Isetan Casual Dining - Isetan Shinjuku, Tokyo

A nice family restaurant in Isetan Shinjuku. This restaurant is hu-uge. It's almost as huge as a large food court in Singapore. Among the menu, the one that I wanted the most was the okosama ranchi (children's lunch) with the cute little Hamburg steak and the American flag stuck on the rice, but only children under 6 can order it!

Salad & Tomato Soup

Hamburg & Beef Stew Omurice

-> It's really, really good. What I love about dishes like this is that it's really un-pretentious. It's hearty, wholesome, robust, and satisfying. Much better than other omurice I had outside Japan. The omelet is thick and fluffy, and the rice inside is fried with tomato sauce (the original recipe and the best). I personally prefer traditional omurice with tomato rice instead of the avant-garde ones like curry rice, pineapple rice, etc. The beef stew is awesome, with just the right cut of meat. The sauce is semi-sweet, kind of demiglace mixed with hayashi (as expected).

Strawberry Yogurt

Rakeru - Bugis Junction, Singapore

Hamburg Curry Omurice



Chicken Tomato Omurice

Zowa

hong kong milk tea

crushed peach juice

pork cutlet omurice

chicken and bacon roll omurice

Zowa Omurice Cafe, Sydney

There's this new cafe / restaurant in World Square that claims to be the 'first omurice cafe in Australia'. I thought I might check it out with my friends. Actually, the main attractive point of this cafe is the fact that they serve so many different types of omurice and like most Japanese restaurants out there, they make plastic models of the types of omurice and display it on the window. I swear, there must be like, 30 different types of omurice in there! Now who can resist the allure of Japanese-made photorealistic plastic food models on display??? I sure can't.






Tex-mex Potato Wedges
The topping is mozarella, bacon&chee, and parsley. Served with crème fraîche and sweet chilli dipping sauces.




Omurice with rolled chicken cordon bleu in cream sauce
Instead of the usual tomato gohan (rice), the inside of the omurice is plain fried rice. However, the sauce is very nice (Creamy, red wine-y sauce that somewhat tastes like bourguignonne)
Also, there's asparagus spears inside the rolled chicken.





Seafood cheese gratin
Very Japanese-y, because there's rice inside. Ahh, this dish reminds me of my times in Singapore, where my two blog co-writers and I would often buy those Japanese (and therefore expensive ^_^) microwavable frozen rice gratin from Isetan Supermarket because we can't cook in our boarding house.
By the way, there are various seafood in this gratin, such as green mussels, prawns, and squids.







Omurice with grilled chicken in hot sauce
The grilled chicken is tender and nice, with a light oregano crust. The mayonnaise also added a unique touch. However, the surprising thing about this dish is that the hot sauce tasted very similar to the dipping sauce for Bakmi GM's very famous 'pangsit goreng' (fried wontons) in Indonesia.

Overall, I think this is a good concept cafe. I've never seen so many types of omurice in my whole life! I wonder if they have this type of cafe in Singapore or something...
I'm going to try the 'Omurice with enoki cream sauce' and 'Omurice with oroshi grilled sirloin' next time!

Omurice by Erique Fat Owl

Omurice
(Japanese-style rice omelette with demiglace sauce)

I made this yesterday for lunch. This is an incredibly simple-looking dish yet awfully hard to get it made just right. A perfect omurice should be shaped like an american football - and only experienced chefs can make the shape perfect. I didn't use fancy techniques to make this one - nor special tools. I just use a method ordinary Japanese employ to make a home-made omurice:

"gashahasha - hyuun - pekopeko - tontonton"

Confused? you'd better be. "gashagasha" is an onomatopoeia for eggs being beaten, "hyuun" is for beaten eggs being poured to hot skillet, "pekopeko" is the motion where the chopsticks are used to stir the beaten eggs while frying, and finally, "tontonton" is the motion of your fist hitting the pan handle to shape the perfect omurice.

I haven't perfected the "tontonton" step just yet - it is incredibly hard! So I just used spatula to shape the omurice (cheated a bit)

Anyway, the filling of the omurice is TOMATO GOHAN - fried tomato rice with peas and chicken bits. Whereas the sauce used to dress this dish is the all-important DEMIGLACE SAUCE.

This popular Japanese dish is incredibly irressistible!



Salad with Goma Dressing

Made to accompany my omurice!