Hide Yamamoto

With the Japanese nuclear / radiation situation as it is right now, I’m guessing many of you out there are going to be hesitant about having Japanese food that comes from Japan. While I agree we have to be cautious about what we eat that originates from Japan, I hope that good Japanese restaurants (such as the subject of this review) don’t suffer during this period. To our Japanese readers our there (if any), ganbatte kudasai!!!
Now, on Hide Yamamoto, I guess amongst the foreign culinary stars that have opened shop at Marina Bay Sands, Yamamoto-san is probably (for want of a better word) the least “famous” of them all. After all, it’s hard to stand tall in the midst of giants such as Guy Savoy, Tetsuya Wakuda or the late Santi Santamaria. But I must say, the food at Hide Yamamoto is still very much up to par, and best of all, value for money.

At Hide Yamamoto, there are several seating areas, and are divided into the robata grill section, the ramen section and the sushi section. Greedy as we could be, foodsmithone and myself picked to sit at the ramen section because that was the way we could try food from all the various sections. We each ordered a set lunch, and supplemented the very ample portions with additional a la carte orders.

First up, the set lunches:

1) Special Set Lunch (S$38+++)

This came with an appetiser of Marinated Octopus and Salad, Tempura Moriawase, Char Siu Rice and dessert of Berry and Lychee Sorbet.

All the dishes (yes, including the sorbet dessert) were very well executed pieces of Japanese cuisine. Our particular favourite was the tempura, where the batter was crisp and crunchy, yet light and non-oily. It was easily one of the better tempuras we’d had in Singapore in a long, long time (Inagiku could learn something here).

2) Special Chirashi Set (S$38++)

This also was a good rendition of a Chirashi Sushi. The rice was topped with chunks of sashimi so fresh and smooth that they just glided down our throats. I’m afraid there just isn’t much to describe the dish by – it was overall satisfying.

As part of our attempt to sample the food since we’d come so far into MBS (I know it’s a sorry excuse), we ordered the foie gras skewer (from the robata section) and some sashimi to sample (it’s just not enough to try sashimi chopped up in your chirashi sushi unfortunately).

The sashimi, as expected, was fresh and simply put, YUMMY. I did however, wish they hadn’t served salmon in the sampler plate (not when the plate costs close to S$60). After all, you hardly see salmon sashimi served in a good Japanese restaurant in Tokyo for an omakase plate. But still, it was decent, and the tuna belly (chutoro) and the yellowtail / hamachi had just the right amount of fattiness. Paired with freshly grated wasabi (i’m a sucker for restaurants that use fresh wasabi), the fish was elevated to a higher level altogether. As for the foie gras skewer, the charring was just what we were looking for on the outside, but I guess the coals were too hot for the foie gras as the interior was way overdone – it lost the silky smoothness that one usually expects with well-cooked (!!! i.e. slightly wobbly) foie gras.

Overall, this was a meal that was perfectly value for money, and at S$38 per person for set lunch, I’d go back there in a heartbeat. Do recommend this place to your friends as well, Hide Yamamoto is really a gem in the mammoth building that is MBS. Don’t get frightened off by the fact that it’s on the 2nd floor of MBS amongst the other restaurants that will only warrant a visit on the most special of occasions, you should hopefully be able to find something that meets your budget (the ramen goes for under S$20) at the restaurant. If you do try this place out, let us know what you think, and whether you agree with our views!

 

Hide Yamamoto

10 Bayfront Avenue, L2-05 Casino Level 2, Marina Bay Sands
Tel: +65 6688 7098

Opening Hours

Mon–Wed: 12pm–3pm, 6pm–11pm
Thu–Sun: 12pm–3pm, 6pm–3am

K ki II

There have been so many blog posts on K Ki that it proves that good food is most commonly spread by word of mouth. I first discovered this nook earlier this year but it was only recently that I had been back to sample two other cakes. Fuelled by a need for cakes, we had 2 mont blancs and a chocolate banana cake called Mona. the mont blanc, so popular among the japanese, has the pleasant smell and taste of chestnut with luscious white cream beneath the spiral brown curls. The sponge layer at the base was suitably moist though I fancied it a tad hard.

Mona was a lovely mix of chocolate and a light taste of banana with a lovely crisp base.

Independently run cake shops are hard to come by and with this new gem, it’s hard not to crave more cakes. next up- flourlesd Choc cake , an old favourite!

Inagiku

Readers of this blog will probably notice that the both of us are fans of Japanese food. We’re not so much Japan-o-philes (if there is even such a word), but we just love Japanese food. For me, if I am forever barred from eating the local food in Singapore (be it Chinese, Malay, or the local Indian cuisine), my next best choice to slurp down would be Japanese food. There is of course, no dearth of good Japanese restaurants in Singapore. But good Japanese food, as one knows, never comes cheap. So once in a (very long) while, we indulge ourselves, and one of the places that we head to for indulgence is Inagiku at Fairmont Singapore.

The set-up of Inagiku, is what one would call “modern”. Black wooden tables, dim lights, and staff clad in all black. (All that is sexy, but the lighting really doesnt make for good food pictures, so excuse us for the slightly dark photos). At lunch, this place is teeming with people, most of whom are on business lunches (the business set lunches start from S$65 a set). Of course, there are also people like us gawking over the menu, struggling to decide what to order.

I won’t bore you with the details of the various set lunches, suffice to say, they are mostly good. One stand out item for me on the visits there, has always been the sashimi. Fresh and thick cut, I have never been disappointed with the quality of the sashimi. (In fact, the only disappointment is when I finish the plate and ask myself why I didn’t savour it more!) The otoro is melt in the mouth delicious, and the uni is what the Japanese would call “umai” (or sweet) (and cholestrol laden).

Another standout for me at Inagiku is the very simple starter salad that they serve upon the ordering of a set lunch. I’m not sure if they have this on the a-la-carte, but I certainly don’t see why it wouldn’t hold it’s place there. Simple spinach leaves, topped with a crispy tofu skin, doused in a tangy sesame dressing really whets your appetite for the more good food to come.

I am told that Inagiku is also known for it’s tempura (do let me know if this isn’t the case though), but I’d have to admit, on my visits there, I’ve never been very very impressed by their rendition. Somehow, the batter always felt a touch thick, and a tad over-crunchy, but perhaps that is the way it is meant to be?

Overall though, the food at Inagiku is certainly worth a splurge once in a (very) long while, although if you do have the Feed At Raffles Card, the prices here are much more palatable, especially during lunch. If you’re heading down for lunch, try to grab a reservation first as they can get quite crowded during weekday lunches.

Inagiku
Level 3, Fairmont Singapore
80 Bras Basah Road
Singapore 189560

Lunch: Daily – 12:00 noon to 2:30 pm
Dinner: Daily – 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm

Reservations: +65 6431 6156 (this is the general Raffles group reservation line)

K Ki

Again, my (our) apologies for the radio silence. It seems like a long time since either of us last blogged, and I dare not check when the last post was uploaded. We keep telling each other to post reviews (we haven’t stopped trying new food places) but just have not been able to keep up to our side of the bargain. We’ll probably be quite silent till July, but we’ll try to slot in one review at a time.

Today, just a short note on a little cake shop that we chanced upon at Ann Siang Hill, with a quaint little name “K Ki”. The name “K Ki” is essentially how the Japanese term “western” cakes. It’s a direct phonetic translation, so it’s simple enough. The cakes, however, are not all quite that simple. The husband of the husband-and-wife team that run the shop, Kenneth, is not a classically trained pastry chef but manages to bake up pretty cakes reminiscent of Japanese western styled cakes (hence living up to the Japanese inspired name).

On our visit there, we had the Little Red Riding Hood and the Antoinette (sorry can’t seem to find the pictures). The Little Red Riding Hood was essentially a chocolate mousse encasing a slab of raspberry jelly, and covered with a shiny chocolate ganache. This was perfectly executed, with the bitter dark chocolate perfectly paired with the tart raspberry – this was so good that I went back to order it for a birthday celebration.The Antoinette was a mango based cake, this time encapsulated by a fluffy white egg mixture. For us, we just wished there was slightly more mango in it (although perhaps the shape of the small cake did restrict this somewhat). What we did like about it was that it was not too sweet, and of course, that it was perfectly pretty.

True to the Japanese name, K Ki makes the effort with small touches that set it just that much apart from other run of the mill cake shops. When I collected the cake, they took care to package it such that it was surrounded by dry ice to withstand the Singapore heat. The candle again, was not the regular striped wax candle that you get at other shops, but was actually patterned beautifully. The large cake itself was a tad disappointing in the design and shape, but perhaps I was expecting too much based on the individual smaller cakes.

So if you’d like to support a little independent bakery, please do head down to K Ki to sample some pretty yummy cakes (the service is also pretty good, although things get a little hectic on the weekend). The prices are not low (some cakes are more expensive than say, Canele), but I suppose that might be because they just don’t have the bulk orders to get them the lower prices. Another thing to keep in mind is that they do run out of the cakes pretty early, so go down early or call to reserve. Either way, a lovely little shop that deserves support, do head down if you have the chance!

K-Ki Sweets
7 Ann Siang hill
Singapore 069791
Tel: +65 6225 6650

Opening Hours:
Daily 12pm to 7pm
Sat 12pm to 4pm
Mon closed

Saboten

Fried food, as much as I hate to admit, is tasty.

It’s so tasty, I could eat it more than once a week, as a main meal. Much as I try to exercise discretion, I often find that invariably, some of the food I will eat is fried. Last Friday, we decided to satisfy the fried food monsters in us, and ventured to Saboten at Parco, Marina. Parco Marina is a new enclave of shops at the corner of Millenia Walk. The building itself is like a mini mall, with a lovely Galta Gelato place on the first floor, across from Mizuno, and an enclave of mostly Japanese restaurants on the third floor, save from Travolo, an Italian Bistro. The shops are not much to shout about sadly – the idea seems to be a multi concept store, where you can buy clothes, alongside stationery, alongside getting a manicure, but the arrangement of the shops proves to be quite a challenge, when you actually want to locate a specific store.

Saboten is supposedly Japan’s largest tonkatsu chain- selling tonkatsu done in several ways- you have your standard hire katsu, and its fattier cousin, and tonkatsu with a broken egg, katsu don, tonkatsu sandwiches. I love my tonkatsu, and a previous visit to Tokyo and Maisen has left me wishing for more good tonkatsu in Singapore.

I ordered the fattier cousin; which comes in a medium or large size. The meal begins with copious amounts of grated cabbage salad for you to pick at while waiting for the unhealthy fried main course. There are two dressings on the table, a red yuzu based one and a sesame based one. I preferred the sesame sauce.After pottering around, you start to smell the tonkatsu coming out of the kitchen, and stop being a rabbit in search for good tonkatsu.

The quality of the meat is self-evident: it was chewy, without being tough. Juicy without being greasy. On my first visit, the panko batter was done perfectly; on my second visit, it proved to be crispy on the top, but soggy on the bottom. The miso soup was standard, but the matcha ice cream, to my utter delight, was quite tasty.

Saboten is worth trying if you’re a fan of tonkatsu, like us. After all, what’s there not to like about Fried Food?

Nadaman

Since 1984, the Nadaman Restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore has been serving up traditional Japanese cuisine. It has seen many visitors pass through their doors, and has even seen an ex-Iron Chef Japanese (Koumei Nakamura) helm its kitchens. Part of the highly acclaimed Japanese restaurant chain Nadaman, the Nadaman Singapore tries its best to live up to the Nadaman name of exquisite Japanese cuisine.

The menu at the Nadaman is as wide as one may imagine, and covers everything from teppanyaki to sashimi to sushi to tempura. For me, ordering from the a la carte menu / dinner menu will likely have me hit my food budget for the week, so the Nadaman is a place I will frequent only during lunch, where they have some particularly good value sets. My favourite is the Mini Kaiseki which usually clocks in at about S$45+++, and while this may seem a tad expensive, it is certainly good value for money considering the number of dishes served up. Alternatively, the weekend / public holiday set lunch is even better value at S$35+++, and the set comes with an amuse bouche, tempura, 3 salmon nigiri sushi, a california handroll, a soup, chawanmushi, a choice of teppanyaki or sukiyaki and finally a choice of either rice or noodles (udon or soba).

On my last trip there, I had the Mini Kaiseki and the menu was as follows:

Amuse Bouche: Milk Mousse, Boiled Crown Daisy, Dashi Sauce

The milk mousse is quite a staple on the Nadaman starter menu – I’ve had this a few times – and it really never disappoints. The texture of the mousse is like tofu, except creamier because of the milk, but less of a “bean” taste as little (or no) soya bean milk is used. The favourite part of the dish for me, is the freshly grated wasabi on the top of the tofu which just gives the tofu that little added kick.

Soup: Clear Soup, Scallop Cake, Vegetables

The soup had a nice smokey flavour to it, and gave the scallop cake an added depth. The scallop cake was sweet, though to be honest, did taste closer to a fish cake than a scallop cake. Sashimi course (Chef’s choice)

Having recently had some very nice tuna on our recent visit to Japan, I did not have high expectations for this dish, especially when I saw that the Chef’s Choice for the day included the ubiquitous tuna. Now tuna is a real favourite of mine, but of late, the tuna that I’ve had in Singapore has really dropped in quality (and I’m not even comparing it to what one gets in Japan, but just across the years). Well, I’m happy to say, in this instance, that the tuna did not disappoint. While the tuna was not the very sinful otoro, or the almost sinful chutoro, it was smooth to the palette and tasty to boot. The extra oomph that the fresh wasabi provided was also obvious in this dish.

Simmered Dish: Simmered Eggplant, Pumpkin Chicken in Yuzu Sauce

Japanese simmered dishes have a way of becoming comfort food, and this was no exception. The pumpkin chicken was a mixture of minced chicken mixed with mashed pumpkin and then shallow fried, and the pumpkin added a delicate sweetness to the minced chicken. Coupled with soft eggplant (which is one of my ultimate favourites), the chicken pieces soaked in to the tart yuzu sauce perfectly.

Grilled Course: Grilled Salmon with Egg Yolk, Baby Yams, Crisped Walnuts

In this dish, the salmon was well executed, crisp and burnt on the edges, soft on the inside. I imagine the emulsified egg yolk was meant to create a crust / sauce, but this was not all that successful. The walnuts and baby yams, while meant to be accompaniments, really shone. The yams were seasonally sweet while the walnuts were coated in a thin egg batter and just quick fried, giving it a crisp finish.

Rice course: Steamed Rice, Mushrooms

If there was one dish I would not recommend, it would really be this rice dish. It was under-salted, and had too much water put in the rice-cooking process such that the rice was mushy and tasted glu-like after a couple of chews. A real pity, as the meal up to this dish had been really great, but the rice really let the whole kaiseki meal down. If only less water had gone into the rice when cooking, the mushrooms would’ve been able to lift the dish much more than it actualy did, in this case.

Dessert: Mango Mousse, Milk Sauce

By the time dessert was served, there was really no more stomach to fully savour the mango dessert. Luckily, the small servings meant the dessert did not go to waste. This was like a mango pudding topped with an evaporated milk sauce, and while not horrid, was rather pedestrian. It felt like more mango should have gone into it to make for a more robust mango flavour.

Overall, while the meal didn’t quite end on the high that one would have hoped it would have, I still enjoyed my meal at the Nadaman Singapore thoroughly. The lunch Mini Kaiseki set is really good value for money, as are the weekend sets, and if you would like to try some good quality Japanese food, do give Nadaman Singapore a shot, and let us know how it goes!

Nadaman Singapore
22 Orange Grove Road
Lobby Level, Shangri-la Hotel Singapore
+65 6213 4571

Standing Sushi Bar

On occasion, food is all about gimmicks. It’s how you market, how you publicise, and what you have (or in this case, do not have) that draws the crowds in. At the Standing Sushi Bar in Raffles Place, the main concept is that there aren’t any chairs for you to to sit on while you eat. Yes, that’s right. You stand and eat. This saves space, increases headcount, and makes people move off once they’re done with their meals. Come dinner time though, the staff wheel out high chairs (to match the high tabletops for the standing crowd) and one is able to enjoy a nice sit down (albeit on ikea-styled chairs) and devour a decent japanese meal.

I headed there one night to try out their omakase menu. Omakase is the equivalent of a degustation menu, i.e. chef’s choice. This supposedly ensures that you get what the chef believes is the best catch of the day. At the Standing Sushi Bar, orders for omakase are generally preferred so that the chef can prepare the dishes since the restaurant set up is small. For those of you who (like me) don’t quite enjoy the adrenaline rush when you get the bill, you can manage your budget by pre-setting the cost of your meal (though i think the minimum is S$50 per person).  On our experimental visit to the Standing Sushi Bar, we opted for the S$60 omakase.

Starter: Cold Snailsfollowed by

Sashimi Course: Tuna, Salmon, Swordfish and Yellowtail.

Fish course: Pan-fried cod, Sesame-wasabi dressingSecond Fish course: Grilled Hamachi Cheek

Vegetable Course: Fried Nasu with Cod Roe mayo

Meat course: Beef in teriyaki

Final course: SushiWithout going into all the details about how each dish tasted, I think an easy way to sum up would be that the sashimi served at the Standing Sushi Bar was very very fresh. As the Japanese man seated next to us kept repeating to the chef, the fish was “uma-i”. The snails (in the first picture) were something i hadn’t seen often and had an interesting texture to the meat. The one dish that fell flat for me was the deep fried eggplant in cod roe mayo. Somehow, the cod roe mayo seemed a little overbearing on the eggplant and the creaminess of the sauce just didn’t sit well with the greasy eggplant. The hamachi cheek was tender as expected and grilled to perfection. Beef teriyaki was pedestrian, and not something i’d find myself craving for. Possibly the beef slices were too thin? Not quite sure on that front. As for the final dish, the futomaki (in the background of the sushi picture) had been pre-made and tasted like it had been sitting in the cooler for a while. The seaweed was soft to touch and required a certain amount of gnawing to tear it apart. Not quite as expected. The nigiri sushi was egged on plenty by the freshness of the fish, although i think the Standing Sushi Bar (and likewise with so many other sushi joints in Singapore) could do well to learn from the japanese style sushi – that is – more fish, less rice. Still, this was a decent effort.

Overall, the Standing Sushi Bar offers some great value items and an interesting concept to boot. The combination of fresh sashimi and a decent sushi rice is usually hard to beat, and the Standing Sushi Bar is more than half way there. The hot food items were just slightly above average (better than what you get at sakae across the road for sure), but for a quick lunch on the go, i’ll be back at the Standing Sushi Bar to grab a healthier sushi sashimi lunch.

Standing Sushi Bar
1 Raffles Place #B1-02
OUB Centre
Tel: 6533 7078
Open: Mon to Sat, 11am to 10pm

Ippudo Ramen

Ippudo, famed in Tokyo for its tonkatsu ramen broth, has opened an outfit at Mandarin Gallery Shopping arcade. Having undergone an extensive facelift, the new facade of the building now houses a Jones the Grocer shop(much smaller than its Dempsey counterpart), a Deste cake shop (again, a tiny offshoot of its branch at Riverwalk but selling miniature versions of its artistic cakes) and other retail shops.

Instead of sticking with a traditional setup(much like Ippudo in Ebisu for instance), Ippudo is extremely modern, with its colour tones of black, red and white, oozing urban sleekness. I suppose it could be one of the most fashionable ramen bars in Singapore, but does the ramen stand up to the taste test?

First, unlike the branches in Japan, Ippudo in Sg doesn’t provide the side condiments. Instead, what you get is a concise version of its menu – we ordered a Akamaru Kasaneaji – which was really a Kakuni, miso paste tonkotsu broth. The broth was rich and thick, and the noodles were extremely supple.

Ah!The joys of ramen

Next, we sampled the Shiromaru motoaji – pork loin, tonkotsu broth. The soup base for this was decidedly lighter and less spicy than the Akamaru broth, with one thin slice of pork loin.

My grouse with both dishes was that while the soup could not be faulted, the ingredients in the ramen were slightly dismal. The Shiromaru came only with one slice of pork loin, and while we ordered an egg to go with it, the egg had hardened to become in effect, a stewed egg, rather than being wet and runny as it usually is. There is a precise art to making these eggs, and hopefully, Ippudo Sg will ensure that the eggs will be perfected in time. If you’re a fan of the broth and noodles, then venture to the shop – however, if you like me, prefer a bit more bite for your buck, I would head over to the other ramen places in Sg.