Mother's Day Dinner - Akashi Tanglin Shopping Centre

Went to Akashi for Mother's Day dinner. This must be the oldest, dingy-est branch ever. It's really hard to imagine Tanglin Shopping Centre in it's heydays.

I don't have many of the names and prices of the dishes, but I'll update it in a while when my dad finds the receipt...

Chef's Selection - which cost $168++ for 5 people (which means 5 slices of each fish - really really expensive I'll never order it again! I'd rather go to Genting and still have money left over to spend!!) What you see here is the portion for 3 people. There is one slice of each otoro, shima aji, salmon, Surf Clam (hokkigai), swordfish (mekajiki) and flounder (hirame) No doubt the sashimi was very fresh, but then again, I will neve pay this price for the sashimi (can spend the money on nicer fine dining restaurants!)- which you can get a only slightly nearly negligibly less freshness at Iseatan. That's the scrooge in me talking but I suppose for a special occasion, it's fine (since I'm not footing the bill anyway...).
*edited, thanks to ice :)
This is my very yummy grilled pork (can't remember the name in the menu, but I will update later cos my dad has the receipt...). It's thin slivers of pork (and not so fatty too) grilled. They are juicy, tender and go really well with the sesame seed sauce. The sesame seed sauce was mixed with some slightly sour ingredient (not sure what) but it balanced out the usually cloyingly heaviness that sesame sauce usually has.
Cha soba with tempura set. I found the cha soba here slightly overcooked, with it lacking the normal al dente chewy texture. I've tried the cha soba in the Vivo city branch over 4 times and each time, it had a consistent texture. The cha soba here was slightly soggy, but the damage wasn't so great that it was inedible. However, it lacked the usual spring to the noodles.

This is my sister's dish - Mixed seafood Don. It has octopus, salmon, tuna, swordfish avocado and lots and lots and lots of wasabi mixed inside. Dunno why they mixed the wasabi inside cos in the Paragon and Vivo branches, they usually just place it on the side.
This is the Crab Croquette ($6) which is one of my favourite appetisers. The batter is the breaded kind, and it's slightly sweet and very crispy (and sometimes pokes at your gums when you chew it). The crab goes really well with the cream sauce and dressing.
Gyoza set - My mum's favourite - I actually think that the gyoza tastes a bit like the frozen kind, but then I didn't ask if it really was. The gyoza is fried nicely, and juicy inside.
Saba set - the saba was very fresh, but I found it a bit tasteless , unless you squeeze the lemon over it. But then again, I don't take lemon with any of my food, especially fish cos if you need the lemon to remove the fishy smell or give it flavour, I think the fish isn't really worth eating cos it's either not fresh or just plain tasteless (which will be a waste of space eating).Yummy ice cream ($6 per scoop, comes with azuki [red] bean). We tried the Pumpkin (which had real pumpkin bits inside), perssimon (wanted to try the sweet potato one actually, but it was sold out), Peach and Kyoho grape.
I liked the pumpkin ice cream the best, cos the pumpkin flavour really came through.

Warm Sake ($12) which I didn't try cos I was driving - but my grandmother seems to stealthily slurp it up.

What irked me most about this place, was that the staff all couldn't speak or understand English properly and half the time they didn't understand me despite many repetitions, and the other half of it I had to speak Chinese. This is acceptable if I'm at a Chinese restaurant. Anyway, most of the staff were unfamiliar with the menu, and I had to repeat myself many many times to them (in English and in Chinese) before the understand.

For example, there was wasabi ice cream on the menu. I asked if the wasabi was the grated kind (meaning that it was the real thing) or the powdered version. The waitress could only say that it came from Japan,and didn't offer to check it out.

I will not recommend anyone to this branch simply cos the service is utterly atrocious. I like the Vivocity branch, cos all the times I've been there, the service has been very good. The Akashi here, like Tanglin Shopping centre, is past it's heydays (if it had any) and I will definitely NOT go back to this branch.

It is such a letdown because I have associated Akashi with a pleasant dining experience.