West Coast Satay

C says:

Our old faithful West Coast satay uncle is still around, despite a recent renovation of the West Coast market and food centre. 

By day it's an innocuous ban mian stall, but from around 4 pm Mr Lim takes over and serves up some really good Chinese satay.

I love his pork satay, for the little nuggets of fat that are sandwiched between the meat. The chicken is good too, and while a tad inconsistent, when the lamb isn't overdone it's excellent as well.

He does orders for barbeques too; you can ask him for totally raw satay, or half cooked and you just finish it off on the bbq grill to save you some cooking time.

It's comforting to know that some good things still don't change.

A says:

Best in the west!

Market and Food Centre

Blk 726 Clementi West St 2

(Opposite West Coast Plaza)

Maison Ikkoku

C says:

Haji Lane and its surrounding streets are slowly but surely being gentrified. Amidst nasi padang restaurants and old school shops selling kitshcy tourist mementoes, are chi chi hipster cafes like Maison Ikkoku on nearby Kandahar Street.

The decor is minimalist, with bare wooden tables and padded benches. The weekday menu features gourmet sandwiches and salads, but we were, or rather I was, there for their house special snacks - Spam musubi, and kong bak pau. 

The musubi features a slice of Spam on top of seasoned Japanese sticky rice. This wasn't as good as I expected - it didn't have as much Spam kick as I would've liked, but it did give me some inspiration to recreate this at home with my preferred Spam to rice ratios.

The kong bak pau was predictable, but still a very good version of this classic. The bun was light and fluffy, and the pork was fatty but still had enough lean to give it some bite.

The banana cake with white chocolate shavings seemed dense at first, but somehow got lighter the more you ate. It had an intense banana flavour, and wasn't overly sweet.

Their artisanal coffees are also their specialties. A had a cold pressed coffee, which tasted almost wine-like, and I had their house special latte. It was a damn good cup of coffee - mellow and nutty, and the latte art is pretty cool too. What do you reckon the design? I say a swan; A thought it was a desert island.

The only problem with these Haji Lane-esque joints is that they're achingly hip on weekends, and access is pretty inconvenient as well. I think we'll still stick to old faithful Jewel Coffee for our coffee fix, and only venture to Haji Lane on rare days off.

A says:

Great coffees with interesting specialty brews. But given the lack of parking, I’d only recommended it for the hipsters frequenting the area.

Maison Ikkoku

20 Kandahar Street

Tel: 6294-0078

Café opening hours:

Mon to Thurs: 9 am – 9 pm

Fri, Sat & PH Eve: 9 am – 11 pm

Sun & PH: 9 am – 7 pm

www.maison-ikkoku.net

Masa Steak & Hamburg

C says:

Major props to A’s friend KH for suggesting this place for dinner. The guy who owns Masa apparently also owns all the restaurants occupying that corner of Robertson Walk, next to Wine Connection – Masa, Tori-Tama, and Yakiniku Yazawa round the corner.

As the name suggests, Masa serves steak and hamburger steak, but don't expect a casual, Ma Maison type place. At Masa, they only serve wagyu beef, so their prices are unsurprisingly pretty high. Their cheapest steak is $68, going as high as $220 for a 180g Chateaubriand, a premium cut from the tenderloin.

However, if you go for their hamburger steak, prices are a lot less frightening - $28 for a 200g patty, and $38 for 300g. Their starters, all featuring the same wagyu beef, range from $20 to $28, so these are much more affordable alternatives to get your wagyu fix at Masa.

We tried the carpaccio, and the seared tataki. The carpaccio was fairly traditional Italian, with thinly sliced raw beef, arugula and shaved parmesan cheese. The beef texture and flavor were amazing – because it was raw, you could really taste the flavor and unctuous fattiness of the waygu beef.

The seared tataki, served Japanese style with onions in a ponzu sauce, was also good in a different way. The sear obviously gave it more flavor and bite, but you also appreciated the flavor of the wagyu a bit less. I honestly don’t know which I prefer, but I do know I now want to try their steak tartare as well.

When you order your hamburger steak, you have a choice of 3 sauces – original, demiglace and ponzu, and 3 toppings – fried egg, garlic chips and cheese. I had the demiglace sauce and a fried egg; A had the original sauce with garlic chips.

The garlic chips were a bit of a letdown. They were thin and delicate but didn’t have a lot of garlic flavor. The fried egg, on the other hand, was a great topping, since the runny yolk just added to the already rich flavor of the beef.

The hamburger steak itself was outstanding. Cooked medium (we weren’t given an option), the patty was fall apart tender – you could cut it with a fork or chopsticks, and full of flavour. I liked my demiglace sauce, as it tasted the most like a reduced Western-style sauce, but it does get quite rich after a while. The original had a tart edge which helped alleviate the richness, but it was also less flavourful. Again, if you’re going with a few people I’d recommend ordering both sauces to share, so that you get the best of both worlds.

Unless you’re very hungry, I’d recommend just getting the 200g patty, since it’s quite rich and it does get a bit monotonous after a while. Better to have more variety by ordering the smaller patty and having a couple of the awesome starters as well.

Ask them about their desserts, because the menu isn’t the most informative (only listing Ice Cream, Sherbet and Dessert of the Day). Tonight they had vanilla and caramel ice creams, peach sherbet, panna cotta and gateau chocolat. A had the panna cotta, which was pretty good, and my caramel ice cream rocked. It was a burnt caramel, much like the one at Kazu http://atetoomuch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/kazu.html, so it wasn’t cloyingly sweet and was a perfect way to end the meal.

An amazing find. We’ll definitely be back.

A says:

I recommend the starters (under $30 each). The hamburg steak is good and still affordable. We’ll definitely be back for that combo.

For a casual dinner, the conventional steaks are just too rich (in price) for my blood though. With the chateaubriand costing over $200, they better be good too. Maybe for a very, very, very, vey special occasion. Like winning the lottery.

Masa Steak & Hamburg

11 Unity Street

#01-03 Robertson Walk

Tel: 6836-2529

Open daily: 6 pm – 11 pm

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

C says:

Plaza Singapura on a Saturday night is chaos. We were there to watch a movie and decided to grab a late dinner first. Itacho Sushi was packed so we settled for Nanxiang next door.

This is a branch of the outlet at Bugis, which is known for their giant xiao long bao which they serve with a straw to slurp up the soup.

We decided on their regular xiao long bao instead. The broth was really good, but the pork filling itself was a bit bland and disappointing.

The drunken chicken was a tad predictable but still pretty good. We also ordered a green bean noodle with crab roe, expecting it to be tung hoon. Instead, the noodles were like an al dente hor fun. This was really quite one note, till I had a brainwave to use the xiao long bao vinegar to add some much needed tartness.

The best dish was the shanghai fried rice. We had it with a special sauce duck, but the duck was pretty dry and chewy and the sauce was nothing special. The fried rice was good enough on its own, with lots of wok hei flavour.

We didn't really have any expectations, since we just wanted something quick, but all in all it was a bit meh, and not somewhere we'll go again unless we were really out of options.

A says:

Ermmm… Not bad I guess.

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

68 Orchard Road

#02-01 Plaza Singapura

Tel: 6337-7446

www.nanxiang.com.sg

Bedrock Bar & Grill

C says:

The specialty at Bedrock, a steakhouse run by the guys behind Oriole, is their Tomahawk steak, a massive Flintstonian-sized 400-day grain fed F1 wagyu long-bone ribeye, with a marbling score of 5. With each cut averaging 1.5 kg, there's no way A and I could have had it on our own.

Cue W and M, who indulged us by joining us for dinner and sharing it with us. At first we were a bit stunned when we found out the price of the Tomahawk - an eye-popping $345, but after doing the math, we realised that at about $85 per person, it would've cost the same if we'd each ordered our own steak.

The mammoth steak arrived already pre-carved and sliced, on a platter with 5 different sauces. The meat was very well salted, and grilled to a perfect medium rare. It didn't even need the sauces, though the wholegrain mustard added a nice tart kick.

We started with a baked camembert that was outstanding. The cheese was creamy and oozy, and was topped with black pepper and capers to cut through the richness of the cheese.

For dessert, we shared the waffle ice cream sandwich, with honey and fig ice cream, though A had most of it. This was really good - the waffle was crisp and light, and I liked the flavour of the ice cream. I still prefer L'Entrecote's saltcaramel waffle though.

Bedrock's steak prices are pretty high, with most steaks hovering around the $70 to $90 mark. With prices rivalling those at Cut or Morton's, I'm not sure that Bedrock can really justify them. Sure, the Tomahawk was good but it wasn't lifechanging. I actually found the camembert and the dessert more memorable. And the complimentary pita bread with roasted garlic.

A says:

Very good food. Very high prices. I’m not sure it’s worth it so I’d only recommend it if you have a very large food budget.

  

Bedrock Bar & Grill

96 Somerset Road

#01-05 Pan Pacific Serviced Residences

Tel: 6238-0054

Mon–Sat: 12pm–2.30pm, 6.30pm–12mn
(Closed on Sun)

www.bedrock.com.sg

Menya Musashi

C says:

I was quite psyched to read about the opening of Menya Musashi at Raffles City, because their specialty is tsukumen, the soba-esque dipping style ramen that we were discovered at Taishoken in Ramen Champion. There aren't many options for tsukumen in Singapore so this is indeed a welcome addition.

When we got there at 11.20 am on a public holiday, there were about 5 people in the queue so we only had to wait 10 minutes till they opened at 11.30 to get a table. It fills up pretty fast though; by the time we left just after 12 there was a line of about 10.

Their tsukumen comes with 3 different flavoured broths - white (bonito and pork bone), black (blackened with fried garlic and onion) and red (with a kind of bean paste). I went with the white and A had the black.

Surprisingly, the white was more complex - you could discern the flavours of the pork bone as well as the bonito. I expected the black to be more flavourful but it turned out to be a bit one-dimensional, with the onion and garlic flavours adding subtle sweetness but little else. I preferred mine and A liked the sweetness of his, but we unanimously agreed that the smoky char siew went better with the white broth.

The dipping sauces could've been a bit thicker, since they can be diluted with soba-yu later on. Still, it was very good and a welcome addition to the tsukumen scene.  The noodle consistency in particular was really good - a good thickness and had a good bite and texture.

Interestingly, you cam order up to five servings of noodles, all for the same price of $14.90. A went with a double and I had a single.

I still prefer the complexity and full-on flavour of the tsukumen at Taishoken, but with the end of the year-long Ramen Champion creeping up on us, I don't know what future Taishoken has in Singapore, so I'm glad there's at least another alternative now.

A says:

Fantastic. Not as good as the tsukumen at Taishoken but a definite option for us at Raffles City (if we get there early enough to beat the queue).

Menya Musashi

252 North Bridge Road

#01-16 Raffles City Shopping Centre

Tel: 6335-6500

Open daily: 11.30 am to 10 pm

Not Esquina again?!

C says:

Esquina seems to be our new go-to place on a Saturday when we have no other plans and can afford to eat really early. At 5.50 pm we got the last indoor seats and couldn’t even sit at the counter this time; we were at a little bar table in the corner.

Finally, we managed to try the tuna tartare, and it didn’t disappoint. It came with an avocado puree, and was seasoned slightly Asian style with a hint of sesame oil. It was refreshing and flavours were very balanced.

The sea bass with black olive puree and a salt cod soup was very good. Unfortunately the soup came served on the side, and the waiter didn’t pour it in for us. We didn’t know if we were meant to pour it or eat it separately, so we opted for the latter. Halfway through the dish, our regular waiter saw us and told us we were meant to pour the soup in. Both elements were good on their own, but really complemented each other when eaten together.

There was an off menu special of baked scallop with chorizo and pork belly, topped with a piece of fried pork skin dusted with paprika. The scallop and chorizo combi was very good, as was the pork skin. The braised pork belly was a little too sweet for my liking.

We tried the saffron paella too, with red peppers, prawns, fish and baby squid. I’m a rice whore so I really liked this. The stock used to cook the rice was the very essence of seafood.

We were pleasantly surprised with mini cones of sangria ice cream before dessert was served. They even gave us an extra one in between our desserts because they had one to spare.

We had room for dessert this time, so I ordered the pistachio cake recommended by our waiter, and A had the chocolate mousse. The mousse was quite dense and rich, but at least the chocolate crumbs added a textural crunch. The pistachio cake was amazing. It looked ordinary but it was warm, moist and fluffy. It was served with vanilla ice cream and a sangria jam, though it really didn’t need any accompaniments.

I think we’ve finally gone though all the dishes that we’ve wanted to try, although given how frequently chef changes the menu, and the variety of the specials, I won’t be surprised if we make our way here again sooner than we expect.

A says:           

Except for the other poser patrons, I love this place.

Esquina

16 Jiak Chuan Street

Tel: 6222-1616

Mon to Fri: 12 noon to 3 pm; 6 pm to 11 pm

Sat: 6 pm to 11 pm

Closed Sunday

www.esquina.com.sg

Cine Cafe

C says:

Our favourite Canteen at Shaw Centre is closing very soon, but on our last visit they assured us that most of their menu would remain available at Cine Cafe, on the cinema level.

Not everything from the old menu is here. One notable omission which I’m very distressed about is their pan fried carrot cake. Still, our usual suspects are still on the menu – the XO lo shi fun, soupy mee tai mak and A’s waffles.

In fact, now his waffle order actually comes with bananas; previously the default was strawberries, and we’d ask them to swap the strawberries for sliced bananas, which would confuse some of the newer servers. Maybe after our constant orders, they realised that waffles with bananas was a more enticing option.

I had the fish bee hoon soup. At Canteen, you could opt for either poach or fried fish slices, and I would opt for poached to be a bit healthier. Here it’s only fried, but I’m impressed that the fish is served separately so it doesn’t get soggy in the soup. The fish slices were surprisingly very well fried – really light batter and not oily.

I expected service to be quite bad since it’s almost a glorified fast food joint, but I was pleasantly surprised. They were polite, efficient and very professional.

I’m not sure exactly when Canteen is closing its doors for good, but I feel better knowing that Cine Cafe is a good replacement.

A says:           

Nice. Good service. Decent food at decent prices.

Cine Cafe

350 Orchard Road

#05-21 Shaw House

Tel: 6735-8858

Luke’s Oyster Bar and Chop House

C says:

This is by no means a new restaurant. Owned by chef Travis Masiero, who first opened Spruce, it was his intention to channel the vibe of a classic American oyster bar. To be honest, although we’d read rave reviews and heard very good things about the place and the food, the prices put us off. I was hesitant to pay $80 for a steak or $75 for a veal or lamb chop, at what I assumed was a fairly casual, almost diner-style place.

They have some slightly more affordable offerings at lunch time though, so we decided to check them out. The ambience completely threw me off. I expected simple wooden tables and jovial staff, but instead the waiters were formally dressed in bowties and waistcoats, and the tables were covered with starched linens.

To start with, we were given mini corn bread muffins with paprika-spiked butter. These were pretty yummy, but crumbled so easily that the wooden paddle that they provided was of no use at all. I ended up just using my regular knife, but I’m just wondering – if that paddle doesn’t really work, why give it to us?

We tried their Caesar Salad, which costs $24 without fried oysters and $27 with 3 deep fried oysters. Quite a no brainer then. I liked the Caesar dressing, and the oysters were very fresh despite being deep fried, but I didn’t like the very hard croutons.

There was an item called MFK Fisher’s Oyster Pan Roast, with sea urchin toast, smoked paprika and bottarga. That description alone was enough to make me order it. The waitress told me it was an oyster stew, but I was still surprised to find that it was actually more like a thin soup, not even the consistency of chowder. It had an intense briny flavor, and the oysters in there were very fresh, but I was very disappointed with the toast. All I tasted was bread and paprika, with no hint of either sea urchin or bottarga. At least they were nice enough to split it into 2 mini Staub cocottes for us.

The lobster roll is only available at lunch time, which was one of the reasons we decided to try this place for lunch. Again they split it for us, which made it much easier to share. I’m not sure if they gave us more salad and fries because they split it, but there was an inordinately large amount of both. The lobster roll was good – the lobster was nicely cooked and the roll was really soft and buttery, but was it worth $45? I have my doubts.

I thought portion sizes would’ve been bigger, so we ended up ordering a half dozen oysters to round off our meal. These are definitely their forte. The oysters were extremely fresh and very well shucked – one slurp and you got a mouthful of oyster, vinaigrette and all of the wonderful oyster liquor.

It’s probably unfair that we came here the day after a fabulous meal at Esquina. Comparisons are inevitable, and there’s no question that I’d rather go to Esquina. The prices at Luke’s are simply too prohibitive for me to really enjoy myself. $150 can get us a very satisfying meal at Esquina, whereas it only barely scratches the surface at Luke’s. I think to get a proper experience at Luke’s, you need to be prepared to spend a whole lot more than that.

A says:

Great food. Great service. But is it enough for me to spend so much? Probably not. Recommended only if you print money.

Luke’s

20 Gemmil Lane

Tel: 6221-4468

Mon to Sat: 12 noon till late

Closed Sunday

www.lukes.com.sg

Esquina. Again.

C says:

Oh wow. Our second visit to Esquina for lunch today was even better than our first, if that's possible. I had the day off today, so we came sharp at 12 when they opened. We waited outside for about 5 minutes while they sorted themselves out, and were then ushered in.

 They changed the menu slightly since we were last here. Apparently the chef likes to change things up every few months. To my dismay, this meant that the ox cheek oloroso with bone marrow crumbs was no longer available. The dish in its place was named “Braised ox, tongue-in-cheek, cumin mash”. The braised ox cheek, with a carrot and cumin mash, was topped with a slice of ox tongue, hence the name. This got a bit heavy towards the end but the flavours were good; the cumin mash was more subtle than I expected. The ox tongue was a mouthful of pure joy though.

I finally got to have the salt and pepper squid, after watching the chef assemble plate after plate of them last time. They were worth the wait - using baby squid rather than calamari slices or rings makes the pieces so much lighter and crispier.

It’s a hard fight between the slow cooked egg bravas dish from our last visit, and the egg dish we ordered today –baked egg with anchovy, capers, onions and lemon. The bravas egg has a more liquid and gooey centre, but I think flavour-wise, this baked egg dish was a winning combination.

We tried an off-menu special – lamb chops with mint yogurt and curried olive couscous. Hands down the best dish of the day. The lamb chops were perfectly cooked, about medium, and really tender and juicy. Even the couscous, which I’m not usually a big fan of, was done very well. Light and fluffy, and again all the flavours worked very well together, complementing the lamb but not weighing it down.

The baked bone marrow with snails, parsley and horseradish pesto was also amazing. Unlike most bone marrow dishes, which can be quite heavy and one dimensional, the marrow here is mixed with chopped escargots and lightened with herbs, so the whole thing is more reminiscent of a rillette instead of eating straight up bone marrow.

Even the humble sangria is not spared the Esquina touch. Their version is more like sangria two ways – a fruity red wine below, and topped with a sangria foam. Delicious.

I think you need at least 2 visits to get the best of Esquina, although given how frequently the chef likes to shake the menu up, I don’t think things will get boring any time soon.

A says:

This is probably my favourite place to eat in Singapore now. Nuff said.

Esquina

16 Jiak Chuan Street

Tel: 6222-1616

Mon to Fri: 12 noon – 3 pm; 6 pm – 11 pm

Sat: 6 pm – 11 pm

Closed Sunday

www.esquina.com.sg

Gyu-Kaku

C says:

Why on earth did it take us this long to try Gyu Kaku?! We've walked past the outlet at UE Square for years, but maybe the posters advertising wagyu beef promotions costing $200 gave us the impression that it was beyond our budget.

Yes, they do offer some pretty lavish wagyu beef items, and they certainly don't come cheap, but if you bypass those and just order the regular meats, prices aren't all that astronomical.

We actually tried the Anchorpoint branch, which took over the building that used to house Zhou's Kitchen. We had a really good waiter who helpfully recommended portion sizes and marinades, and I was very impressed that he didn't pressure us to over-order. I actually wanted to order a kimchee soup, but he suggested that since it wasn’t that crowded, we wait and see after the rest of the food arrived, and if we were still hungry we could order the soup. He was right – we just full enough and the soup would’ve pushed us over the edge.

We decided to do a taste test - wagyu beef karubi and regular karubi. I'm ashamed to admit that our peasant palates actually preferred the regular beef. Granted, the wagyu karubi had slightly more pronounced beefy flavour, but it was also slightly tough. In comparison, the regular karubi was only slightly less flavourful but much more tender.

The beef tongue was good too. It was sliced very thinly, and came with sliced scallions and lemon juice. I liked the tongue but I think I prefer the karubi.

We tried a couple of other meats too - the kurobuta pork collar, and a lamb neck fillet. The pork was quite good, but it was the lamb, in a basil marinade, that stole the show. The meat was tender, really flavourful, and went perfectly with the slightly herby basil marinade.

I left feeling very happy and very satisfied. Our bill was around $110, but I can imagine that if we were really in our element, we could rack up a heftier sum. Food was really good though, as was the service, and we're definitely coming back to try more meats, as well as some of the seafood and vegetable items.

A says:

Great beef. What really impressed me was our waiter. Very helpful without hovering too much. Highly recommended.

It’s not cheap for the area so it wasn’t too crowded. I hope they don’t close. I’ll definitely be back.

Gyu-Kaku

368 Alexandra Road

Anchorpoint

Tel: 6479-4001

Open daily: 11.30 am – 2.30 pm; 5.30 pm – 10.30 pm

www.gyu-kaku.com.sg

Plain Vanilla Bakery

C says:

I'm usually not a big fan of cupcakes, mainly because more often than not, they're more about aesthetics than flavour. The cake base - usually a dry vanilla or chocolate cake - is an afterthought and simply a carrier for elaborate frostings and toppings, showcasing the baker's artistic abilities at the expense of fundamental baking skills.

That's why I like Plain Vanilla Bakery so much. Each of their cupcake flavours utilises a different cake base, so the fact that they're cute little cupcakes is secondary; at the heart of it, they're still really yummy cakes. As it should be.

Cousin L introduced them to me at a family tea, so I promptly placed an order for W's belated bday dinner. I was really impressed that everything was packed and ready for me when I popped by to collect them, and they even remembered my request for a little candle.

We haven't tried all the flavours yet, but so far my favourite is (surprise surprise) the Salted Caramel, which actually isn't on the mainstay menu. It's a special that will only be available till the end of the month. The cake has swirls of caramel, and I like that the caramel is quite boldly salted.

The Dark Chocolate Ganache is good for those who don't like things too sweet, nor too much frosting. It's coated with a thin layer of ganache, then topped with crushed cocoa nibs. What was most surprising was the cake - I expected it to be quite dense and heavy, but it was anything but. It was really light and fluffy, with a very fine crumb yet still very chocolatey.

A found the Chocolate Banana a tad too sweet, but really liked the Chocolate Chip because the cake base, a vanilla studded with chocolate chips, was less sweet and therefore complemented the sweeter frosting.

I won't lie; the fact that they're in Holland Village is definitely a plus for us. But that aside, what'll keep me going back is just really good cake. Now, if only they'll put the Salted Caramel on their main menu.

A says:

The texture and fluffiness of the cupcake is the best I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, most of the icing/frosting/topping mixes are really way too sweet. I’m talking “omg I need a triple shot of espresso just to cancel the sweetness” kind of sweet. The only ones that didn’t put me in immediate risk of diabetes were the Dark Chocolate and surprisingly, the Chocolate Chip. I’ll be back for those and maybe ask if we can get some special orders that are a bit less sweet.

Plain Vanilla Bakery

34A Lorong Mambong

(2^nd floor, above El Patio Restaurant)

Tel: 6465-5942

Tues to Sat: 12 noon to 8pm

Sun: 12 noon to 6pm

Closed on Mondays

www.plainvanillabakery.com

Rakuzen

C says:

A combination of A being saddled with reservist and a number of family obligations meant that we didn’t have much opportunity to eat out over the long weekend. A felt like Japanese, so we decided to try Rakuzen at Millenia Walk.

Our experience was probably marred somewhat by the fact that we were unfortunately seated next to a table containing (1) an annoying kid who insisted on playing his smartphone games at full volume, and (2) his grandmother who sounded like she had a cold and kept snorting throughout dinner.

We started with a salmon sashimi sampler containing 3 kinds of salmon – regular sashimi, salmon belly, and salmon roe. This was pretty good, with the salmon belly coming out tops – it was rich, creamy and definitely very fresh.

We shared a plate of 3 varieties of belly sushi, with salmon, tuna and swordfish, since this conveniently came with 2 pieces each. But it was every man for himself with the aburi sushi – we each had our own platter, which comprised salmon belly, tuna belly, scallop, squid, mackerel and swordfish. I like how they scored the fish, so that there was more surface area to aburi. They do their nigiri sushi pretty well – good rice-to-fish ratio, the rice was well cooked and the fish was very fresh. No surprises that the aburi salmon belly and tuna belly were the most outstanding of the lot.

The tuna and avocado tartare sounded very promising – I expected something akin to Spruce’s tuna tartare with avocado. Alas, this was extremely disappointing. The tuna was barely seasoned, the avocado wasn’t much better, and the sauce that was meant to flavor everything was almost like an Asian thick sweet sauce (like the popiah kind) and totally didn’t go with the tuna.

We also ordered a couple of their creative makis – one with salmon and the other with fried oyster. These were, as expected, quite average and a tad gimmicky, but I suppose they make fairly reasonable fillers compared to the pricier (but certainly much better) nigiri sushi.

Our bill was around $160, which I thought was a bit steep given the rather inconsistent standard. If we do come back in future, we may pass on everything else and just order various nigiri sushi platters, since that seems to be what they’re good at.

A says:

Good. A decent option if you’re in the area, but not really a destination joint.

Rakuzen

9 Raffles Boulevard

#01-14/19 Millenia Walk

Tel: 6333-1171

Open daily: 11.30 am to 3 pm; 6 pm to 10.30 pm

www.rakuzen.com.sg