Cavalock and The Izakaya Experience

You know how once in a while you get lucky and stumble onto a new cool eating joint? Well, on Friday nite, was at the new shopping Bugis mall Illuma, was in the dinner Q for the Japanese restaurants area, there's just one main Q for all the Japanese restaurants and there are like half a dozen Japanese joints there.

Thought of having ramen at first after reading Hungryboy's review, but there weren't any seats yet but I noticed a couple of Japanese heading to this other restaurant called Tsubohachi. So I figured why not? Stepped in and immediately noticed that the clientele was like, 80% Japanese. Hey, you can't go wrong now!

Now this place isn't exactly a restaurant, it's seated and designed like one but if you look at the menu, it's like a 'traditional' Japanese pub menu. And how do I know it's a pub menu? Cos its got a shitload of crazy exotic booze, from sake to fruity liquor! And I also read this book! You won't find sushi or ramen here. Plus I went to their site and it does say that this is their first overseas pub outside Japan.


So how was the food? Not bad, there's nice fresh sashimi and this was the nite's BFF, yummy big spanish mackerel. Wonderfully grilled, had a blast picking the bones clean.


The black sheep was the yakitori platter, five sticks only. Tasted average, no special yakitori sauce or anything like that and they had a 'duplicate' stick as in the same kind twice, not something I like in my platter.

Now here's a little boo-boo I made. Heh, decided to have some beer, so ordered a glass of Sapporo beer. Yup, that's what it said on the menu, a 'glass' of beer.


And what showed up on my table was the tiniest, little glass of beer. Pretty much a ladies' drink I think. Hah, finished in a gulp before anyone noticed (I hope) and ordered a real man's 'MUG' of beer!


But the best part of the meal was the free $70 worth of vouchers for my next visit! Total bill was just a wee bit over $100. They are having a promotion, I think it'll last till end June. There are lots of other interesting Hokkaido stuff on the menu that I'll definitely try the next time I'm there.

Cavalock and The Bizarre Men's Bazaar

Now here's a shot I couldn't resist. Looks like Isetan knows what men really like. <^;^> 

A close-up of what they are selling to men these days. Neat eh? 

A couplea posts ago, I broke the news of Archie getting married. Well, I got the latest update on who he's marrying, Betty or Veronica. Spoiler right here. Remember now it's a 6-part mini series, so things can still change at the end of the storyline. I personally hope it does!

Time for some food stuff. Here's a dish I tried making a few hours ago. Once again, it's a pretty simple dish to prepare. Just flatten a piece of chicken breast. 

Add some seasoning like a a pinch of salt, rub it in right good, then marinate in a generous heap of wholegrain mustard. Now I added something extra at the spur of the moment! A teaspoon of yakitori sauce! I opened my fridge, saw the bottle and figured why not?

Ok, unlike my previous dinner preparation, I made some boo-boos. For starters, I added too much cooking oil. Add just a wee bit cooking oil. Another mistake, the mustard seeds started popping like freakin' mini popcorn! Next time, I'm getting the glass cover before I start. 

Fortunately the end tasted quite good and very edible *whew*. There's a pleasant slightly sweet taste, I dunno if its the mustard or yakitori sauce. 

 

My mystery sauce! <^;^> Bet you won't find any recipe that lets you mix wholegrain mustard and yakitori sauce.

Cavalock and Table For One

So like I'm making my dinner for one and it took me exactly a half hour. A half hour eh? Get it? That's like exactly enough time for a TV cooking show ... so I figured do I get my own TV cooking show or what? Male cook teaching other male geeks to cook. Hah, just kidding.

Dinner for one turned fast and good. Started at 6pm after watching Ellen. A teaspoon of mirin and a teaspoon of suger into pot of boiling water. Then the pork strips shabu-shabu style, take out the pork once they are done and toss in some fresh green leafy veggies. Should take bout 5 mins for the veggies to cook. 

Now I forgot to get some sesame sauce as a dip for the meat. So I took this from the fridge, wholegrain mustard. I actually got this for a Nigella recipe that I never got to make (yet!). Not a bad substitute but I'll still get the sesame sauce next time. You'll definitely want to get some sauce.

Meanwhile I'm already steaming the Japanese rice in the rice cooker. So anyway once the rice is cooked, I prepared the instant miso soup and there you go, dinner for one in only a half hour.   

 

Eating and cleaning up took exactly another half hour so it was a wrap in 60 mins. I wanted to snap a shot of all the cleaning up I had to do but I forgot. Hah!

Cavalock and The Dream Kitchen

Man o man, I must really suck at time management. Its been a week since I stopped working but I still haven't started working out yet. Well, between the full-day classes (yup, I'm back to hitting the books), homework and family errands, I'm just like 'where's all the time gone?!?'. Anyway I'm gonna have to really relook at how I plan my schedules again.

Saw this little showroom along Penang Road. Damn, I would sure love to have a little kitchen island. I mean, who wouldn't?

Meantime I'll just have to settle with cooking my broccoli soup over my old stove. Right simple, just toss your average size head of broccoli into a pot of boiling water, a tablespoon of Thai fish sauce, stir for bout 5 minutes and you are done.

Was lucky enough to pop by on the last day of Isetan's Japan food fair on Monday. Here are just some of the stuff I got. See that box of macha cream snacks on the left? Holy crap! Stay away from it. It's just plain awful. Wasn't sweet at all, doesn't even taste like green tea flavour. The rest of the loot I have yet to try but they should be alright. The miso soup tasted pretty good during the sampling and Kit Kat has yet to fail me.

Cavalock and The Return to Quaker Oats County

Well, its been awhile since I had a nice fancy lunch at a ritzy little place like Absinthe. Met a couple of really nice ex-colleagues for lunch there last week. First time there, their name card lists a web site, but it doens't seem to exist (yet), so here's the hungrygowhere link.

Cosy little French restaurant. Had the set lunch menu. Great service. I ain't no expert in French dining but I did enjoy the food. For the starter, I didn't go for the foie gras, it was pretty big piece (for me), about 2-inch in diameter. Beef main course was alright, I actually still prefer the cheaper steak at Astons. Heh. Soft coconutty dessert was great too. I wouldn't mind going there again for the set lunch. Bummer, they are open for dinner on Saturdays but closed on Sundays.

Since I stopped working, I started having Quaker Oats for breakfast again. I say 'again' cos that's what my mom used to make for me EVERY morning when I was a kid going to school. I can pop in the microwave now but figured I'll do it the old-fashioned way by cooking it over a stove.

Managed to catch both Star Trek and Angels & Demons, ahhh the things you can do when you aren't working anymore. Of cos, I loved Trek. Wonderful how they mange to satisfy both old and new fans by making this an alternate universe story. Didn't read the book, but the plot from Angels & Demons sure looked like the plot from Watchmen, now that I read.

Finally, is nothing sacred anymore?!? Look who's popping the question on my birthday! Wanna take bets on who the girl is?

‘Archie Gets Married’
In 'Archie' #600

Archie Comics Publications is promising the “Archie Story of the Century” in Archie #600, which streets in comic stores August 19th and in newsstand accounts September 1st. Archie Gets Married Part 1: The Proposal will look at Archie and the gang after they graduate college, in a story written by superhero movie producer Michael Uslan with art by legendary Archie artist Stan Goldberg.

Cavalock vs The Flu Bug

*Whew* What a time to catch the flu bug. Yup, my nose was doing the marathon while my head was as hot as Amy Winehouse's crack pipe, last Thursday and Friday. It's just the common bug and not the you-know-what flu. Hence the lack of posts and of cos, nothing new on the food front. But I'm alright now, am pretty much back to normal. My voice is still a little 'pitchy' as Randy would say. ;)

So what did I do while stuck at home? Well, I 'tried' to watch cable. 'Tired' cos the freakin' cable box kept deleting my recorded shows by itself. Was told I had to reformat the hard drive, lost the latest season of 'Heroes' plus some SNL and anime stuff.

Anyway, took some pix of some of my stuff around the apartment.

Hah! Bet you guys didn't know I'm a big Peanuts fan. The figures I got from Osaka two years ago. Still in their boxes cos I don't know where to display them.


Some Snoopy pouches I got in Japan. In goes my card reader (which I also got in Japan years ago and has only gone on sale here in Singapore) and my 250G portable hard drive.


Other loot from my last trip, a couple of Star Wars helmets. The Biker Scout and the Death Star Gunner helmets. Neat, huh?

Hang on, I do have a food pix after all. I almost forgot I snapped this shot last week. Pasta linguine dinner for one. <^;^>

Cavalock and Batman with Wonder Pig

So much for that long May Day weekend. Real-life is stranger than reel-life as we saw our local version of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith come to an apparent end but with a happier ending. Wonder if there’ll be a sequel. You just gotta luv the part where the Empress reveals herself and the saber-rattling part at the end too.

Other weekend observations, Borders at Wheelock…such wasted potential. They have a pretty decent friction section, I actually found some sci-fi books that I don’t see at Kinokuniya. BUT they are soooo messy and the books are in such a sad state, torn sticky price tags, single dog-eared copies etc. Now I’m talking bout the fiction section here, the rest of the place (cept for the kid’s section) are in pretty good shape. The magazines are still cool, non-fiction books are ok although I still can’t get used to their layout. Is it just me or do they keep changing? Now if they would only lower their damn prices…

Had teochew porridge at a popular kopi-tiam along Joo Chiat, right next to Dunean food centre. Good stuff. Snapped a couple of pix, not the best angles but there you go. Question, does anybody know what that fish is called, in English? It's called 'black fish' in Mandarin.

Anyway, was also making some plans on what I’ll be doing after my last day at work, that’s like in two weeks’ time. One of the things is to get back in shape, yup, will try to stick to some kinda morning workout. The cheapest would be to run up and down 22 flights of stairs every morning. More on my other non-workout plans another time.

Check out what I bought. Another Batman figure! This one's different, it's a fan favourite figure (voted by fans) from the old Justice League Unlimited episode where Wonder Woman gets turned in a pig by the sorceress Circe. And you get a figure of Wonder Pig, complete with the magic bracelets! According to online reports, this is a pretty rare find.