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. 

Lunch at Bincho

C says:

The lunch sets at Bincho, available daily even on weekends, are a slightly less extravagant way to sample what Bincho has to offer. Even better, most of their a la carte menu is still available at lunch time too if, like us, you can't resist supplementing your lunch sets with an extra side or two. 

We ordered the Beef Tongue Don ($38) and the Pork Jowl Ikura Don ($40). First is an amuse bouche and a chicken skin salad. 

Next up was karaage - fried drumlets coated in a sweet teriyaki sauce. Both the salad and the karaage were good, but were really just there to pave the way for the awesome mains. 

The beef tongue was sensational. It was perfectly cooked, so flavourful and so incredibly unctuous. Bliss at first bite. 

The pork jowl and ikura don was also amazing. The pork had a wonderful texture, and the flavour combination of the fatty seared pork, sweet glaze and savory ikura was heavenly. 

Even the black sesame ice cream dessert was simple but really good. 

We honestly can't get enough of Bincho. Always immensely satisfying, and now with the lunch sets, maybe just a little easier on the wallet. 

A says:

Awesome.

Bincho

C says:

Calling Bincho a yakitori joint is doing it a disservice. The term brings to mind casual izakayas serving all manner of (fairly cheap) food on sticks. At Bincho, on the other hand, the food is served not on sticks, but artfully sliced, plated and accompanied by the perfect condiments for each dish.

If, like us, you crave a full-on grilled meat experience, I would recommend passing on the omakase menus in favour of ordering from the a la carte menu. We had the omakase on our first visit and found it ok but not stellar. This time, on our second, we just went with a la carte orders and were completely blown away.

 

The neck was excellent. I expected actual bony portions of neck, but somehow they've managed to extract the tastiest fillet of meat from the neck - tender and juicy. Our first order was served with a simple ponzu sauce. 

When we ordered a second helping, they recommended it Miyazaki-style. Those massive sky-high flames? Yes, they were for the charred Miyazaki necks. This version packed loads of flavour, but I think I preferred the cleanliness of the normal ponzu necks. 

Not many places do chicken ass well; most of the time it's under-charred and therefore a bit icky, and the central cartilage isn't removed. Not so here. They were crispy nuggets of juicy fattiness, with all bones and cartilage removed. The hearts were also perfectly cooked, with a char yet still very tender. 

The marinated thigh grilled with cedar wood had a lovely fragrance from the wood and the light dusting of lime zest, and went really well with the mushroom salt. We also ordered the cock's combs, which turned out to be like tender bits of gelatinous cartilage.

One of their new dishes is the unagi clay pot rice. They advise you to eat one helping with just the rice and unagi, and another helping almost as a porridge, with dashi broth, freshly grated wasabi and sesame seeds. 

This was excellent. The eel was perfectly cooked - I dare say it was even better than the eel we had at the speciality eel restaurant we went to in Arashimaya. Adding the dashi turned it into the perfect comfort food to end the meal. 

I couldn't resist ordering the uni pudding for dessert. It was a base of creme caramel topped with maple syrup, and a couple of lobes of uni. It was a bit strange to have uni for dessert but it actually worked very well. 

This may be my new favourite splurge restaurant. Granted, it's not cheap (budget about $120 per person), but everything is executed perfectly. Try to get a counter seat, it's great watching the chefs work their magic right before their creations are placed before you. 

A says:

The omakase is overrated. But if you go early and order the right things a la carte, you'll actually get amazing food and amazing service.

The Hitsuji Club

C says:

Dinner at The Hitsuji Club was surreal. We were seriously the only non-Japanese in the entire restaurant. Everyone was speaking Japanese, and for a brief moment we could almost imagine we were in Hokkaido. 

Yes, Hitsuji Club sells Hokkaido jingiskan - grilled lamb and vegetables on top of a dome-shaped grill. We ordered the premium set, which came with a selection of loin and shoulder meat, lamb chops and a selection of vegetables. 

They even provide cubes of lamb fat to oil the grill. Can't decide if I prefer the loin or the shoulder meat. Both were good. 

The lamb chops were great (look at the layer of fat!), but note to self: get the professionals to help grill them next time. They grilled them perfectly for the couple next door, whereas our first one was a tad overdone.  

Desserts were outstanding so definitely save some space. The ice cream with kinako and brown sugar syrup was good, but the adzuki panna cotta was divine. It tasted like the essence of good Hokkaido milk. Amazing. 

Meat-wise, I think the quality and variety at Gyu Kaku is better, but I love the charm and vibe of this place, and how I can pretend that I'm in Japan for a couple of hours. 

A says:

Surreal. This is exactly like Japan, in that all the patrons are Japanese. 

Best panna cotta ever. 

Gyoza Ya

C says:

I must admit I had my misgivings when we stepped into Gyoza Ya at the new Robinsons Orchard. Since it's a home-grown concept by the Akashi group, I assumed it was just a novelty restaurant without much substance. I was very pleased to be proven wrong - the food was simple but very tasty.

We tried the pork gyoza and the vegetable ones. Needless to say, the pork ones were far superior, with a sweet, flavourful filling. The vegetable filling was decent but a bit mushy and lacklustre compared to the pork.

By far the most interesting dish was the Jyajya Men - their Japanese take on zhajiang mien. After mixing up the cucumber, leeks, noodles and miso-based minced pork, you can season it further to your liking with more miso and vinegar. When you're down to the last few mouthfuls, they will give you a soft boiled egg to crack into the bowl and some hot sobayu, and you mix it up with more miso to form a noodle soup of sorts.

Given the limited menu, I don't recommend coming here if you're ravenous. It's good for a light bite if you're not very hungry.

A says:

Surprisingly good. Given the lack of dining options in the area, this makes it to the top of the list.

Gyoza Ya
260 Orchard Road
B1-02 Robinsons Orchard
Tel: 6737-5881

Tsukune Ichigo

C says:

Located behind heavy wooden doors at one end of River Valley Road, Ichigo really is quite the hidden gem. I love the fact that nothing on the exterior betrays the fact that it's a yakitori izakaya inside; diners are there specifically for the food, rather than curious walk-ins.

Unlike places like Kazu or Nanbantei, Ichigo only serves yakitori in the true sense of the word - various different parts of the chicken. So no foie gras or wagyu beef or bacon-wrapped anything. Just chicken skewers, including their signature namesake - tsukune.

I'd recommend starting with their tsukune platter, which offers 5 different varieties, including one topped with cheese, and another with avocado mayo. Their tsukunes are excellent - very refined and very tasty. I personally like the one that includes some chicken soft bone, which adds a bit of textural crunch.

Of their yakitori skewers, we tried the chicken thigh, chicken heart and garlic wrapped with chicken skin. All no frills, with no fancy fixings, and all delicious.

They also had an appetiser with my name written over it (though I appreciate that this may not appeal to some) - chicken skin with cucumber. For me, the best kind of chicken skin is the sort from poached chicken rice, which is the kind used for this dish. The skin was tossed with cucumber and a light soy and sesame oil dressing. Perfect.

They have a few different kinds of pudding for dessert; we tried the milk pudding, which was more like a creme caramel than a milk pudding, but still a very good end to the meal.

I love the authenticity and unpretentiousness of this place. The dedication to perfecting the items in an unelaborate menu really shows, and I hope they always retain that charm.

A says:

Most of the stuff is average but that's besides the point because the chicken tsukune is AWESOME! Plus, the vibe is like the yakitori joints in Japan, except without the smoking indoors.

Tsukune Ichigo
399 River Valley Road
Tel: 6736-1340
Open daily: 6 pm - 11.30 pm

Lunch at Mikuni

C says:

2013 has flown by, and before we know it, our FAR Card will be expiring. Before it does, we had to try lunch at Mikuni, since 50% off a $70 set is pretty reasonable.

Of course, we also decided to splurge on some sashimi, and ordered the toro, kanpachi, hotate and mekajiki. This was pretty good, with the hotate in particular being very sweet and creamy, but I don't think I would have paid full price for this.

I ordered the bone-in pork robatayaki set lunch, and A had the Australian beef set. The pork was far superior. The pork was lightly smoked, and had just enough fat to give it lots of flavour, and some lean layers to balance it out.

The beef was very disappointing. It was a classic example of bland, tasteless beef that's all too common nowadays. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare, but it had no flavour or character.

Suffice to say that without the FAR Card, there's no way we'll be coming back here.

A says:

Good, but totally not worth the price.

Mikuni

C says:

Another place that we definitely wouldn't visit without the FAR Card discount, Mikuni took over what used to be Inagiku at Fairmont Hotel. Mikuni has some fairly elaborate set lunches, featuring their signature teppanyaki dishes, but we decided to try their Grand Tasting dinner menu for our first visit. At $220, the menu isn't cheap for what you get, but with the FAR Card 50% discount, it becomes somewhat more reasonable.

Before dinner, we were served some home-made shrimp chips that were quite tasty. First course was a soft tofu with uni and truffle that was pretty good, though the truffle may have overwhelmed the flavour of anything else. The soup course was some sort of a fish chowder, which had a faint bitterness that tasted a bit like fish liver.

The sashimi course was, a bit disappointingly, a seared tuna tataki with garlic chips and ponzu sauce, rather than a proper plate of fresh sashimi. For a supposedly fine dining Japanese restaurant, this seemed like a bit of a cop-out. The garlic chips also overwhelmed the delicate flavour of the fish.

Next up was abalone with sliced eringi mushroom, slathered with a slightly dubious cheesy sauce, served with an edible deep fried baby crab. The braised dish was, to A's horror, a whole braised kinki dish in a sweet soy sauce. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard to debone and eat, and the fish was really fresh and sweet.

Next was tempura of sea prawn, with head and tail included. The texture of the prawn was almost like crayfish or lobster, and of course I appreciated that the head was included. I think the tail section could have been fried a bit more though - the shell near the tail was a bit tougher, so it didn't crisp up enough to be crunched up very easily.

The Kagoshimya Wagyu beef was admittedly delicious. The meat was perfectly cooked and really flavouful. The same couldn't really be said about the Hokkaido corn fried rice though. It was completely bland, and was only edible after we added some miso soup, and the onsen tamago from the soup, to the rice.

Dessert was a fresh momo peach, which I think was a really good, simple way to end the meal.

Was I impressed? Overall, besides the beef, nothing really blew me away, and if not for the 50% discount I would have said it wasn't worth the money. But given how expensive it is to eat out anywhere these days, with the FAR Card discount it's pretty decent. We'll try to come back for their lunch sets and, if time permits, perhaps once more to try their a la carte offerings.

A says:

The food is good, but for the price, I expected to be blown away. Sadly, I was very let down. Totally not worth it.

Mikuni
Level 3, Fairmont Singapore
Tel: 6431-6156
Open daily
Lunch: 12:00pm to 2:30pmDinner: 6:30pm to 10:30pm

Tatsuya

C says:

After our experience at Brooklyn Fare, we wondered whether, if we were willing to shell out the same amount of money, we would get as good or similar experience at a top Japanese restaurant, like Tatsuya? We decided to treat ourselves on a special occasion, and went for the omakase at Tatsuya for my birthday.

We started with a selection of cold items - the ones that stood out were a cube of smoked goose, and incredibly tender cooked abalone.

Then the whole uni topped with caviar arrived. This was truly decadence in every mouthful. As if the uni wasn't already flavourful enough, the dollops of caviar made it even more luxurious and intense.

The sashimi course was next. We had a few slices of kanpachi topped with some flavoured oil and chives, a few pieces of ark shell, flounder, prawn and a chunk of toro. The kanpachi was really good; the rest were a bit lacklustre.

The next dish was a braised one - eggplant and balls of yam with a couple of pieces of eel. I daresay, best eel I've ever had; perfectly cooked and completely boneless.

Next up was a grilled belt fish, in a butter sauce. This was quite subtle and needed the squeeze of lemon, but the fatty fish completely melted in your mouth. Simply delicious.

They must have had a shipment of uni recently, because the next course was an uni chawanmushi. As with the previous uni course, this was proof that eggs of all kinds are the best foods, and even better when paired together.

The highlight of the meal was the sushi course. 5 pieces of expertly constructed aburi sushi. The 2 killer standouts were a scallop and foie gras one, and a prawn with mentaiko. The flavours of those are still haunting us now. Insanely good.

We cleansed our palate with a tuna belly soup. However, before dessert, the sushi chef noticed that we still looked a bit hungry (trust me, portions were quite small), and asked if he could make us another couple of bites of sushi. No pics of these because they were meant to be handheld and eaten at one go - a nigiri sushi topped with negitoro and uni (again), and a temaki with mentaiko and chopped salmon skin.

Finally satiated, we ended with fruit and, as a bonus request, ice cream. The fruit was apricots and insanely honey-sweet musk melon, and the ice cream that we couldn't refuse was a vanilla caramel one from Hokkaido.

The damage was pretty bad, but this was an excellent meal. Definitely too steep to come here except for a special occasion, or if we've been particularly austere for a while. Maybe next time, instead of a full omakase including the cooked items, we may go with just the sashimi and sushi, since those are what they're apparently so good at.

A says:

Amazingly good meal for an amazingly high price. Probably the best prawn sushi I've ever had though. Same with the scallop and foie gras one. I would definitely recommend this place if you have bucketloads of money to spend on food.

Tatsuya
22 Scotts Road
Goodwood Park Hotel
Tel: 6887-4598
Open daily: 12 noon - 3pm; 6.30 pm - 11 pm