Dinner Round I at Shimbashi Soba, Paragon

So after a long, hard day at work (Of doing nothing but foodhunting, shaking legs and laughing with my colleague, I managed to squeeze in time to catch up with a friend for dinner. Being the one in charge of finding the place, I was caught between 3 places: The Lawn @ Biopolis, Saveur @ Purvis Street or Shimbashi Soba @ Paragon. After half a day of thinking of where to have dinner, we finally decided to settle for a nearby place in town. So to Shimbashi Soba it was!

Random snapshot of the chilli powder sitting on our table whilst waiting for our meal.

Teriyaki Chicken ($8.90)

Cripsy and sweet, the teriyaki chicken was pretty decent for 2 hungry monsters. It's not the best I've tasted, but it definitely had a sweet condiment which I loved! However for $8.90, the portion was a tad bit too small for my liking. Think we only had about 7 pieces of thumb-size chicken pieces? 3.8/5

Salmon Soba ($18.90+)

So I forgot the name of the soba I ordered.. Yes shoot me. But anywho if you see salmon on the menu of the Cold Soba section, this is definitely the one. When it first arrived I looked at my friend in shock. After the waitress left I said "This looks like a... Salad?" Don't get me wrong, I LOVE good salads, but I came here for soba, not salad! This dish was topped with lettuce, lettuce, lettuce, lettuce, radish... And tomatoes.

But upon adding the sesame based sauce and mixing it in with the greens, radish and (oh so yummy soba noodles), it was rich, light and creamy all at the same time. The sauce they provided was sesame base but it packed a punch. I used about 1/4 of the sauce they provided in the bottle (as shown in the last picture at the top left), and it did its job pretty damn well. Although I personally felt the salmon wasn't up to standard as it was cold albeit grilled at the top (and they only gave 4 pieces of salmon), the soba noodles were the winner. Handmade with love by the chefs at the window display of the restaurant, it was a pretty good meal. 3.9/5

Didn't manage to capture my friend's dish cos we were starving but he ordered Value Shokado ($22.80) which included Japanese Style Fried Chicken, Tempura, Onigiri Rice Ball, A Slice of Watermelon and either Udon or Soba Noodles. He did say the entire meal was lackluster and lacked seasoning but I didn't get a chance to try it.

All in all, if you do come by to Shimbashi Soba I would recommend you take the Cold Soba noodles over any of the rice dishes. They are famous for their handmade noodles afterall! They have a new vegetarian menu too and though I'm a sworn carnivore I'd love to give that a try one day.

Service: 4.5/5 (Waiters were fast and orders were delivered within 5-10 mins)
Value: 3.5/5 (For the amount we paid for it wasn't exactly that worth it)
Food: 3.7/5 (The noodles were good but everything else was so-so)
Ambience: 3.7/5 (Good place to chill out with friends!)

Shimbashi Soba

#B1-41 Paragon

290 Orchard Road

Tel: 6735 9882

Daily: 11.30am – 10.00pm

Last order: 9.30pm