Japanese food!

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Arubi Shokudo アルビ一食堂
Location: Blk 349 Jurong East Avenue 1 Singapore 600349