Japanese food in Singapore

Our dear misstamchiak turned a year older recently! Initially, my plan was to give her a dinner treat, and it was supposed to just the two of us. Romantic right! LOL. We had agreed to dine at a particular Spanish restaurant but in the end, we settled for Akari Japanese Dining and Bar at Marina Bay Link Mall. And not only that, dinner between two ladies turned out to be a group of eight foodie friends! 😀

Photo credit: Nadia

Ok the story goes like this. I was one of the lucky three winners of the new iPad following the Standard Chartered’s The Good Life contest. Haha shall not elaborate on the contest here. The date to collect the iPad at Marina Bay Financial Centre had been set and yes, it coincided with my dinner date with misstamchiak! Told her that we can either postpone it or dine somewhere around MBFC so that she doesn’t have to wait too long. Since Derrick won himself an iPad too, Maureen said that he can join us if he wants to. Just nice Celes asked me if I wanted to join in for a dinner surprise for Maureen and I told her about our plans. Hence, we asked the others along!

Celes made reservations and we were given a private dining room with 8 seats, and Maureen was clearly suspicious! LOL. While waiting for the others to spring their surprise on Maureen, I tried to buy time by asking her to accompany me to the washroom. When we were back, they were still waiting for Jiayi! So we took some photos in the private room.

Maureen and Derrick.

This is Derrick’s gf! So for those of his females readers out there who think he’s single and available, please give up already. HAHA! Kidding~~

Before we could stop Maureen, she went out of the private dining room and began snapping pictures in the restaurant. When the rest of the group arrived, she was backfacing them and Celes gave her a scare from behind! That was when we heard a loud shrill~~ Lol.

It’s very difficult to order food in a large group especially when everyone goes, “Anything. Anything.” I’m glad we ordered sashimi because it’s my favorite! The Salmon Zukushi ($58) is a 3-kind salmon sashimi platter consisting of salmon, salmon belly and salmon roe. I love the salmon belly because it’s loaded with fat!

This has got to be one of the most expensive sushi platter I have eaten in my 2X years of life. The Tokusyou Nigiri 12 Syu ($64) featured 12 types of premium sushi. We ordered 2 sets to be shared among everyone. All I can say is that the raw fish were firm and fresh.

Whoever ordered this must love rice a lot. LOL. The Kaisen Sansyoku Wan ($38) was 3-kinds mini rice bowls with sea urchin & salmon roe, yellowtail & sesame sauce, seasoned tuna red meat. Much to my *ahem* delight, nobody except for Jiayi and I wanted to eat the sea urchin. And I was like, “This is good stuff! Why nobody eat?!” The combination of melt-in-the-mouth texture and briny taste is something I found heavenly!

We ordered two types of fish, one of which was the Gindara Saikyo Yaki ($26). The cod fish was well marinated with sweet miso sauce and its moisture was retained even after grilling. I have always liked cod fish for its oily, flaky texture.

I didn’t really fancy the Madai Yaki Anchovy Flavour ($24) because it had this mild fishy taste but the red chilli pepper and anchovy paste helped to cover it up a little. Perhaps we should have squeezed some lemon over it! Haha.

Strangely, the Buta Shiro Kakuni ($18) reminded me of the canned Narcissus Stewed Pork Chop. *shudders*

It was a good thing that we also ordered the Kurobuta Miso Yaki ($26). The marinated black pork was grilled to perfection with homemade miso sauce. It was very succulent with a slight buttery flavor which I enjoyed thoroughly.

With Jiayi and Rae!

Maureen and I started the ball rolling for a series of crazy wacky shots! We wanted a proper picture first and we banged into each other on the head! Quite painful lor! Anyway, some of the following photos are koped from Maureen. Don’t say I never give credit ah. Hahaha!