On our way home on Tuesday, Pineapple and I stopped by this place to have dinner/supper. I had known about this place when the Straits Times was doing an introduction to new restaurants along Upper Thomson Road, and she, probably through 8 Days, her favourite magazine that she follows religiously.
It was rather empty on a Tuesday night. Save for us, there was only another pair of ladies sitting outside. Looking at their menu, I decided that this is one of those Japanese restaurants whose price range belongs to the "upper middle" range. For Japanese restaurants, there are no low range restaurants. For average range, those affordable ones, they include Watami, Ichiban Boshi, Suki Sushi and Sakae Sushi. Closely behind is Sakuraya. For upper range, there's Kuriya and the likes of Kaiho Sushi where one meal easily reaches $100 per person. For upper middle range, they lie somewhere in between. I usually classify them if they fulfil the criteria of scoring more than $7/$8 for a serving of salmon sashimi. One meal usually comes up to around $20-$30++ That's just my classification system of a Japanese food lover, haha!
Anyway, the salmon sashimi ($11) was the cheapest among the sashimi, so we settled on this. The sashimi was decent, but with a price tag like this, I certainly expected more. Perhaps it wasn't the best day to have salmon sashimi that day. You could kinda tell from the not quite distinct fatty lines on the slices that it's not the best/freshest part of the slices.
It was a cool night and we wanted to drink some hot soup, so we decided to have some
miso ramen ($10). From the discoloured eggs (a kind of dark yellow instead of the expected bright yellow) I wasn't too pleased but nevertheless I still slurped up the soup hungrily 'cos I was, well, hungry. If you want to eat ramen, a better bet would be those specialised ramen places like Daikokuya or Tampopo. There is no richness in this stock, and they put an excessive amounts of bean sprouts of spring onions.
This one was the best, not just it's best because the rest were lousy, but objectively it was good. This one had the "人気" (popular) stamp beside it on the menu, and since it proved to be good, we decided that it was reliable to follow this label should we go back the next time.
Flaming Roll $19.50 - Toppings of cod roe, Jumbo prawn wrapped inside, with a layer of white fish sashimi. What I liked about this was that they were generous with the precious cod roe, which some restaurants are stingy about. It was certainly very flavourful.
If you can spot the piece of white fish below because it camouflages with the rice:
There are dinner sets available too but we ordered ala carte. This is the menu for their lunch bento sets.
Worth a try if you're around the area, though I wouldn't go back often. There is 15% off if you pay by cash or NETS.
How much was spent per pax: $20 per pax
Would I go back? Maybe once in a while.
Rating: 3/5
Address: 203 Upper Thomson Road
Opening Hours:
Tue–Sun, 12pm–3pm, 6pm–11pm
(Closed on Mon)
