Restaurant Week 2013: Hashi 箸

Restaurant week was back in town and for a change I didn’t sleep all through the whole show this time and even scored two dinner bookings which of the first was at ‘Hashi’s’.

There were chilled soba to start with but I missed some grated ginger to pep things up. The noodles were followed by a Japanese salad with a wonderful dressing and a set of sashimi; amberjack, tuna and scallop which were of good quality and tasted fresh and nice. The main was a bento mix of all sorts of different stuff, some of my not so favoured seaweed, blanched spinach, unfortunate tough and greasy cold duck breast, a tasty and soft fried fish, good tempura but the best thing by far was the lovely piece of pork belly that didn’t really have very tempting looks but was amazingly soft and therefore I thought way too small. I also got to try the beef cheek from my friend’s bento which was super nice and tender but really became great with a tiny bit of this jalapeño pepper sambal they handed aside.

The dessert was a sampler of two. I wasn’t a big fan of the red bean bars with chestnut and their super rich and filling character but the red bean and sake flavoured cake was actually quite good and interesting but nearly too small to really wrap my head around it and fully get the taste. I’ll probably never understand this red bean thing anyway?

I liked ‘Hashi’s’ interior; minimalistic Japanese, simple and elegant in the front which unfortunately loses a dash of its’ atmosphere in the back room we were seated in. The food was good and there were many things to try, but besides the pork belly I was just hoping for some more extra specialness from their special menu.

Hashi Japanese Restaurant 箸
46 Bukit Pasoh Road
Singapore 089859
Tel: +65 6327 8414
http://www.hashi.sg/

Sushi Fish Mart in the West

A very good friend brought me to ‘Sakuraya Fish Mart’ at West Coast Plaza because it is her family’s go to place for ‘Sashimi‘ and ‘Sushi‘. I entered the restaurant through a small Japanese grocery store and when my friend showed up we chose the ‘Sashimi‘ items from a chilled display right at the entrance.

We had the standards ‘Sake‘ (Salmon) which was super soft and ‘Maguro‘ (Tuna) that had the perfect texture and a clean and sweet taste. We also ordered ‘Hotate‘ (Scallop) which tasted good but was a bit moist and slippery, ‘Mekajiki‘ (Swordfish) that I didn’t like because of it’s unpleasant texture and the ‘Kanpachi‘ (Greater Amberjack) and ‘Hamachi‘ (Yellowtail) which both had great taste and were not too lardy on the red bit.

For the second round we had ‘Ebi & Tako‘ Sushi (Cooked Prawn and Octopus) which were ok but not overwhelming and the ‘Tako‘ was actually a bit on the chewy side. What was actually nice was the ‘Spicy Salmon Maki‘ which was not particularly tangy but had a great crunch from the fried salmon skin they put into it.

We also ordered some cooked dishes like the ‘Fried Edamame Tofu‘ that was pretty much chunky mashed soya beans in a tofu mix battered and fried. The texture was a bit odd but interesting with the edamame bits in between but the taste was rather blend. Another one was the ‘Fried Tako‘ which was nicely crispy but pretty dry and tough too bite on the other hand.

Last but not least we ate the ‘Cold Buckwheat Soba‘. Though taste wise ok, this was a bit of a difficult to eat as the noodles all stuck together in one lump and unfortunately they also didn’t use any ginger in the dipping sauce.

I quite like the food here fresh and all and I appreciated that I was able to choose the exact piece of fish I later got on my table but the setup was very mall like and lacked atmosphere but seemed very suitable for families with kids.

http://www.sakuraya.com.sg/

Sarukaya Fish Mart
154 West Coast Road
#B1-50/51/52 West Coast Plaza
127371 Singapore
Tel: +65 6773 6973

—Get Your Grub On!

– Food Inception

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Soba

Hashi 箸 @Bukit Pasoh Road (Singapore)

Restaurant Week 2013: Hashi 箸

Sakuraya Fish Mart @West Coast Plaza (Singapore)

Sushi Fish Mart in the West