Tetsu - LIC Food Outing

Here's my very horribly outdated post for LIC food event at Tetsu.The first dish was the Kami Tofu (right) and Kajiki Takaki.

I quite liked the taste of the kami tofu, which was tofu with century egg, but then it was an incredibly tiny portion (cos everything was sample size) that it slid down my gullet before I knew it.

The Kajiki Tataki looked more cooked than I had expected because I had pictured it being like the katsuo no tataki - seared on the outside and raw on the inside. It was marinated in vinegar and garnished with ginger and spring onion. Pretty good just that the portion was really small (sample size). Salmon and Yellow Tail Sashimi - very fresh.
You learn something new everyday - I learnt that you're supposed to pluck the petals off the chrysanthemum flower and put them in your soya sauce so that it'll be fragrant. Though my tastebuds can't really discern if there's flowerpetals inside my sauce (cos it's too salty anyway), it looks very pretty.
Clear Soup - lightly flavoured with leek egg and seaweed. It was very warming after the cold starters (I am lacking the exact words to describe this soup possibly due to my RAM being overloaded thanks to EOPT).
Yasai Takiawase (daikon, pumpkin, carrot and snow pea)
This is the dish I didn't like the most. It reminds me of those Chinese stewed vegetables with sauce. Actually, I thought that the daikon was a scallop. Cheat my feelings (like those small little cars who park right into the back into the carpark lot and you can't see them - and make me so happy for nothing when I think I finally found a carpark space).

Kushi Age Hire, Ebi, Softshell Crab and Scallop

I must say that I am not a big fan of all these breaded deep fried foods. I personally think that deep frying is reserved for foods which aren't very fresh. The breading was pretty good, slightly sweet and very crispy. I found their famous tonkatsu too dry and tasteless. The scallop was passable, and the ebi was fresh, and I liked the soft shell crab which still retained some of its' juices. There were 3 dipping sauces provided - curry, chilli and bbq. I thought that the curry was the most aromatic and delicious of the three, but then I couldn't put more than a little sprinkle of curry powder over my food as it was too salty.
Complimentary sushi roll - this was pretty good - with salmon, tuna, and I think squid(?) wrapped inside a sushi and coated with crispy tempura bits.

Kushi-Tem Lotus Root, Mushroom and Green Capsicum.

Actually, when I was eating this, I was quite impressed that the white piece of paper didn't have any oil traces at all - but then I looked closely and realized that it was pretty thick and waxy and not like the usual normal-ish paper that you find in most restaurants.

Apparently, the white piece of paper isn't supposed to be used to blot out the extra oil. It's supposed to demonstrate the quality of the tempura - if it's fantastic tempura, it's supposed to leave minimal oil traces on the blotting paper. Well, if anyone can enlighten me if this is correct, I'll be extremely grateful, cos my source was a Japanese tour guide (on a tour super long ago).

Udon - extremely smooth and chewy. I was wondering if its handmade cos the noodles were pretty uneven?
Goma Ice Cream

Somehow, Goma feels like a cat's name. Maybe cos Goma is a cat's name in Kafka on the Shore?

The ice cream is one of the better black sesame ice creams I've eaten - some of them have this oily after taste. This one was bursting with black sesame flavour and the gritty grounded sesame went very welll with the creamy ice cream.

For 30 bucks and dinner, I definitely won't be complaining. But I don't think that kushi style suits my palate.

Tetsu
163 Tanglin Road
#03-18 Tanglin Mall
Tel: 6836 3112