Shokudo at Hereen

Sat.25.04.09.

Yesterday, my friends & I went to Shokudo at Hereen for a gathering. Heard about the unique concept of the theme “Streets of Japan”.




As described by the website on Hereen :

" Themed “Streets of Japan”, Shokudo offers the best and finest representative dishes of Japanese cuisine conveniently under one marketplace. Preparation “a-la-minute” is the call of the day with our chefs preparing your orders “live”. The exquisite breath-taking interiors and ambience mimic the classic landscapes and streetscapes of Japan literally will leave diners in awe!"

Really? In my opinion, it is just like Marche but with japanese food. Though, I prefer Marche anytime.. So each of us is given the card at the entrance. Be warned, you will have to pay $100 penalty if you lost the card. Okay. We proceed to find our reserved seat by ourselves. After walking a full circle, my friends decided to ask for the waitress for help. I wonder why must we look for our reserved seats by ourselves in the 1st place?

Just like in food court, someone have to stay around to look after the bags while the rest goes to hunt for the food with the cards in their hands. I volunteered that position. As I take a look around, I have to say the surrounding is quite interesting. Wallpaper of animated market place, a framed map of Japan, Japan street stalls look alike stalls, some chamber seats that looked like those steamed bamboo container without the top. Too bad, because of the mass marketplace concept the place looked overcrowded & look pretty much like a maze.

Finally, it my turn to hunt for food. Omelettes, sushi, bamboo steamed rices, hot plates, fruits, desserts, teppanyaki and crepes. Maybe, things are starting to look up, although it just take 5 min to browse through all the stalls. So, I ordered steamed bamboo rice with eels & a hot plate with scallops. Thought I just wanna try how it is like & maybe "top up" later. So I passed my card to cooks & have to wait for 5 min to prepare the food for each stall with the receipts on the hand. It feel kinda dumb to go back to my seat & just come back to collect food for 5 mins. Out of boredom, just tapped my card on the reader while standing around like the rest.Pricing not too bad, I thought.

By the time, I collected my food & returned to my seat. Everyone is already enjoying their food. So,finally we get to eat as we chit chat. The bamboo rice with eel taste really so-so but what astonished me is the portion! Wow, that is amazing stingy. The container looked normal, but the portion.. Hot plate is okay, nothing great. Now come think about it, all the cooks looked young.It must be like those fast food like Mcdonald just have to heat up the food or something. And I always thought Japanese food culture is great. Marche is way better..Really made me lost my appetite.

As we continued our gathering, there's an arrival of 8 customers proceed to sit next to us. As there are no enough tables for them, the waitress added a table next to us. The gap with us & the new arrived customers is only about 5cm. Whether they reserved the seats or not, I don't know. All I know is now if we proceed to leave now, we can either move the table ourselves to get out or squeeze through other patrons area to get out. We chose the latter.

Disappointment is the word.. It just like an amateur dining area yet with overcharged pricing even with no culinary skill, no ambience and no service but with a service charge. Do you know the japanese food stall in Upper Changi Rd market ? Near the Victoria Junior Collegue? They have way more quality than this.

Trip to Casa Do Churrasco Brazil

18.04.09

Sat
18.04.09

Finally! Accomplished one of my long sought after dream, to dine in a Churrascaria style; basically Brazilian barbecue meat buffet but with passadors or “meat waiters” who goes around everyone’s table, served the meat in a skewer & slice diner's desired portion onto his/her plates.

I been eyeing to go to Casa Do Churrasco Brazil in Katong Village ever since I read about them in todayonline Weekend Today in Dec’08. After some persuading, my friends were willing to join me.

Therefore, we met up at Parkway Parade, shopped & proceed to venture the unknown ... Three petite gals (the guys could not made it), churrascari dinner & first timers. After the walking through the Roxy Square, we bumped into this - the back door of the Casa Do Churrasco Brazil. Yeah right, how to enter?



Thanks to my ingenious idea of following the car turning right, we ended up walking to a dead end. The driver was just looking for parking area. Uh-oh. Have a bad feeling that my gal friends may be skeptical about the whole thing now. No choice, we have to make a left detour toward the main entrance. Finally, we found the Katong Village. Whoa, this place packed with restaurants like Waruku, Hong Kong Tea House, Samy's Curry and more. Ta-da! Mission accomplished. We finally reached our destination at the right end corner.

Hmm, it seems we are a bit too early, 6pm in the evening. Ya, we are 15 minutes earlier than my reservation, but we are the only ones sitting there. Initially, we thought it might be a good idea with mix wine & meat as wine do compliment with meat. However, the idea was aborted, as we do not want to take the chance of us fallen asleep in the cinema at Iluma afterward. Beverages actually have the selection of Digestive drinks (Perhaps it helps to digest the food faster) like Cherry Brandy, Kahlua Coffee Liquer, Tia Maria. Coey was tempted to try international cocktails - Magarita (Lime, Mango, Strawberry) or Pina Colada. In the end, all of us chose the Guarana - Brazilian Soft Drink. It taste like normal soft drink but not as gassy & sweet. We also ordered Chicken Croquettes ( Coxinha de Frango )& Cheese Bread ( Pão de Queijo ). Quite crunchy. The waitress even checked with us whether all of us eat beef. Kelly & I do not. It is very professional of them as all the three chefs checked with us as well.

We proceed toward the salad buffet with the plate in our hand as we helped ourselves to variety of salads, stews & pasta. They have Pasta with mushrooms & ham, Ladies fingers with garlic, French beans with cherry tomatos, smoked salmon, Brazilian Rice (Arroz), Stew from black beans sliced pork sausages and pork trimmings (Feijoada). Mmm, good appetizers for us before the arrival of the meat buffet. Of course, these will work well as side dish.


The first chef cum passador, Antonio Barbosa Guimaraes, Brazilian, that came to us. When he walked toward to Kelly & approached her with the meat on a skewer (since she was seated nearest to the kitchen), she was startled for a minute. As I said earlier, we were currently the only ones sitting there. However, the aroma of barbecue meat was in the air before his arrival. In this picture, he is serving pork ribs (Costelinha de Porco). Not bad, but it is salty for my taste bud. I believe the marinade is lime, black pepper, rock salt, and garlic. As we enjoying our food as time & passadors passed us by, the place started to filled up with crowd.




Jerome Vasquez from the Philippines is one of the youngest chefs. I think he is serving Chicken Wrapped with Bacon; Frango com Bacon in this picture (The first "meat choice" that Antonio was serving us). It just taste sooo good.

Personally, I love the Chicken Heart (Coração de Galinha). It looked almost like big sized red bean, taste is chewy yet tender. The thought of the Home made pork sausage (Lingüiça de Porco Fresca) made me drool as I recalled the oozed savory juices from yummy sausage as I chewed in my mouth. I think that Coey's favorite is beef - Rump Cap with Garlic (Picanha com Alho). I cannot comment on its taste, but the look on Coey’s face tells it all. Furthermore, it is very tender as she could cut it with ease.



Marcos Viega dos Santos,from Brazil as well serving (above) Jerome’s specialty :Churrasco’s signature grilled pineapple(coated with sugar and cinnamon); Abacaxi Grelhado which is every one's favorite. Well, almost everyone. I am just not into pineapple. Nevertheless, it is really sweet & smooth. It just melts in yr tongue. No tangy taste that pineapple usually gives. By the time Marcos walked back to the kitchen, the skewer is empty. Coey & Kelly like it so much, they requested for a second serving.

Would you believe with all the barbecue meat buffet & endless round of salad buffet only cost $39++? In the end of the day, each of us spent less than $50, thank to the Citibank card promotion 15% discount on the buffet. Quite worth well, I think.

Looking back now, I really enjoy the new experience, especially the food. Really kept our stomach filled. I even joked with one of the crews that I am going for vegetarian diet for a month. However, I would prefer if were more variety of meat rather than focused on beef. After all, the icon of Casa Do Churrasco Brazil is a bull, guess I cant complain that much, right?

Best of all, I really enjoy the company. The Chef cum passadors may have some language barrier or limited time in their hand to converse with us, but you can see that they served with the passion in their eyes. Though, there were always "Ahem..ahem" from the other passadors when any one of them is having his picture taken. The waiter & the waitress..they really make sure that they made our day . We even got to know they are holding birthday party for one of them. Hopefully, we made the his day as well by wishing him happy birthday. The surprised look on his face is simply priceless. It is a pity I forgotten to take a picture with them, especially the Aries birthday boy. I hope that I did not crush their party. With Good food, Nice atmosphere & Fun company the night could not get any better.

If you would like to know more ,
just click on the tittle ,it will lead to the offical website of Casa Do Churrasco Brazil.