Birthday Mookata

We were really all about the fun foods this year.

So much so that even though we had a couple of choices, we decided to begin with Thai Mookata, and then carry on with the rest of the celebratory meals afterwards. 

This Thai Mookata place was a new one we'd recently found. 

Which, to tell the truth, we had walked past a couple of times before but then somehow never stopped to eat there.

This time we did.

There're two types of platters that they have here at Zenso in Sunshine Plaza.

I'm not sure what the difference is- they're more or less the same, except that one's $50, is larger a portion, and has got crayfish and scallops and other kinds of seafood.

We decided to go for the smaller portion, which had a most fantastic price of $30 and which had, in terms of seafood, dory fish, sotong and prawns. 

It was as good as I liked it to be. 

There was pork, there was marinated pork, there was chicken, fishballs, cheese tofu, crabsticks, and, of course, the frozen (chilled) dory fish too.

I quite liked the way they did the marinate. 

It wasn't spicy. 

Bright red a color it was- even the soup turned a bright looking red- but spicy it was not. 

Best thing about the marinate was how it didn't overwhelm the taste of the food. 

Either it was a very mild marinate, or the taste of the sweet corn (in the soup) overrode it all. 

For us who don't know, sweet corn is an essential in every hotpot. 

If ever you got a soup that lacks sweetness or flavor, sweet corn and carrots are your answer. 

These two vegetables usually pose not a problem. 

That being said, I'd also dropped the lala, the cabbage, and the green leafy vegetables into the moat as well. 

Already we had chunks of lard scattered all over the dome with pieces of pork and chicken grilling away over the flame. 

And then I'd added the cheese tofu, instant noodles and fishballs into the moat as well. 

Mookata has to be one of the most versatile barbecues I've had this side of the world. 

It's one of those things where you don't have to worry too much about soup stock or sauces or anything like that.

You just need to concern yourself about the chicken stock soup, and the quality of food. 

I like it when they're good with the ingredients. 

I don't like it when the ingredients look like they've been dumped. 

So it's a good thing that Zenso doesn't do that. 

Not only do they give you chonky-sized chiller-fresh ingredients, they arrange it in a very pretty, IG-worthy way too. 

It's not even just the meat. 

Same goes for the vegetables too. 

There was only a little bit of question about the prawns and the sotong. 

Like, were we meant to grill them or were we meant to dunk them in the soup? 

Was it better to use them to sweeten the soup, or boil them for food? 

Or should we just grill them on their own?

We contemplated a while, then decided it best to have the best of both worlds- chuck two prawns into the soup, and put the rest, including the sotong- on the grill. 

Wise move; the prawns and sotong cooked really fast, and the prawns tasted sweet and good. 

I'll have to master the art of making a perfect barbecued cuttlefish though. 

Perhaps next time. 

It shouldn't be hard. 

Not with ingredients as fresh as this. 

All else fails I'll just dunk it into the soup together with the mama noodles and make a bowl of delicious seafood noodle soup- with cabbage, green leafy veggies, cheese tofu, prawns, dory fish and fishballs- my style, my way.