Gyu Kaku @ Novena Square

Gyu Kaku is known for its meat BBQ, and having had it once at AnchorPoint, the meats were delicious. However, not wanting to risk smelling like BBQ, we forwent the grill (though it was utmost tempting with price points below $30 for lunch) and gotten donburi sets instead.

The weekday value lunch sets has just 5 options with prices ranging from $9++ to $15++. My colleague chose the buta kimchi while I went with the beef sogi.

Beef Sogi set came with mid sized bowl of rice topped with beef and tendon cubes, all fighting for space with a wobbly softboiled egg and some gari (pickled young ginger). It also has kimchi and salad on the side and a bowl of kelp soup.

beef sogi set @$12++

break the egg, mix it up

The rice bowl became super moist after mixing the runny yolk. The beef cubes tasted mild and pleasant. Loved the soft tendons. Lunch was pretty filling. Salad was good, with minimal dressing and the greens were crunchy.

Had a side order of beef croquette but it turned out meh. Not much taste and it was oily.

beef croquette

Plain water is chargeable at Gyu Kaku.

Nara Thai @ Westgate

Nara Thai Cuisine offers Thai food in a comfortable setting. A quick glance of the menu showed many seafood options. Was in the mood for some tom yum soup, so was there one evening for late dinner.

The restaurant has dark furnishings and dim lightings. As usual, ordered Thai Iced Tea, seafood tom yum soup and a meat dish, of stir fried duck.

Thai Iced Tea

Tom yum soup arrived fairly quickly. For carbs, they only had the blue jasmine rice available, otherwise need to order fried rice. There's no difference in taste between blue coloured rice or white rice, though my bro fedback that his was a tad too moist.

tom yum kung (@$19.90++) and blue jasmine rice (@$2++)

closer view of the tom yum soup

The tom yum soup was tangy, leaning more towards the sweetish sourish tone. The spice component was too mild. It gets very sourish towards the end of the pot. Sure to awaken any taste buds!

Unfortunately, the stir fried roasted duck took forever to arrive and it actually took us by surprise. For $18.90++, there were only that few pieces of duck meat and the rest were actually duck skin. Albeit very oily but tasty skins. Spicy too. Best eaten with rice.

stir fried roasted duck with crispy basil @$18.90++

TungLok Teahouse @ Novena Square 2

Fancy dining in a space that offers a retro teahouse ambiance? TungLok Teahouse has just that. The decoration evoked a sense of nostalgia but service was rather patchy though during our visit.

menu

Prices are slightly on the higher side.

caramelized cashew nuts toasted with sesame to munch on

Ordering greens in a Chinese mid-end restaurant always seemed not to worth it. Portions would be small and priced at $12+ and above.

So, we ordered deep fried eggplant with chicken floss. Eggplant is still a vege, isn't it?

Appetiser - deep fried eggplant with chicken floss

Quite enjoyable as a snack. Yums.

The fried rice portion was kind of small and barely enough for two pax. Tasty and flavourful with the sweet scallop bits but were also rather oily.

seafood fried rice @ $26+

And were we glad that we ordered the hand-shredded fried duck. It came with flour crepes to wrap, just like Peking duck! At least we have something to fill us up.

hand-shredded fried duck (half portion) $28+

Actually, I don't think it was hand-shredded. Look at how evenly those meats are cut up. Anyway, meat wraps are nice with the sauce and shredded cucumber and spring onions.

wrap it up and nom

They do have dim sum menu but you may need to request for it. Our waitress had forgotten to bring it together with its other menus till we saw dim sum being brought out from the kitchen and asked about it.

We were in a group of 3 and the meal above costs about $26+ per pax.