Asia Grand, Odeon Towers

Here we have a joint birthday celebration of sorts and of course Peking duck is in order! Asia Grand can be found at Odeon Towers, a skip away from City Hall MRT.

 Made a reservation for 12.30pm on a Saturday and would highly recommend booking a table in advance.

We got a table right under the air con vent near the entrance. I was offered a red shawl by a waitress when we couldn't swap places to be further away from the blast of cool air - brownie points for service!

{ Baked BBQ Pork Puff ($4.20) }

 Char siew sou was nice - flaky, slightly buttery and salty exterior with the sweet char siew filling makes for a great start to a dim sum lunch.

 The main highlight of the meal: Peking Duck! We ordered a whole bird, which is carved by your table and made into little crispy-skin pancakes served with crackers. For an additional $10 I believe we got the rest of the duck meat to be fried up with rice.

{ Peking Duck ($38 on offer) }

 These are really good! The crunch of the crispy skin and cucumber within the soft eggy pancake is just so moreish. To our delight there is plenty to go around between the 4 of us :)

{ Duck Meat Fried Rice }

 I also really liked the generous chunks of duck meat in the fried rice, which was very fragrant and well wok-fried. Grains of the rice were completely separated.

{ Steamed Cheong-Fun with Shredded Chicken & Preserved Egg ($5.80) }

 We ordered Chee cheong fun with century egg just because it sounded quite unusual. To me it didn't taste that special though!

{ Fried Shrimp Roll with Mango ($5.20) }

 I enjoyed the combination of the mango shrimp with sesame. It goes quite nicely together but I thought the flavour could have been more balanced towards the savoury side as the mango is quite strong.

{ Bamboo clams ($22?) }

 Bamboo clams - don't think I've seen/eaten these kind of clams before! This was pretty good too, with the straw mushrooms, garlic and XO sauce.

  I can't remember the price but I remember it was pretty pricey! Never eaten this before but it was actually really good!

{ Gui-Hua (Osmanthus) Jelly Cake ($4) }

  Not a fan of this at all but it was pretty nice - the texture was firm and just mildly sweet and strong in flowery-ness.

{ Steamed Custard Bun ($4.20) }

 We were looking forward to trying the custard bun and when it came like this I was a bit puzzled and distracted by the swirly pattern. I don't think it's a different flavour though I could be wrong!

 The moment of truth: upon opening the bun we just knew this wasn't quite up to mark.. The filling inside just wasn't as fragrant and as 'kao' as the (very good) ones we had at Mouth Restaurant (which will now be the benchmark for all other liu sha baos!)

  Sorely disappointed! The custard was creamy but honestly, it was tasteless compared to others we've had. While I do like the craftmanship on the bun itself, the custard wasn't great.

All in all, the peking duck is the real winner here - $38 + $10 is really quite cheap, and while it's on 'offer price', it's been at that price for quite a while, so go fast before it ends! The dim sum is reasonably priced and most we ordered were hits, which explains how this was packed to the brim on a Saturday afternoon. Definitely call way in advance to place your reservation.

Asia Grand
331 North Bridge Road
#01-02 Odeon Towers

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Main website : http://asiagrandrestaurant.weebly.com/about-us.html
HGW Link (75% at time of posting) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/asia_grand_restaurant_odeon_towers/
Rating (out of 4) : 

Ootoya, Orchard Central

 Ootoya can be found (with a bit of difficulty) on the higher floors of the confuddling Orchard Central (is it just me or is the mall layout quite bad?).

There are outlets in Clementi and Suntec as well.

 Pretty lucky to have spotted the 15% off the bill for UOB cardholders!

 I've been wanting to come here ever since hearing that their tonkatsu was pretty good, but I didn't realize they do a lot more than that, and many interesting dons to choose from. I settled for the Rosu set of course!

 Hurray for grinding sesame! Grinding it comes as a second nature by now.

{ Rosu set ($23.50) - 1007 kCal }

Tasty Japan pork loin cutlet coated with fresh bread crumbs

(set includes rice, salad, soup) 

 The complete set looks rather impressive at just $23.50, you get a decent size tonkatsu, along with pickles, green leafy veg (definitely non Japanese but good nonetheless), and your free flow of lettuce, miso soup and rice. While the salad sauce was definitely not as good as Tonkichi or Katsukura, was still nice, citrusy and ponzu-y I think.



 Pork comes from a Japanese breed of pig called Sangen Pig (if you read Japanese you can read it here) but it's basically a cross-breed of 3 breeds to produce a pig which tastes awesome. Well the difference is not that sharp - the meat definitely is more flavourful than regular white pork, but not as distinct as e.g. kurobuta. Crumb crust was pretty nice, but definitely a lot oilier than it should be, which was my only gripe! But for the price, this was really great stuff.

{ Gokoku Mai }

Brown Rice, Barley, White Sesame, Black Sesame, Corn

 It's nice to have the option to have the mixed grain rice instead of white rice within the set, and so we both went for this. I was expecting a lot more fragrance, given the barley and sesame. Could be a bit less mushy as well. Still a good change though, and somewhat healthier!

{ Sumitoridon Set ($14.50) - 820 kCal }

Char grilled chicken thigh marinated with special sauce goes well with fresh, crisp vegetables and seaweed

 Took me a while to decide on this - there is plenty on the menu, and I wish they didn't put down the calorie count (820kCal? D:) I'd say this was pretty good value and tasty too. You get nicely charred chicken and fresh salad on a heaped pile of rice with the special (teriyaki?) sauce all over - plus small side dishes of pickles, cold braised veg and mushrooms and crispy dried seaweed. Not too enthused about the miso soup though - I'd prefer tofu over potatoes in it anyday!



 While I appreciate the charred ness of the chicken, there was a thoroughly blackened/carcinogenic piece that I feared to consume.

 The char-grill Teriyaki style was done really well, nice charred bits for that crispy flavour along the edges, and for the price this too was value for money!

Definitely a good stop for don / soba / udon style of Japanese food, don't go expecting much in the ways of sushi or sashimi though (pretty sure they don't serve it anyway). Great value for money and food's pretty good too! Though the seating and location at this particular branch is definitely strange.

Ootoya

Orchard Central, #08-12

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HGW Link (77% recommended at time of writing) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/ootoya_orchard_central/
Rating (out of 4) :