Keyaki

I was just going through my old posts (when I was young and gainfully unemployed) cos I just ate a weird timing but very satisfying breakfast/lunch meal today. And it's a Monday again! So the famous stall was closed... And there's no more $2 prawn noodles anymore... Guess everything but my salary is going up...

Went to Keyaki last weekend. Made a grave mistake cos we had initially planned on going to Cherry Garden for dim sum but didn't know it was Father's Day and it was fully booked :( Just another reminder to myself - Cherry Garden is at Mandrin Oriental and not Marina Mandarin - spent nearly half an hour crawling around looking for the restaurant. It is never a good idea to be supremely famished, finaly reaching the restaurant and being told that it's full and yet being able to smell all the lovely freshly steamed dim sum. We had 2 different sets - I had their Keyaki set (I really cannot remember what it was called but its the weekend special lunch set) which came with a very insipid potato salad. The other lunch set (which is in the main menu) had this really refreshing plum wine sherbert and probably one of the better ways to kick start a great meal.
In fact, it was so nice that the next day at work I was craving for this halfway through the morning and just wondering where I could get some good quality plum wine from (though I'm mainly a procrastinator so I still haven't gotten it...)

Another 3 dished starter - some fish cake thing, minced meat with grated radish and pumpkin chicken cube (my pumpkin piece was miniscule).

California maki - which is totally un-Japanese but very delicious anyway.

Extremely fresh and juicy sashimi - my fave part of any meal

Tempura - one of my least favourite Japanese foods though I really like eggplant and pumpkin Fried rice with little morsels of seafood and chicken - I would have much preferred garlic fried rice (which most mid range Japanese restaurants do quite well). The pickles (top left) are pretty interesting cos they also had pickled mushrooms.

Grilled cod fish
By this time I was really full but there were still some more dishes...

Pork Teppanyaki - the alternative being beef (which I don't eat cos of prions, though I'm seriously reconsidering now cos I really miss eating BK mushroom swiss and Macdonalds double cheeseburger...)
The other lunch set (which was around the same price ~$60++) had a nicely grilled half lobster which was really fresh.

The Cha soba here (came with the other lunch set) was pretty good but not as spectacular as the Tsuen one from Japan (which I sadly will not be able to eat in the new future)... It's a remarkably easy dish to prepare just that the noodles have to be watched closely cos they become soggy once overcooked.

Dessert - green tea and black sesame ice cream. The black sesame one is much better so if you're ever given the choice do take the black sesame one - it has coarse grains of black sesame and an intense sesame taste. Just like eating black sesame paste but in the ice cream version.

Personally, I still find Aoki's lunches is still in the number 1 position in my list of lunch places... I think I'm growing old cos I feel much less adventurous and I've been stagnating at my usual food places for the last few months... Oh well, I will be hunting for a new lunch place on Wednesday if my list doesn't explode terribly...

Keyaki
7 Raffles Boulevard

4/F Pan Pacific Singapore
Tel: +65 6826 8240