Ten Restaurant (Japanese) @ Central

We were looking for a place to have Japanese food for dinner before heading to Cuba Libre at Clarke Quay, and settled on Ten Restaurant due to its good reviews on Hungrygowhere.

I feel that the quality of a Japanese restaurant can be judged by a few items on its menu: the freshness of its sashimi, how crispy and light its tempura batter is, the firmness and chewiness of its udon, and how juicy and tasty its saba shioyaki is.

The Ten Special Bento ($20++) was a good set to order for a feel of the food at Ten Restaurant. Most of us ordered it due to the variety in the set:

 

Given its name, the tempura don is the signature dish at Ten Restaurant and the reviews on Hungrygowhere rave about how Ten’s tempura is the best in Singapore. Unfortunately we weren’t very impressed by the tempura – though it more or less retained its crispiness even towards the end of the meal, we found the batter to be a bit thick and heavy. I felt that the prawn was a tad overcooked too, and we were only given a shallow dish (like the one holding the pickles above) instead of a bowl for dipping the tempura in sauce.

 

The saba shioyaki was a bit tough and slightly dry for me, although the skin was quite crisp. Given how immensely fussy I am about saba, I’d still rate it a pass. I think we were most surprised by the quality of the sashimi here. We all agreed that it was fresh and delicious – while the swordfish could be better, it was more than good enough and the salmon was perfect.

Considering the price, we were satisfied with our dinner at Ten Restaurant. I wish the miso soup came with a lid, as my soup was mildly lukewarm by the time I got to it, but I think the impression of the sashimi was strong enough in my mind to override the average experience with the other items. We’ll be looking out for set lunches for even better value!

Orange Peel Bird Feeder

I think I can try doing this for the yard outside – it should be fun to make and possibly be entertaining with the birds it will attract? The bird feeder goes if it attracts pigeons though.

Employ juiced orange halves, poke holes around the top, thread string, yarn, or raffia to create a hanger, fill with bird food, and hang by a window. This activity keeps on giving as you then have bird watching to follow.

(Picture and writeup from here.)

Olympic Fever

It has been fever indeed, as I watch the replays of the men’s and women’s team finals, and the men’s all around finals for artistic gymnastics. It’s much more fun watching the videos live, like I managed to do for the qualifying rounds, but I think I should be thankful enough that there are full replays on Youtube – which there weren’t just four years ago.

Just completed watching the men’s individual finals, and wow. I really loved how all the gymnasts congratulated Uchimura following his high bars and parallel bars routines, as he walked down the line of gymnasts back to his seat. It was also really cute how he checked out his gold medal on the podium, as if confirming it was real.

The medal was real indeed – it totally sealed Uchimura’s standing as the best in the world, and it’s the perfect addition to 3 consecutive World Championship gold medals. I really liked some of Nguyen’s routines too, and the fact that he has those mixed parentage good looks was a huge plus as well :)