Tokyo - Rakushokushu Maru

Japan Times labels the cuisine served as Modern Kaiseki. I have to agree. It is extremely good fine dining but accessible even to those who do not speak Japanese and is relaxed to the point that some may call it an Izakaya. But the food is just too fine. It is Kaiseki dining of our time.


We did not ask for a set course when we made the reservation but asked our friendly waiter who spoke American to put something together for us for about JPY5000 per person when we got there. He gladly obliged.


What resulted was an excellent 10 course dinner which used the finest ingredients of the season.

Appetiser:
- spinach and chicken in sesame sauce



Sashimi:
- bonito, sea bream and squid

Salad
- Chinese cabbage salad and ground peanuts in a soya sauce dressing.
The use of honey roasted ground nuts balanced against the salty dressing and the crunch of the peanuts combined with that of the cool crisp cabbage made for a refreshing but zesty taste.

Kyoto Taste (a reflection of owner-chef's Keiji Mori's roots):
- A Kyoto traditional bun (made from yam) and stuffed with wild duck and lily bulbs in a dashi stock. Clean tasting despite the fried bun and wild duck confit but warming to the soul from the great dashi.

Mains:
- grilled special free range chicken with salt and yuzu pepper. A clear winner.

- japanese omelet including soup stock. Juiciest omelet I've ever had and a clear sign of the high standards in culinary skills.


- grilled mackeral preserved in rice bran. So lightly grilled we could have mistaken it for a broiled dish. And the sweet potato was an excellent contrast.


- assorted autumn vegetable tempura. The maitake mushroom and sweet potato were my favourites.

Special rice (cooked for 30 minutes) - served with dried sardines and green peppercorns, salmon roe and braised mushrooms and konbu. The rice is specially cooked in a Japanese claypot and is served fully and soft but not mushy. Perfect use of the season's harvest. Since we did not manage to finish it all, they kindly made the remainder into rice balls and put it in the prettiest doggy bag with white sakuras monogrammed on an orange background.

Dessert:
- cheese cake with dark cherry sauce
- steamed custard pudding with a Japanese black sugar syrup
Both were great in their own right and a perfect sweet ending to the night, accompanied by their fragrant genmai ocha.

Immense quality for the price - impossible value!

For directions and other contact information, go to http://maru-mayfont.jp/info/index.html


Aoyama KT Building B1F
5-50-8 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
Tokyo, Japan
(03) 6418 5572

Tokyo - Tempura Tsunahachi

Most travelers to Tokyo would eat at Tempura Tsunahachi down at Shinjuku, just a stone's throw away from Isetan and Mitsukoshi department stores. Of course, the fact that it has been around for about 80 years helps. Also, the fact that locals still faithfully queue, and that prices are reasonable for the quality are probably the real reasons.




Of course, one only eats tempura at Tsunahachi - deep fried in its own secret house blend of oils - available for sale also! There are a variety of sets which have different items (some standard and available all year round while others are seasonal) tempura-ed to Tsunahachi perfection, to be eaten with their 2 types of grated radish (one plain and one infused with umeboshi) which you can drown with the tempura dipping sauce, a bowl of steamed rice, pickles and of course, miso soup with tiny clams.




Today, I had the Y2770 set which had 2 shrimps, cuttlefish, eggplant, a tempura pancake topped with many shrimp, and the seasonal clam with julienned ginger/mushrooms as well as a pond smelt and conger eel.

Great value and of course, great quality!

Caution: do not wear clothes you intend to wear again - reason: YOU CAN'T (unless you want to smell like tempura)!


Shinjuku Honten*
3-31-8 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-kuTokyo, Japan
(03) 3352-1012
* Many locations around Japan, with 8 in Tokyo alone

Seasonal offerings..

It is that time of year when my favourite monk fish liver is in season.. and the better it is the oranger it is! Creamy goodness - no wonder it is the foie gras of Japanese cuisine.

But you ain't tasted creamy till you've had shirako - or translated male fish sperm sacs... I had the pleasure of savouring some from a cod fish.. (more expensive versions are from snapper or blowfish)

Ok, so it doesn't sound too pleasant nor look too hot as someone's brains, but get past that and you have a delightful texture and depending on the way it is served, adopts the taste of the accompanying sauce. Served with ponzu, chillied radish and soya sauce, it is a refreshing appetiser...

Served as tempura, it is akin to eating deep fried milk! I prefer the latter because the Shirako is even creamier from the heat.

Ah... the beauties of autumn.. all courtesy of Hana Sakazuki in Hong Kong (see my posts in April and August). Can you tell it is one of my favourite restaurants in HK!

2/F Ming An Plaza Phrase II8 Sunning RoadCauseway Bay, Hong Kong
(852) 2577-9799

Singapore - GOTO

WOW!


Nothing short of that adequately describes my experience at Goto, on Ann Siang Hill. Helmed by the chef who used to cook for the Japanese ambassador, I certainly felt privileged to have had the opportunity to taste his culinary creations. And his pretty wife, who hosts us honoured diners, introduces each course with pride and love in her eyes.

There is almost no need to describe the quality of each course; the sheer Kaiseki menu is description enough of the extraordinary experience, which I have to say has only been equalled by my travels in Japan.

Menu:-







1. The assorted starter tray was hint enough of the things to come (clockwise from top left) - soft silken tofu from Japan with some yuba (the prized top sheet mixed into it); autumn vegetables topped with mushroom; broiled Maitake mushroom and Ika tossed wtih mentaiko; a yam puff; and Kyoto tofu infused with some chilli. All seasonal and fresh.
2. Clear soup with generous pieces of crab and a sweet river fish - such an infusion of the tastes of the waters they were fished from.

3. Our sashimi platter has got to be one of the best we've had (clockwise from the top) - otoro, tai; amaebi; bonito and a succulent scallop right in the middle.
4. A tempura moriawase of fresh prawn, white fish and sweet capsicum.

5. A lightly grilled sweet river fish accompanied by the finest grilled ginko nuts, and a sweet chestnut tempura (right in season now).
6. steamed mashed yam topped with uni.
7. steamed glutinous rice with sweet chestnuts and topped with salmon roe
8. first dessert was a trio of steamed custard with stewed apple, musk melon, persimmons from Niigata, and positively one of the best green tea ice creams I've ever had where the focus is on the quality of the tea and not the cream.
9. second dessert was a steamed rice cake topped with red bean, served in a black sugar syrup.

All too soon, the meal ended but not without a freshly made bowl of Matcha. A pity we did nto know, or else it would have been great to watch our perfect host in action. Such perfect endings to a meal which was decadent yet healthy.
We will certainly be back to try the more expensive menu - which I believe would be even more out of this world (outside of Japan that is)!

#01-01 14 Ann Siang Road
6438 1553

Singapore - White Rabbit

With all the rave reviews of the White Rabbit, I have to say I was disappointed when I showed up for lunch, as were my 3 other girlfriends who joined me. Beautifully set in an old church with high ceilings and stained glass windows at Harding Road (the Dempsey area), with a very well-written menu to boot, there was unfortunately something missing from the food. While the food wasn't bad, it was definitely NOT wow! by any stretch of the imagination.

The Mac and Cheese which sounded like old world goodness called out to me - carbo queen! But it was not served as it should have been - in a hot casserole. Instead, it arrived on a white plate with gravy and greens.. also, it was too tall and there wasn't enough gratinated cheese to go round! And because it wasn't served hot, the cheese was a little cool and chewy.

Thinking we would make it up with desserts, we ordered an assortment:

Blackforest cake - totally deconstructed that it tasted nothing like the grand old dame I used to know. NOT ENOUGH SPONGE!!

The Baked Alaska and Banana Split were decent enough and managed to win the dessert quest despite their ordinary looks and tastes.

Unless someone tells me the chef at dinner is different, I am hardly likely to venture there again unless I just wanted to sit in a pretty place and have a cuppa.

39C Harding Road

6473 9965

Singapore - Nirai Kanai

Okinawa is about a mid way between Taiwan and Japan and Okinawan cuisine displays the influences from the 2 countries. Light touches with pockets of heartiness seems to be the order of the day, and poring through the menu at Nirai Kanai and the Tanglin Shopping Centre, there is an excellent balance you can strike for yourself depending on whether you feel like stuffing yourself, or just ordering snacks to down your shochu or sake with.

I particularly liked the Peanut Tofu in Soya Sauce, which was fragrant but light and smooth to down. A twist to the usual sesame tofu I've had in other places, but different in a good way.




The other dish I liked to the bone was the deep fried pork knuckle. Ok, so it's not the healthiest option but it was YUMMY!!! I love the melting collagen behind the crispy skin and the lemon wedge lifted the greasiness from the wondrous knuckles!

The other dishes we had were less memorable - the dressing on the pig ears with bean sprout salad was a little too tart for me. And the rice balls were kinda like your Chinese flavoured rice but patted prettily into a Japanese onigiri.

The other not-so-good-looking dish but which would be excellent to down with a bowl of white rice would be the silk gourd stir fried with tofu and luncheon meat. Hearteh!!!
A no frills joint if you want to mingle with the Japanese work folk in Singapore.

177 River Valley Road
#B1-01/02 Liang Court Shopping Centre
6339 4811

Singapore - Dozo

With the gloom and doom of the current "Depression", perhaps one of the simple pleasures is to eat but can one eat well for less in this climate?


Dozo at Valley Point on River Valley Road attempts to do this. Don't expect top-notch ingredients at this "Modern Japanesque" restaurant but instead, be content with sitting through a fairly competent 7-course dinner at the giveaway price of S$58.80! Yup, you heard right.


When you walk into Dozo, it's a little like walking through an upscale KTV joint with dim lights, dark/black wood with splashes of colour in the chairs and lampshades. With private rooms available, it is not a also bad place for mid-range corporate entertainment.


The mango shooter accompanying the menus were excellent refreshers save for the size and shape of the ice which did not allow the mango juice any where near the lips.. sigh .. if only they were slushie texture.

I liked the choice given to the diner at each course. With the trained-to-smile-at-will waiters, the specialties of the house were also helpfully communicated. Since there were 2 of us, we decided to share and order slightly different, save where we might fight over the food!

1. Starter of the Chef's seasonal assorted platter of smoked salmon with sweet whipped cream, seared scallop with lemon cream sauce on asparagus, and a small wedge of pan-fried foie gras on bread was not a bad start although the sweet whipped cream was a little funky for my liking.




2.1 Cold dish - the succulent king crab claw drizzled with sesame vinaigrette would have been a refreshing dish except that the crab claw was the salt frozen kind and was just too salty for my liking.




2.2 Cold dish - the beef carpaccio with shave parmesan and Japanese curry mayo mosaic was pretty tasty and the use of a crispy pastry rolled up to hold up the cone tower added an odd but pleasant crunch to the dish.




3.1 In my opinion, the Side dishes ruled. The first one of gratinated escargots topped with garlic and yuzu butter were tasty from the cheese although I did not get a hint of any yuzu in the dish, which was a little disappointing given that was what sealed the order for me.




3.2 The other Side Dish of steamed egg custard with scallop and foie gras topped with caviar won hands down even though there was hardly any caviar. The foie gras was mashed into the eggs before steaming and made the custard that much more robust from the combination and flavourful.


4. Soups were mediocre - the seafood bisque had all the taste of a stock which had shrimp and crab shells steeping but little else to add a 3rd dimension. The infusion of cepes mushroom and truffle was the same although it was the better soup because of the strong mushroom flavours and not too creamy.




5.1 Mains - the beef tenderloin on "pu ye" and granite hot stone was good. Despite a lack of marbling, it was very tender and served very pink. The garnish of deep fried shallots and too much ground pepper were not so good since they detracted from the natural taste of the beef.


5.2 the other Main Dish of oven baked Hamachi Kama on a bed of risotto was too fushiony for me. The risotto was quite tasteless and did little by way of contrast to the simply seasoned Hamachi cheek and again, had a tad too much pepper for me and little else to bring out the flavour of the fish. Rather disappointing.


6. Our iced fruity refresher was as the name suggests. A pleasant fruity drink with plenty of fruit slushing around in the pot made for a nice break after a lot of pepper to wade through.


7. Dessert was the freshly baked warm chocolate cake served with ice cream. While competent, it was not as the waiter suggested, "one of the best in Singapore". But it definitely wasn't too bad.


Dozo's concept is a commendable one in bringing simple happiness in difficult times, it is also great in bringing a variety of Japanese and European offerings to the masses.. it will surely gain its own following if it hasn't already.


#02-02 Valley Point Shopping Centre
491 River Valley Road
6838 6966