Okinawan Restaurant Nirai - Kansai (Sept 03 2008)

After having my fill of mooncakes... oh! come on! who will have fills of mooncakes, I think it would take at least 10 boxes! (yeah yeah I am BS'ing about the amount of mooncakes I can take before being sick). Anyway, the group of us decided to go for some snacks. We wanted to go to the Jerry's @ Tanglin.... but it's no longer in operations... shucks!!! that was my favorite place for nachos and cheese... Well... I am sure I will find somewhere somehow sometimes... but not today. We changed our destination to a nice Okinawan Resturant instead....

Yeah!! I like this place quite a bit, cause there was an almost barbie looking cute japanese lady there (all gals like barbies?!?! isn't it hehe ) . Either she had changed or she is no longer working there, that would have no effects on how the food is cooked though! :D

Okie enough of the nonsenses and focus on food ! And not to trust food lovers when they said they only want snacks!!!! A normal person's idea of snack is maybe 1 dish per person, but for a food lover is ANYTHING that caught their fancy and that would be lots of food!

So back to the order I had...

Grilled salted Pork Belly - it was okay... but I would had prefer it slightly charred, which this was not. So it was slightly oily sickeningly jialat.... but we ordered 3 plates of this!!! Please do squeeze the lemon over the slices and take a bit of the cucumber, that would make this dish almost good :D

River shrimp with salt - I fess !!! haha yes, I fess (I made so much fess'es lately, one might not be wrong to say I been notti for more than a few times) I did not... remember the name of this dish. Maybe it's because it wasn't that fantastic. Was it not fried long enough? could be? cause it wasn't as crunchy as I tot it could be. And somehow... it was slightly tasteless, when I ate without squeezing the lemon or dipping it in salt. But the shrimp was like soooooooooooooooo tiny... it seemed so insignificant to eat, much less dip it into something and eat it. But I do think it had made a good photographic subject! :D

Home made peanut tofu with sweet soy sauce - Friends who had known me for a while... "post-mocha" period, that I was NEVER a vegetable liking person. But I learnt to enjoy vegetables and oso meals done without meat. This is a good example why meat eaters should give tofu a try. Come on! Just think about it, how healthy can peanut tofu be! u get to eat somewhat unhealthy and yet at the same time, healthy food. And it's TOFU! u can leave out the peanut part and just simply said u had tofu. Try it!

Grilled ox tongue - I can't say that it sounds like a fantastically named dish! In fact, it is rather disgusting. But I just looooooooooooooooooooooooooove ox tongue, thinly sliced and grilled over some hot coals. n Remember to squeeze yet another lemon over this dish!!!! Too many times I am too busy snapping away (need to break this type of bad habit... maybe in NEXT century I start trying), and the dish will turn cold. But we also ordered 3 orders of these... and the last dish which I did not take time to shoot, turned out COLD and according to someone (I don't feel good putting the person name down, or do I want to assign some code name to him. so... SOMEONE) said that it was overcooked! I don't mind the overcooked part, cause I always tot the tongue should be chewy and taste the way it was... but i don't like the fact that it's COLD! grilled dish cold?!?! that's so uncool!

Okinawan Pancake with worcester sauce - They should be so glad that there are other things that Okinawa is famous for... or they might not survive. This is one of the worst pancakes I ever eaten. I can cook better pancakes than this when I was 9 years old. okie mine are those simple egg with flour sugar and bits of egg shells and of course, with lots of maple drowning it! :D but this was absolutely NOT NICE!!! *stamps foot* it tasted like a thin layer of rubber sheet...

Fried Rice (eel & egg) - this is nice! I always like Japanese rice. This rice retained the sticky sticky part of Japanses rice and infused with eel sauce (aka sweet sauce *yummy*) and egg *drools*. *yummy* Maybe the next time round, I will eat slower to enjoy it better. :D

Pork-rib Noodle - I didn't have this.. *pouts* But they had offered... I was slightly full after taking at least 2 orders of ox tongue by myself!!!

Well... take some time to give it a visit. This is quite a nice establishment, which dishes that are simple and tasty. :D