I have walked past this restaurant multiple times but it did not cross my mind to drop by for a meal as I am not a fan of atrium restaurants where there is no roof covering your head and you are open to view from all floor of the mall. Finally, there was a chance to drop by as the rest of the restaurants around the area was crazy packed with long queues and I was craving for a Japanese meal.
Located within the atrium of Harbourfront shopping mall, it is the only restaurant with proper seating for dine in while the surrounding food outlets are all smaller kiosks or outlets for takeaways only. In the absence of a roof, they have included metal bars sitting across the restaurant horizontally for their ambience lights to give the restaurant a more cozy lighting scheme as compared to the harsh mall lights. The restaurant can sit close to 50 persons in non safe distancing times.
The restaurant is not without queue and I waited for a good 8 minutes before being shown to my table. It seems that the restaurant was pretty popular so I was expecting a very pocket friendly menu. The menu was very extensive with sashimi, sashimi bowls, sushi, maki and many other Japanese cooked dishes. I was in fact quite overwhelmed by the selection and the price is also not exactly pocket friendly.
They also have a huge selection of drinks from both alcoholic and non alcoholic and reminds me of those Japanese drinking houses.
I spotted one of my favourite dish on the menu which is tako wasabi and definately had to order it to try. The serving was pretty standard in a small serving dish and while the octopus was very fresh and crunchy, I did not quite like the sauce that is used to marinate the octopus.
The chawan mushi came in the standard ceramic cup and has a single mushroom topping. The flavours were quite general but nothing too out of the ordinary.
When we were served the sashimi, the serving size was quite similar to other Japanese restaurants with 5 different types of fish and 2 slices each. I wad pleasantly pleased as the fish was very fresh and of quite good quality and very well sliced.
The salmon head miso soup was also a pretty generous serving with half a salmon head with a good balance of meat and bones giving the soup a nice umami flavour.
The scallops sushi was also very fresh but the size of the scallops were on the small side
The highlight of my meal was probably the sashimi bowl and you can easily see that the raw fish bowls are the most popular menu as every table had at least 1 bowl. There were many variations of sashimi bowls and I ordered one that had the minced tuna sashimi topped up with chunky pieces of tuna, salmon, yellowtail and scoops of prawn roe. The rice serving was small so you don’t get overly full after finishing the entire bowl and you get a very balanced taste of fresh fish mixed with fluffy sweet and sour sushi rice.
The other thing I really liked was their drinks as they had many selections that included Calpis in their content and I was a fan of Calpis cocktails. The ones they served were sweet and thirst quenching at the same time.
Overall, I feel that the bowl were extremely worth trying with a price range of SGD 20 to SGD 30 depending on the toppings you choose. They can definitely hold their worth against other restaurants. The rest of the items are generally normal and nothing too extra ordinary although I do find some items slightly pricey. With that being said, it is still worth it to visit for one of their sashimi bowls.
Address: 1 Maritime Square HarbourFront Centre, #01, 76A, 099253
Operating hours: 11.30 am to 9.30 pm ( 11 am on Sat and Sun)
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