Wakame & romaine salad from Open Door Policy – hamachi sashimi, tomatoes, onion & miso dressing. The hamachi slices were moist, supple and delectably oiled, with a thickness so bitable and substantial that you can club your friends’ faces with these marvellous and literally yellow tails, and elsewhere the wakame…
Hire/Rosu Katsu Set from Tonkichi. If there is a food glossary on the different forms of “口感” (in-mouth sensations), the “krik krik krik” of the crispy skin here deserves an entry. The meat itself can get taxing if you’re enjoying the whole portion by yourself, but the sesame paste (that…
Aburi salmon belly don from DSTLLRY. Once inside the safe embrace of your mouthly cavern, the seared salmon slices seem to disintegrate into distinct layers – an external fatty and oily layer instantly disengages from the virtually liquid core of supple salmon flesh, which itself almost immediately melts on your…
Eclairs from Dulcet & Studio – (from top) Ethiopian coffee with nuts, mini exotic (melon and mint), chocolate, and corn. If you buy four eclairs, the pricing is almost buy-3-get-1-free, so naturally we went for it. Off the bat, we noted that the choux pastry had a certain airy coarseness to…
Ton Shabu Set from Tonkichi – blanched, thin sliced pork loin with sesame sauce and ponzu sauce. Essentially a shabu shabu experience sans the heat and steam, with citrus-tinged, super-soft and highly absorbent 1-ply pork sponges which soak up the refreshing combination of sesame and ponzu sauces perfectly. 4/5 This…
Matchazuke from Karafuru Desserts – matcha soufflé, vanilla pudding, jasmine crème anglaise, mizu-yokan, dango, matcha langue de chat. The pound cake-esque matcha cake, intensely flavoured cat’s tongue (or long du shah if you’re all posh) and matcha sauce certainly put the matcha in this Matchazuke. However, the yogurt swirl (which…
Kaisendon (Deluxe) set from Ken Japanish Restaurant. From the urghsome half-cooked egg that straddled the texture between half-boiled egg and cooked egg for Maggi Mee, to the two octopus sashimi slices which were so unmanageable that I felt like that guy in Korean thriller Oldboy having to swallow the gooey…
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…