Tampopo at Liang Court Shopping Centre

For those who have never been to the Liang Court Shopping Centre, you will be pleasantly surprised to find the freshest and finest tofu in Singapore there at the Medi-Ya Supermarket. Made with no preservatives, it lasts for only two days even with refrigeration.

And if you venture deep enough, you will be able to see several tiny shops there serving Japanese-style food. This is where a group of food bloggers arranged to meet for lunch.

Tampopo was really hard to find for quite a few of us. Even the security guards there have not heard of it. So it took a few phone calls and after some wandering around, this blog (and others) found the place.

The restaurant is typical of most Japanese restaurants with its harsh lighting and uncomfortable wooden chairs. Fortunately, even with all the frying that’s going on, there was none of that awful smell.

And the point of this lunch, other than to catch up with the bloggers, was to try their dishes made from the very famous Kurobuta pork. Kurobuta pork, along with Wagyu beef, is the food-lover’s middle-finger to those so-called “health food advocates” who, in the 1990′s, tried to persuade you that low-fat meat is good for you. These are the same people who also said Margarine was the healthier choice.

Tampopo has an entire menu consisting only of dishes made from Kurobuta Pork. This blog have heard that many have tried its “Kyushu Jyangara Ramen” (literally: “Really good noodles from Kyushu”) and found it wanting, so taking the road less-travelled, I ordered the Kurobuta Ham Salad ($8++) and the Premium Loin Katsu Set ($21++).

The Ham Salad looked like your typical Japanese salad until you take a close look at the nice veins on the ham.

It was delicately flavoured but had that satisfying pork taste and a very nice chewiness. Think of Blackforest Hams without the heavy salting. The salad dressing was a vinaigrette that enhanced the sweetness of the pork. This bode well.

When the Premium Loin set arrived, it looked no different from the other Katsu sets on the menu. Asking the service staff what the difference was proved futile as she muttered “Don’t know,” and scurried away quickly.

This did not bode well for us as for a moment, we became really suspicious. Seriously, how can a person tell if the pork cutlet is Kurobuta pork or not.

This is the same dilemma for those who order Wagyu burgers. You really aren’t sure if it is really Wagyu beef or merely ordinary Sirloin steak ground with some beeffat.

Along with the lemon and hot mustard, there were other condiments to go with the pork such as the sweet plum sauce and the ever-so-popular Teriyaki sauce. This blog found that the sweet plum sauce was the better while the Teriyaki sauce was boring and interfered with the lemon juice.

The fried Kurobuta pork cutlet was a cut above the rest (Har! Har!). On first glance, it looked really dry because of the texture of the meat inside. However, the taste was different altogether.

Delicately deep-fried as only the Japanese know how, again the chewiness of the pork was very satisfying. It was not dry at all, in fact it was juicy and sweet with a little pepperiness (seasoning, I suppose) on its own. I would recommend tasting a piece without condiments at all.

Included in the set was a broth that had small chunks of pork in it. I found it to be weirdly delicious, most likely because it was loaded with the glutamates leeched from seaweed or MSG.

Dessert was the famous “Scoop Short Cake”. This was basically a small shortcake filled with fruits and topped with huge amounts of fresh cream.

It’s been a while since this blog has had so much fresh cream, apart from the sour slices of orange which jangled the tastebuds and tasteless strawberries, it was an enjoyable fresh cream dessert.

Those that tried the Ramen weren’t impressed (the broth was rich and good nevertheless) and other than the Kurobuta pork, the katsu set was pretty dismal.

All in all, we all felt that the service at Tampopo has lots of room for improvement in terms of product knowledge and attentiveness. And if it weren’t for the very high-quality Kurobuta pork, one shudders to think what the food would have been like.

Posted on 26th Feb 2007 in Food and Drink, Japanese

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There Are 6 Comments

umami commented on February 26, 2007 at 3:50 am

do you know that you can use the tampopo receipts to chalk up points for your meidi-ya card? I like tampopo, but have always just stuck with the hokkaido chirashi sushi, potato salad, occasional seasonal items and of course the desserts.

ivn commented on February 26, 2007 at 9:40 am

Aiyah! Too late. Can’t remember who got the receipt.

lol commented on February 26, 2007 at 12:46 pm

If i’m not mistaken, korubuta pork might be well marbled, but is actually v lean leaner as the fat steaks are very fine.

yixiao commented on February 26, 2007 at 11:14 pm

hmm i haven’t had problems with the service.. maybe you should bring it up to the mangement should it happen again..

kalos commented on February 26, 2007 at 11:59 pm

I totally agreed that the service could be much better…I was there last thursday and my katsu curry took forever to come…we were threatening to cancel the order before it finally came…by then my friend was already done with her dinner… but I have to say their food is really good… in fact I even did a review of their ramen not too long ago as well…enjoy!

http://le-voyage-de-kalos.blogspot.com/2007/01/search-for-best-ramen.html

thehungrycow commented on February 28, 2007 at 10:44 pm

I was rather rudely surprised at their service too. Maybe I should try their ramen the next time though dsd n sff did not seem to enjoy theirs. Btw, as for the receipt. It was left at the counter.

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