Food: Teppanyaki @ Pepper Lunch

It's a Singaporean thing, I think, to constantly add the @ sign between a place and event. Library@esplanade is the actual name of... the library at the Esplanade, for example. Well, it gets the point across, anyway.

It's also a Singaporean thing to eat out a lot. A lot lot. Like, almost every meal a lot. This is due to two main factors, I believe. 1) Kitchens are usually pretty tiny and 2) It's ridiculously cheap. If you want a nice helping of chicken rice it'll only put you out about $2 SGD, about $1.40 USD. For a decently filling meal, it's usually cheaper to just head to the nearest hawker center and buy some mixed rice or nasi lemak than to eat in. As such, you'll usually find Pris and I at one of the said hawker centers getting our dinner, but now and again we do head out to town for a bite to eat.

As the day before Valentine's Day, it's already quite busy in the city center with couples heading out to dinner and the like together. But more importantly, today is my birthday. In celebration Pris and I headed out to a movie (The Rite, not too bad!) and dinner at one of our favorite restaurants- Pepper Lunch.

We're going to highly recommend this place, it's got something for pretty much everyone. Pepper Lunch is a Japanese chain with a few outlets here in Singapore and around Asia, but none in America yet. The food is served teppanyaki style, which means they throw all the ingredients of your meal onto a sizzling hot plate and bring it out for you to cook at the table. I always end up getting the beef and rice and Pris swears by the salmon, but they've also got teppanyaki pasta and even hamburger dishes all cooked on their hotplates.

Better yet, you're not going to be breaking the bank for a meal here. A huge meal serving of your main course, plus drink and your choice of dessert, salad, or miso soup only runs about $12 SGD.

We were pretty full after popcorn and drinks at the movies so we ended up just grabbing one upsized meal to split, the beef since I'm the birthday girl, of course.

 

(it doesn't look so great when it first comes out though...)

 (...and even less when you first start the mixing)

(but mix in their honey brown sauce and garlic soy sauce after making sure your meat isn't burning to the plate)

 (and suddenly...heaven!)

We've never had bad service at any of the Pepper Lunch outlets. The food is usually out within just a few minutes of ordering and you're eating about 10 minutes after arrival. After the meat and egg are done cooking and everything is mixed together you're free to dig in. They provide handy little instructional videos outside the stores though, so I doubt you won't be able to figure out what to do. It's a very fun and delicious way to get your dinner, definitely worth a check out for anyone in the region!

(don't take just our words for it though)