Tori Tama - One Fullerton

Tori Tama is a new Japanese restaurant at One Fullerton serving everything chicken. From chicken skewers, chicken rice bowls as well as funny parts of the chicken (like pericardial sac?? It's described as meat surrounding the heart in the menu, so the only think I can think of is the pericardial sac) as well as chicken sashimi! Fish sashimi is still ok for me, but thinking about chickne sashimi makes me feel a bit apprehensive about all the funny parasites and bugs one can acquire! (Not that it's unhygenic but I think there's more bugs in pork and chicken than in fish).

Our starter was chilled stewed daikon (radish) in a light dashi stock. Very simple and clean tasting, and the daikon didn't have any trace of bitterness. They charged $3++ for this in our final bill.

Caesar Salad ($12++) which came topped with deep fried crispy chicken skin which had an addictive crunch but was pretty greasy when it got cold. It's like eating lard but instead of pork it's chicken. Maybe not as shiok for people who are fans of lard. Loved the half boiled egg which was chilled. The salad dressing is delicious, with hints of salty briney anchovies and a bit of parmesan cheese. The leaves aren't really romaine lettuce - not sure what kind of lettuce they used, but it was refreshingly cool and crunchy.

Tori Tama Don ($12++) looked deceivingly small, but I was pretty full by the end of it. Not sure if it was because my caesar salad was sinking in, or because it was really bigger than it looked. 2 perfectly chargrilled chicken (minus the skewers) which had a mild smoky taste, marinated minced chicken (sweetish) as well as another half boiled egg. Their eggs are really nice!

I shall aim to try the Oyako don the next time, since Wong Ah Yoke wrote that it was nice in his review article for the Sunday Life! (Fortunately for us, the restaurant wasn't booked full cos everytime WAY writes about a restaurant, it's becomes incredibly hard to get a reservation!)

Grilled Chicken Balls ($3)

Was feeling unadventurous so decided not to try the cartilage, chicken neck, chicken tail, chicken bone, chicken tendon, chicken gizzard, chicken kidney, chicken heart or pericardial sac (which I shall maybe try next time) and ordered 'safer' more boring stuff.
Nicely grilled, juicy minced chicken balls. I think there's some bits of cartilage or tendon inside, cos there are some crunchy bits.

Grilled Chicken Breast with Cheese ($4.50++ per stick)

I quite liked this. The last time my friend came she said the insides were raw, and they said it was purposely done that way because they use sashimi grade chicken. Mine had a little patch of slightly pink raw chicken inside, which tasted just like how undercooked chicken does. They've grilled this really nicely - I really don't like chicken breast but this one is one the juciest chicken breast I've eaten, and the cheese is really tasty. Maybe I shall attempt to try the grilled cheese which comes on a stick. Looked really interesting and the table next to me was having it...At the end of your meal, I can imagine that it'll be brilliant to move over to the breezy al fresco bar side, Tsuki bar which overlooks the reservoir. Even though they have the chefs grilling the sticks of chicken in the middle of the restaurant, the restaurant doesn't have that smokey smell, and you don't have to worry about reeking of bbq by the end of your meal. It's pretty cramped though, couldn't help but overhear the conversation my neighbouring tables were having.

Another thing is that their dessert menu is rather limited - I think they only had ice creams. Could do with more Japanese desserts especially milk pudding! or soya milk pudding (my fave Japanese desserts).

Service wise, they're pretty slow and it took forever for them to refill our tea (complimentary), get the bill etc etc. Not a bad place to come to, just that if you're having the chicken don by itself, it's not really worth it because of the $3 starter. Which will bring the bowl of chicken don to just under a whopping $18 nett ($12+$3+Taxes) if you just have that alone...

Tori Tama Yakitori & Tsuki-bar

One Fullerton Road #01-05

Tel: 6423 1555

Other restaurants which have grilled Japanese stuff that I quite like : Nanbantei and Ichigo