I had the good fortune to get a spot last month (April 2026) at Na Oh , a Korean contemporary fine dining restaurant located at the Hyundai Motor Group Innovat…
I had the good fortune to get a spot last month (April 2026) at Na Oh, a Korean contemporary fine dining restaurant located at the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Centre Singapore building, located in the far west of Singapore (near Lakeside). It was really ulu. But the trip there was worth it because it felt we were overseas, being transported to a world of innovation and excellence in motoring and... food. Greeting any visitor were vats of jang (sauces) fermenting and ageing in a temperature controlled room just at the entrance of the restaurant on Level 2.
The space was elegant and minimal yet warm and traditional with the paper and wood accents.
Apparently the lamps were imported from Korea (of course) with handmade paper. Everything is thoughtful and intentional, from the intricate tableware to the furniture itself.
This was the Winter menu - it changes by the season and we were just at the tail end of it. For lunch was just $78++ per pax which I felt was an excellent deal for a 5-course menu! Of particular note was also the tableware and service - both of which were top notch! I will be surprised if they do not have a star sometime in the future, seeing that the restaurant's opened by a 3-Michelin-starred Korean chef based in San Fran, Corey Lee.
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We started off with the homemade tofu with aged soy sauce, which was served cold but not lacking at all with flavours, with the earthiness of the soybean mingled with the umami lightness of the soy sauce.
Next was the a trio of Assorted Jeon featuring the sablefish, mountain yam and Korean squash. When I think jeon, a thick flour batter fried pancake with chopped bits comes to mind, but here it was completely not the case. It was more Korean style tempura, with the batter light and crispy and just thinly coating the ingredient to let the natural flavours shine. And shine they did. My favourite was the fish. So light! So ethereal!
The last of the starters was the acorn jelly and beef tendon salad in icy kimchi broth. This was my favourite I think because it reminds me of naengmyeon, and the beef tendon made its savoury gelatinousness presence known without overpowering the salad.
For mains, we all ordered something different. The friend sitting opposite me had the ground soybean stew with mangrove crab and Jeju pork collar suyuk with golden queen's rice. What a spread. The Jeju pork slices were thin and they were just clean-tasting pork flavour strips!
My other friend picked the Grilled Jeju Beltfish with Golden Queen's Rice which was served with a spicy winter seafood stew. For those who like eating saba type fish, I think this will be right up your alley.
For my main dish, I chose the Galbijjim finished over charcoal, where Hanbang-style beef short ribs were braised in aged soy sauce and served with a chestnut and thistle sotbap and maesil dongchimi (fermented radish with green plum syrup. This was amazing because of how soft the beef was but also how great the sides are. There was even ginseng in the stone pot.
Just look at how melt-in-mouth soft the beef was!
And we were treated to tableside service for the sotbap, where the rice was scooped meticulously into the bowl. Broth was then poured into the fluffy rice. It was light and fragrant - the perfect foil for the sweet and savoury beef. I had trouble finishing it, but my dining partners graciously helped.
I loved the 3 side dishes very much because they offer a quick break from the meat and rice.
Lastly for dessert we had the injeolmi cake with candied nuts and seeds, which reminds me a bit of the corn cake from Kenny Rogers. But I really like the sticky nutty bits with the warm cake.
We ended with a refreshing pear sorbet with fresh and preserved persimmon sujeongwa to cleanse our very satisfied palates.
After that very satisfying meal, we took a 2.5 hour tour of the facilities. We started with the robotic hydroponics farm. It was amazing looking at robot arms planting tiny seeds and extracting them from the soil.
There were several veggy varieties being grown this way. Apparently these were used in Na Oh as well, and some were donated to food charities. The robots and growing reminded me of Westworld for some reason.
We had our chance at harvesting some greens, and even had Omakase tasting of all the greens grown at HMGICS! It was sooo interesting to taste them on their own because the ice plant was actually slightly salty as it leeches salt from the soil when it grows. Nature is so wonderful.
We even had a VR experience to see how the cars are assembled at the Hyundai Motoring factory.
It was all very inspiring to see how innovation has been applied to different parts of life. What an experience! We left the place 4.5 hours later, fully satiated and happy.
To cap everything off, I must say that Na Oh exceeded my already high expectations for the food with its impeccable service and attention to detail. The food itself was a gastronomic treat, with ingredients and techniques respected as much as the experience. I would highly recommend reserving a lunch if you can (reservations released 30 days in advance at 10am)
🙅 Thank you, next
🤷 Try if you are in the area
💁 Bookmark this ✔️
Na Oh
2 Bulim Avenue, HMGICS, Level 3, Singapore 649674
Tuesdays to Saturdays: 11:30am to 3:30pm; 6pm to 7:30pm
Closed on Sundays and Mondays
Reserve a table
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I was at the Habourfront Centre yesterday morning waiting to take the ferry when my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra phone suddenly died. The battery was 76% and it was not overheated nor was I doing anything extreme on it (just texting). Pressing down and power button did nothing. We found a HP shop in the mall and asked the guy, who confirmed my suspicion that the phone is completely dead, likely due to a motherboard failure. I asked Chatgpt what happened later and this is what it said: likely a pmic failure out of nowhere. Basically the chip just failed.
In any case I wasn't gonna let a bricked phone deter me from going to Batam for my 3D2N vacay. So on the ferry we went (thank goodness for physical tickets and passports!). On the 55-min ride me and my friend joked that this is going to be a forced digital detox.
Anyway, we managed to find a HP shop that sells budget phones in a more rundown mall to the one that we were at. I told the guy my budget is under 4M rupiah, or $300 sgd and he immediately shared the Samsung A17 phone options with me. Either 128gb or 256gb and 4G or 5G. In the end I chose the absolute cheapest of all and got it at $255 sgd including a free screen protector, charger and case. Good deal, also thanks to the extremely favourable exchange rates.
We then spent like 30 mins at the shop just trying to set it up but in the end we had to use a new Gmail account for the phone to run cos I was stuck in some loop with my old Gmail account. It gave me the option of inputting a code sent to my Gmail that I cannot access, 🙄 or to my Hotmail backup email (that I also cannot access or even login via my friend's phone because of the Outlook app authentication required). Damn the 2FA!
In the end I was like as long as I get data roaming and cell phone number SMS otp, I am fine. We left the shop and I managed to get on Telegram since I could remember my login and password. Thank goodness. That means I have a way to connect to my friend's phone!
It was during that time that I thought maybe I could instruct my dad at home to help me take a photo of my logins and PW sheet and send it to me via my friend's WhatsApp (thank goodness she saved his number!). Luckily everything is logged in to my Google Chrome profile on my MacBook so my dad just had to type the sheet name for it to pop up. But while he was doing it live I decided to authenticate my Google account by asking him to share the auth code sent to my Gmail inbox as a photo. And it worked perfectly since once again he did not have to sign in. And I manage to finally access my Google account, change the password, and log in to my other accounts via the saved PW sheet. Phew! The only messaging app I couldn't access is my WhatsApp because it only allows linking of secondary devices with permission so maybe I need to try it when I go home because I don't want to lose out all the chat history.
Back in the hotel, I have also changed the backup email of my main Gmail to a less secure Gmail (just requires login and password no 2FA). And have written down all the important passwords to keep in my wallet in case something like this happens!
tldr, here is what I learned and you need to also take note of in case something like this happens to you when you are not close to home, like overseas.
1. Make sure to retain the physical SIM option unless you have absolute no choice so you can access OTPs via SMS. This saved my life. Also tied to that - have at least one cc card on you so you can tap for public transport.
2. Ensure you have essential logins and passwords in hard copy with you (not at home) maybe in a wallet<
3. Tied with that, make sure your recovery email to important accounts can be easily logged in without 2FA or authentication on another device (such as a bricked phone). This is so stupid but it's an infinite loop of hell otherwise
4. Not essential but memorise your parents' HP contact or get it saved in your close friend's contacts (I did it after experiencing the BKK earthquake). This was how I could contact my dad and got him to help me authenticate. Luckily my Mac was also unlocked with a simple password I can remember and not just using touch id.
That is it I think. I'm just lucky to unlock step one. The alternative was to wait 3 days, go back to Singapore the analog way, get online to my MacBook and use it to communicate while sending my phone in for repair. That being said I think I might evaluate the cost and if it is prohibitive, explore alternative Android brands.
Currently my Samsung A17 is very serviceable and even the photos and videos have a digicam vibe to it that I don't mind. So it will be my interim backup phone for now! I just feel grateful my trip wasn't too ruined.
In any case I wasn't gonna let a bricked phone deter me from going to Batam for my 3D2N vacay. So on the ferry we went (thank goodness for physical tickets and passports!). On the 55-min ride me and my friend joked that this is going to be a forced digital detox.
At first I thought yea, likely have to be, as I was under the impression that I was using an eSim and to gain access to it I had to scan the telco email again to set it up. Then I realized that I cannot remember my Gmail password because I am so reliant on having my phone (I saved all my passwords on a sheet on my Google drive) so I cannot even access anything much less my Gmail. We found a Samsung service centre in Batam that opens on Mon so initially I thought yea let me make it through all of Sun and get it fixed on Mon.
However, as we got off the ferry and made it to our hotel and then to lunch, I had a sudden realization that I should have a physical sim! So I opened the tray with an earring (thank goodness) at lunch. Indeed I have not one but two sim cards inside. So now my hopes were renewed - perhaps I can get a budget phone, even secondhand, so I can add the sim card inside and roam and at least get to Google Maps and entertainment (ebooks, YouTube). But this also made me realize how reliant and addicted to a phone I was. More of the reliance - it feels weird to be traveling and not take photos of food and places!
Anyway, we managed to find a HP shop that sells budget phones in a more rundown mall to the one that we were at. I told the guy my budget is under 4M rupiah, or $300 sgd and he immediately shared the Samsung A17 phone options with me. Either 128gb or 256gb and 4G or 5G. In the end I chose the absolute cheapest of all and got it at $255 sgd including a free screen protector, charger and case. Good deal, also thanks to the extremely favourable exchange rates.
We then spent like 30 mins at the shop just trying to set it up but in the end we had to use a new Gmail account for the phone to run cos I was stuck in some loop with my old Gmail account. It gave me the option of inputting a code sent to my Gmail that I cannot access, 🙄 or to my Hotmail backup email (that I also cannot access or even login via my friend's phone because of the Outlook app authentication required). Damn the 2FA!
In the end I was like as long as I get data roaming and cell phone number SMS otp, I am fine. We left the shop and I managed to get on Telegram since I could remember my login and password. Thank goodness. That means I have a way to connect to my friend's phone!
It was during that time that I thought maybe I could instruct my dad at home to help me take a photo of my logins and PW sheet and send it to me via my friend's WhatsApp (thank goodness she saved his number!). Luckily everything is logged in to my Google Chrome profile on my MacBook so my dad just had to type the sheet name for it to pop up. But while he was doing it live I decided to authenticate my Google account by asking him to share the auth code sent to my Gmail inbox as a photo. And it worked perfectly since once again he did not have to sign in. And I manage to finally access my Google account, change the password, and log in to my other accounts via the saved PW sheet. Phew! The only messaging app I couldn't access is my WhatsApp because it only allows linking of secondary devices with permission so maybe I need to try it when I go home because I don't want to lose out all the chat history.
Back in the hotel, I have also changed the backup email of my main Gmail to a less secure Gmail (just requires login and password no 2FA). And have written down all the important passwords to keep in my wallet in case something like this happens!
tldr, here is what I learned and you need to also take note of in case something like this happens to you when you are not close to home, like overseas.
1. Make sure to retain the physical SIM option unless you have absolute no choice so you can access OTPs via SMS. This saved my life. Also tied to that - have at least one cc card on you so you can tap for public transport.
2. Ensure you have essential logins and passwords in hard copy with you (not at home) maybe in a wallet<
3. Tied with that, make sure your recovery email to important accounts can be easily logged in without 2FA or authentication on another device (such as a bricked phone). This is so stupid but it's an infinite loop of hell otherwise
4. Not essential but memorise your parents' HP contact or get it saved in your close friend's contacts (I did it after experiencing the BKK earthquake). This was how I could contact my dad and got him to help me authenticate. Luckily my Mac was also unlocked with a simple password I can remember and not just using touch id.
That is it I think. I'm just lucky to unlock step one. The alternative was to wait 3 days, go back to Singapore the analog way, get online to my MacBook and use it to communicate while sending my phone in for repair. That being said I think I might evaluate the cost and if it is prohibitive, explore alternative Android brands.
Currently my Samsung A17 is very serviceable and even the photos and videos have a digicam vibe to it that I don't mind. So it will be my interim backup phone for now! I just feel grateful my trip wasn't too ruined.
I was at the Habourfront Centre yesterday morning waiting to take the ferry when my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra phone suddenly died. The battery was 76% and it wa…
I feel incredibly blessed. That was the thought when my work friend said he wanted to invite me to a thank you lunch. And I was like sure! The next thing I kne…
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