The Sushi Bar

C says:

The Sushi Bar at Ngee Ann City opened quite recently. Its first/original outlet, a nondescript unit in Far East Plaza, is well known for its chirashi dons brimming with generous slices of fish, and it appears that the Ngee Ann City outlet is no different. 

The small kaisen chirashi don ($22.90) was already smothered with seafood - salmon, salmon belly, tuna, swordfish, hamachi, scallop, ikura and tamago. I can't imagine how much bigger the large would be. There's also a premium version where you get seasonal premium offerings like uni and ebi.

For some variety, we also ordered one aburi kaisen chirashi don ($26.90), which is basically the same, but with the seafood slightly torched. 

I'm actually not sure which I prefer. The aburi adds a nice char, and some of he seafood like the salmon does benefit from it. Others, however, like the swordfish, are actually better completely raw. 

The scallop mentaiko was quite tasty too, but I think they could have gone a bit lighter with the mentaiko so that we could appreciate the sweetness of the scallop more. 

I'm not sure how crowded this outlet gets; we were there early-ish on a Sunday so we didn't have to queue. Definitely worth coming back for the chirashi dons. 

A says:

Not cheap but very good. Probably the best in the mid to high range.

Butahage

C says:

Butahage at Liang Court clearly sticks to what they do best - butadon, which is grilled sliced pork flavoured with a sweet-savoury tare sauce over Japanese rice. They have a few other items on the menu but the butadon is clearly the star. 

They have a regular butadon set for $13.80, and a premium set for $22.80, the main difference being where the pork is from. The regular uses US pork, and the premium has Japanese pork. 

Atetoomuch can never resist a taste test, so we ordered both to see if we could tell the difference. The Japanese pork was definitely better - it was more juicy, tender and fattier, and the fat was sweet and flavourful.

The US pork was objectively still very good, and would have been great if we didn't have the Japanese one to compare it with. It was just slightly more dry and tough, and had a little less fat. Both were basted with a delicious tare sauce, and the rice was very tasty too. 

They have sides of deep fried cheese, and crab croquettes. We tried the latter, which was quite good. Well fried and not oily at all. 

This time it's my turn to be jealous of A. His office is currently near Liang Court, and Butahage does takeaways, so he can have this as often as he likes. 

A says:

Pretty good. You can tell the difference between the regular and the premium when you have them side by side, but in not sure if it's worth the extra cost.