Kome Japanese Dining

C says:

Kome is a fairly new Japanese restaurant opened by Lawrence Chia – the brother of Ronnie Chia of Tatsuya fame. The location – part of Keppel Club – seems a rather strange choice for a fine dining Japanese joint, but it’s open to the public so I guess it’s no different from driving to Keppel Island or even Sentosa for a meal.

It’s probably better to come here for lunch because, just like Tatsuya, Kome has some quite prohibitively expensive items on their menu (their omakase sets start at $95 per person, I think), but at lunchtime they have a selection of bentos for $22.90 each. Some of the starters and main courses aren’t too astronomical, so we managed to try a number of items when we came here with A’s folks (Keppel Club members) on Saturday night.


I ordered, what else, the hamachi kama (will she ever stop?!). The fish was very good here, but it fell short of being better than Akashi because of the rice. I ordered a bowl of sushi rice to go with it, and it was just too sweet. I prefer the vinegared rice to be just that – vinegared and slightly tart. Because it was so sweet, it didn't go as well with the grilled fish.


A ordered the Chirashi Sushi, which came in a pretty decent-sized portion for $28. A actually thought that the fish here was one of the best he’s had, and even better than at Tatsuya. Unfortunately I would have to differ, because one of the pieces of salmon sashimi I had actually had a bone in it! It was a small ½ cm piece of a pinbone, but a bone nonetheless.

A’s folks ordered a beef sukiyaki set for 2 persons, which surprisingly took ages to arrive given that most of the food is actually raw… The beef was excellent though – sliced thin enough but not so paper-thin that you don’t get to chew anything, and fantastically marbled and full of flavour.


We ordered a couple of side dishes to try, which were ok but not spectacular. The seared swordfish and foie gras tataki was an interesting flavour combination, and the cheesily-named Keppel Maki, with swordfish, salmon skin and asparagus, was ok but a bit too filling for my liking. The tuna in the Maguro Miso tasted quite meaty, but again somehow the dish failed to really excite.

I think we’re planning to come back again at lunch time one day to try the bentos, then we’ll be in a better position to compare this place with Tatsuya’s lunch sets, because at the moment the lunch we had at Tatsuya still beats the dinner here tonight.

A says:

I actually like the slightly sweeter rice. The food is good, the service is really good and ambience isn’t too imposing.

I’m just not sure if it’s worth the trip out to Keppel if you don’t live around here anyway. Also, the tables are a bit small if you’re ordering multiple dishes.

Kome Japanese Dining
Keppel Club
10 Bukit Chermin Road
Tel: 6273-0118
Lunch: 12pm - 3pm
Dinner: 6.30pm - 10.00pm