Special Tendon from Ginza Tendon Itsuki – onsen egg, shrimp, chicken and mixed vegetable tempura (shiitake mushroom, pumpkin, corn and long beans) on rice drizzled with a sweet and savoury sauce. The onsen egg provided surprise and amusement and the various tempura elements were lightly battered and suitably pleasurable –…
Mizu Manjyu (water dumplings) from Hashida Garo – 3 balls of white bean paste and seasonal fruit enclosed in arrowroot jelly, soaked in chilled mint syrup. The dumplings start off tasting like your usual Konnyaku jelly (our seasonal fruit was mango) but sheds its skin and reveals its inner starchy personality…
Foie Gras Macaron from Hashida Garo. Essentially like Little Red Riding Hood’s granny, looking all innocent and come-hither-to-my-(sick)bed with its soft macaron shell and insouciant red dustings before revealing its true grey form and completely taking control of your senses with its heavy-creamed, ferociously savoury fangs. 3.8/5 Hashida Garo 333A…
Black Truffle Edamame from Kanshoku Ramen. An experience in itself – you access the little soybeans by sucking on them pods, which are so immersed in truffle flavour that the normally tasteless soybeans themselves become unescapably tasty by virtue of your mouth becoming an intermediary truffle oiling agent. Somebody should…
Hotate Mentai from Kinsa Sushi – crabmeat and cucumber maki topped with aburi scallop mentai, garnished with wasabi-seasoned prawn roe and deep fried radish. The emerald roe may have stepped out of the machine during the infusion process thus bearing only the slightest of wasabi perfume, but the aburi scallop…
Black Garlic Ramen from Kanshoku Ramen with added ajitama. The comforting and light pre-garlic broth tastes almost herbal soup-esque in its robustness of flavour, being rather different from the usual oink-heavy versions you get from standard ramen joints. Upon mixing with the black garlic, the broth develops a deeply fragrant personality without…
Flaming Hot Tonkotsu Ramen from Kanshoku Ramen with added ajitama egg and corn. Essentially Korean ramyun noodles which have undergone a Japanese stylistic makeover and a decidedly non-Japanese incendiary flavour blast. Flamethirsty folks from all levels of gutsy on the safety spectrum will enjoy this – the lily-livered slow-sippers will…
Bara Chirashi from DSTLLRY. Like a sultry, sexy graduate from the Teppei Syokudo school of marinated bara chirashi who deftly avoids all the saltiness pitfalls of its contemporaries and keeps things really tight and fresh. Oooh la la. 4.3/5 DSTLLRY 21 Media Circle #01-01 Infinite Studios Singapore 138562
Chirashi Cupcake – fresh selection of various sashimi on purple rice with sesame ponzu sauce. The fishy frosting performed its duties best as it could, although the squid sashimi tasted like it did not shower after a 5 “klick” run. Elsewhere, the purple rice tasted like a healthy cross between…