Munchkins at Irodori

Age is really catching up with us these days. It was Flora’s turn to hit double two, and we celebrated the day at Irodori, a Japanese buffet restaurant at Riverview Hotel. We’ve been there once before, and to be honest, they serve one of the best sashimi that we’ve ever eaten at a buffet.

We initially wanted to try Ikoi, which was also a Jap buffet restaurant, at Hotel Miramar, which was across the road from Riverview. Unfortunately, even though I tried to get a reservation a week ahead, they were already fully booked. I guess that says about how popular Ikoi is, and we would love to try it one day. Nevertheless, let the feast the Irodori begin!

Cold tofu! Love this complimentary dish, but you only get one serving of it.

A picture paints a thousand words. Just look at the thick slices! Enuf’ said. 

Irodori Special. I think it was some lobster roll. Nothing to shout about. 

Shitake Mushrooms with teriyaki sauce. It was quite good, but we all agreed that they could sprinkle less sesame seeds. Too overpowering and it masked the mushroom taste. 

This was also another complimentary dish. Steamed salmon head. Lots of bones, but, YUM. 

Flora wanted to try eating the eyeball, so under the supervision of Dexter, she did it while Jovis was beside me looking on in horror and fascination. 

Gyoza. Tasted normal.

Flora’s favorite. Dobinmushi. Soup served in a teapot. Irodori’s version is a little salty but we grew to like the rich taste. Too salty for Wenting and Dexter

This is another reason why we love Irodori. Complimentary Mentaiko Grilled Prawn. Sadly, you can’t order seconds for this mouth-watering dish. 

Wenting’s softshell crab handroll. She had quite a few.

Tamago, Salmon and Ika Sushi

Dexter and Flora decided it would be fun to see who could swallow an insane amount of wasabi. Of course, the three of us wanted nothing to do with this. So while they decided to inflict self torture, I snapped away.

You can’t see it, but a huge clump of wasabi was nestled in the salmon sashimi. Let the games begin.

Hey, its not so bad!

Wait, wait. I take my words back.

Don’t cry!

Did I mention that because our food took forever to come, we kept ordering side orders of edamame. Wenting swore that her stomach only contained softshell crab and edamame.

I think this is called stir fried pork with ginger.. This is super good. All of us loved it. 

Wenting’s soup.. Can’t remember what it was called, but I think it was quite decent. 

Love (: [ Check out the ridiculous amount of edamames!]

Well, the sashimi was still as melt-in-the-mouth as usual. For about $43 per pax (after plus plus), it was a pretty good deal! So after a yummy dinner at Irodori, we dragged our stuffed selfs to vivo, again, to continue eating. The original plan was to end the night at Max Brenner’s, but we got sidetracked by a popular little game by the name of Munchkin.

On the way to Vivo. We just had to do something faggot. 

Still hungry, Jovis?

Upon reaching Harbourfront, we decided to walk off our dinner first. So we came across this shop that sold all sorts of games on the third floor at Harbourfront centre. We shopped around for abit and our hands got itchy.  I guess we were also looking for a replacement for Sabotuer, a game that we were hooked on for a period of time. If you have a group of about 4 – 6 friends, I’d suggest you check out these two games.

We decided to chip in and buy a Munchkin set. It was $39.90, with various expansion packs that you can add on to the main set. There were also booster packs that featured limited edition cards, but we decided just to get the main set first and get a hang of the game before buying the expansion packs.

So we made our way to starbucks to settle down and to begin learning this new game. Pretty excited. Flora also handmade all these cute spectacles. She also had us roll a dice and we were assigned an adjective and a noun. Marvelous idea that had us all laughing at each other’s adjectives. So while the two brainy members of the group read Munchkin instructions, we made a fool of ourselves and drew attention from other people who were clearly impressed by our glittery specs. Don’t you just love it?

Brainy Munchkin Wenting!

Brainy Munchkin Dex! (And such a camwhore too)

Husband and wife munchkin!

Presenting Ms Munchkin Soh!

Birthday girl with her presents! We got her a Paul Frank shirt and this sitting robot jack for her phone.. Wenting gave her a Tiffany file. Look at her beam…

After opening her present and buying of coffee, we learnt the rules of Munchkin and needless to say, we were pretty much hooked onto it. Nearly a month later, we’re still meeting weekly to have our Munchkin fix! We’re gonna do secret santa again this year, but a little differently. We have to write three items that we want at the back of the paper that has our names. Makes life so much easier cause we don’t have to scratch our heads thinking what to buy, and if the gift will be put to good use. I’m seriously considering putting a Munchkin expansion pack as one of my choices, so we all can have fun and enjoy it.

Well, if you’re interested, google Munchkin. There are even comprehensive youtube videos teaching you how to play the game. I guarantee  you’ll have so much laughter and fun, trying to win and at the same time, scheming with another friend on how to prevent another friend from winning. The last photo of the day I’ll leave you with this. Love this shot of our latest squeeze and our spectacles. Hang around for more laughter and nonsensical stories about my friends and I!

Till then, be Munchkin-ed!

– Blame it on the nights of broadway – 

Sushi Making

Sorry for the long absence! Been mugging for a test. Which I felt went horribly unwell. But, on the bright side, it’s over now and I can finally go back to being a couch potato. And, of course, cooking!

Haven’t made sushi before, though I’ve known friends who claim that it is a rather fun and fairly simple thing to do. So, I decided to make a batch for my friends, and for the birthday girl. So if you wanna try it out, hope this helps you with your sushi cravings! (:

I like to start out by gathering all my ingredients, so that I wont have to frantically look for them when my hands are dirty. Basic ingredients you’ll need for sushi would be rice, the calrose kind which are from Australia (or so my dad says), seaweed, vinegar, and of course, your sushi mat to roll your sushi. You’ll also need ingredients to put into your sushi; crabstick, salmon, unagi, jellyfish, whatever you like, just get those, and you’re all set!

Gathered my ingredients

So I started by cooking my rice first, so that while its happily steaming in the pot, I can prep my ingredients and by the time my rice is done, I can start rolling. Wash your rice, depending on how many pax you’re cooking for, measure it, and place it in the cooker. I used about two cups of rice and that was enough for about 4 – 6 pax for a light snack. To make things easier, use a standard sized cup to measure your rice. 1 cup of rice to 1 1/4 cup of water. Do remember to use the same cup for measuring both the rice and water, or else your rice would get either too dry or too moist.

1 cup of rice to 1 1/4 cup of water

With my rice cooking away, I can begin my prep on my ingredients to roll the sushi with. I got hotdog (birthday girl’s favorite), crabstick, cucumber, salmon, teriyaki chicken and avocado. I also got some jellyfish from Sushi Deli, so if you want raw salmon or octopus, you can buy them off the shelf and make your sushi with it. First up, the hotdog and crabstick went into the steamer. All you have to do is just allow it to steam for about 15 mins and its done!

Fresh from the steamer!

Now, while my crabstick and hotdog were enjoying a steam bath, I started doing my marinade for my chicken. A couple of weeks ago I was watching Nigella Kitchen, featuring a teriyaki chicken marinade recipe. I decided to try my hand at it and substituted chicken for salmon, to test out the recipe. Fortunately, the recipe was a hit and I decided to make teriyaki chicken sushi. Something that isn’t what you’ll usually hear of. The ingredients, method of cooking can be found here. Try it! (:

So, I mixed mirin, sake, brown sugar, soy sauce, grated ginger with a splash of sesame oil, and allowed my chicken to soak in this glorious brown mixture. Because I was going to use this for my sushi, I sliced up the chicken into strips. If you’re cooking it as a dish, dices of chicken would go perfectly with rice.

Soaking up all the teriyaki goodness!

Into the pan goes the chicken without the marinade…

When the outside of chicken is cooked, marinade in, lid on, simmer for 5 – 10 mins

Scoop out the chicken, leave the marinade in, turn up the heat and let the marinade turn into a lovely thick gravy. Turn off the heat and you should get something like this! For a more comprehensive list of instructions, click here.

Now, whilst I was cooking my chicken, I placed two slices of salmon into the steamer. Because I had to bring the sushi out to my friends, using raw salmon wasn’t a good idea. But cause my friends can’t get enough of salmon, I decided to work out something for them.

Steamed salmon is a good alternative for those who don’t consume raw fish!

After the salmon is cooked, fork it and you should get something like this. This would make it easier to lay it on the sushi. Remove the skin if you wish.

Well, now that all my ingredients are cooked, I can start laying them out in plates and get ready to wrap my sushi! I sliced up my cucumbers and halfed the crabsticks and hotdogs. Found an avocado in the fridge so I pitted it and sliced it up. Alright, so now you’ve got all your ingredients ready for rolling, your rice should also have done its time in the cooker!

You will need to mix the rice with vinegar to make it sticky and to add taste to it. I would suggest getting this packet of powdered sushi mix. It’s really convenient and you just have to follow the instructions on the packet. You can find it in most major supermarkets, NTUC, Cold Storage, Giant etc.

I scooped my rice out into a basin, so that it would be easier to mix the rice with the vinegar. While you’re mixing the vinegar, you have to fan it so that the rice cools and sticks together. I used a fan cause I was doing this alone, but if you have a friend in the kitchen, you can get your friend to help you out because the fan kept blowing the powdered mix all over my face.

Now, let’s roll! 

You’ll need a bowl of ice water, so that you can dip your hands into it before you get your rice. Now, I think its better if you learnt how to roll the sushi from a video, because it’s more interactive than reading words. So you can view a quick tutorial and get a rough idea on how to roll your sushi.

Add whatever ingredients you want, be creative and get rolling! Make different combinations and match different ingredients instead of the usual ones you find at sushi restaurants  Afterall, that’s the best part of cooking, putting all the ingredients that you love!

Teriyaki chicken and crabstick sushi! My friends loved it! (:

Look at the feast that awaits!

It was a marvelously fun experience to make sushi. I guess it doesn’t look as pretty and uniformed as those that you get outside, but I loved putting ingredients that I enjoyed. When you cook with love, there’s just something a little different about the taste that you don’t get from eating out. Hope you’ll try this out and you’ll have as much fun as I did! Blogging about this makes me crave for sushi again! Well, I’ll leave you with one last picture, and be sure to come back and read about Flora’s birthday celebration at Jap buffet restaurant, Irodori.

Till then, happy rolling!

–   Wanted