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Thursday, 13 March 2014

More Blurgers @ 2 Blur Guys

It was my off day and we decided to revisit 2 Blur Guys at Tanjong Pagar for a couple of gourmet burgers. On our previous visit, we had the luxury of choosing our seats in the little cafe. However, the cafe was packed by the time we reached there! Fortunately there was a vacant table available for us by the glass window. I'm not sure if it was the same as last time but the burgers were now called Blurgers, matching the cafe's name.



After pondering for a moment over the menu, we decided to go for the popular items: Pulled Pork Burger and Prime Beef Burger. Our orders were served in less than 15 minutes despite having the cafe fully packed!

The Pulled Pork Burger
There was a promotion ($15) which offered the Pulled Pork Burger together with a bottle of Snapple of your choice (3 flavours to choose from). The Pulled Pork Burger was really good, the meat was tender and having a fine balance of salt and taste.

*Pulled Pork - Pork which is cooked slowly at low temperatures until it becomes tender enough to be pulled and broken into pieces* - Source, 2014*

Pulled Pork Burger - Marinated pork, Gruyere Cheese and Honey Mustard ($12.85)

The Prime Beef Burger
The Prime Beef (minced) burger was great, definitely better than what you will find at any of the fastfood burger outlets here (even Carl's Jr). To top that off, you have the option of choosing how well you want your beef to be done! Check out the thick and succulent beef and that melted cheese!

Prime Beef Burger - 100% US Natural Pure Beef, Fresh tomato, Sweet relish, Gruyere cheese  and Homemade Truffle Mayo ($13.95)
Prime Beef Burger, Medium rare
Just can't bear to finish it up
The Dessert
My Prime Beef burger was part of a set meal, hence it came with a dessert of our choice. The dessert available depends on what they have on that day. Today, there was pecan cake and chocolate brownie. We went for the latter and had no regrets. The cake was topped with a layer of liquid chocolate. I would have licked the top layer off first but that will have left poor drey with none of the chocolatey goodness.
Liquid chocolate coating the top of the brownie
Overall
Lunch for 2 pax: ~$30
Visited on 7 Mar 2014 @ ~1350 hrs
The standards of this same outlet has maintained for the past 2 months, serving up delicious gourmet burgers to appease our cravings. Service was up to par even during the lunch hour and a full seating. While the potato salad seemed to taste slightly bland, compared to the previous time, that is negligible as the main focus of the whole visit was the blurgers themselves. 2 Blur Guys is always worth a visit especially if one is working in the Tanjong Pagar area.

Location
Two Blur Guys
Orchid Hotel
1 Tras Link #01-13
Nearest MRT: EW15 - Tanjong Pagar (Exit A)

Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Shinkei

Looking around for a buffet feast for dinner, we managed to find Shinkei (しんけい), a relatively new outlet which offers a la carte buffet located at Toa Payoh. The menu online (http://www.shinkei.com.sg/) appears to have all sorts of japanese cuisine (approximately 145 items), including my favourite Maguro sashimi. Not hesitating further, we booked a table for 6 on a Saturday evening.

First Impressions
Shinkei is easily located, beside the Toa Payoh Regional Library. We arrived ahead of schedule and were guided to our seats. The restaurant is dimly lit and mostly furnished with dark colored furniture, reminding me a spa environment. This would be an apt place to chill out for a few rounds of sake after a hard day of work.



Arriving ahead of time, the restaurant's mostly empty


Not long after we were seated, we were each served appetizers - a bowl of chilled tuna salad. Our orders for a pot of hot green tea was also served promptly. After that, we massed order a whole lot of dishes from the menu, so much so that we lost track of what we actually ordered. Some items appeared to be duplicate orders but fortunately the duplicated orders were delicious so we just ate them anyways, saving the trouble of having to order twice. For the first round of mass orders, I shall let the pictures tell the story.. ( I have to apologize but there were too many names to remember, I will try to get them right as much as possible)


A whole lot of dishes you can order (Up to 145 different items available)
Fried Salmon Skin
Chicken Salad
Soft-shelled crab maki
Bacon-wrapped asparagus
Pork Bulgolgi
Garlic Fried Rice
Grilled Saba
Chawanmushi (Steamed Egg)
(Top to bottom) Bacon-wrapped asparagus, snow peas, potato salad
Gyoza
Assorted Sashimi (Salmon, tuna and yellowtail)
Maguro (tuna) and Swordfish Sashimi
Chicken with Wasabi Mayo
(Clockwise left to right) Chicken wing, chicken gizzards and heart, quail egg
Complimentary fish head from the shop owner
By the time we were halfway through the orders, the restaurant was already packed. Staff were busily clearing the empty plates and refilling empty pots. We started to place our second round of orders to minimize the waiting time for our food. Even though we submitted our second round of orders early, the orders took some time to arrive. This was vastly different from when the restaurant was much empty. Some dishes did not even come after we placed our third round of orders (third round had lesser dishes as we were reaching our limits).

Cold soba
(Top to bottom) Chicken heart, lady's fingers (doh!)
Shisamo
Kimchi beansprouts
One of many ramen choices
Can't remember the name of the dish on the right. It was something like chicken in sour sauce..
Meatballs
ごちそうさま! Gochisosama! All cleared!

Overall, the buffet was quite satisfactory. There was quantity but quality was not necessarily there. Dishes which I recommend going for:

I will consider revisiting the outlet again as an alternative to the more popular Kiseki Buffet Restaurant.

Overall
Dinner for 6 - $200
Visited on 15 Feb 2014 @ 6 PM


Location
Shinkei Japanese Restaurant
600 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh (Beside Toa Payoh Regional Library)
#01-06
Singapore 319515