The Kaiseki menu at Nadaman was altered to suit the budgets of most students taking a particular module in my university.

Instead of a maybe 10 course menu, we were offered a Mini Kaiseki ($45) which features 7 courses and this is available only during lunch.

We were served two types of appetizers. The Egg Mousse is actually chawanmushi in disguise. It came in a diced shape and had a very rich flavor.

Upon my first mouthful of the second appetizer, Boiled Spinach and enoki mushroom with sesame sauce, I immediately thought about the peanut gravy used for satay beehoon! That was exactly how the sauce tasted like. The boiled spinach was slightly spicy and both went well together. On top of that, there were bonito flakes which are usually used as a form of natural flavoring for Japanese food.

Next on the list was the Clear soup with seaweed fishcake and vegetables. The soup served at the beginning of the kaiseki is supposed to be quite bland because we will be served another bowl towards the end. I love the seaweed fishcake because it of its texture. It does not taste like the rubbery kind of fishcake that we usually eat.

The raw fish served was the Chef’s selection of Tuna and Yellowtail. There were two pieces of each. Everyone oohed and ahhed as they bit into the succulent slices. I think I’d have liked the raw fish even better if they were slightly more chilled.

The simmered dish consists of Simmered pumpkin, eggplant, yam and green bean with minced chicken meat sauce. Our sensei who was with us at that time told us that all these are autumn foods in Japan. All of us liked the simmered dish a lot. On the overall, it was tastefully simple for our tastebuds.

What’s a Japanese blue fish? We thought to ourselves when we were looking at the menu earlier on. It is actually a type of tuna. We learned that more and more restaurants in Japan are dropping bluefish from their menus as environmentally certified fishing and seafood products become popular in the country.

The Grilled Japanese blue fish with teriyaki sauce has a meaty texture easily mistaken for that of a cod fish’s and it has a smooth buttery flavor. It warranted a thumbs up from everyone.

The Japanese seem to enjoy adding flavor to plain, boring white rice. The Steamed rice mixed with dried shrimp was very fragrant and it was served with pickles and soya bean paste soup.

Dessert at last! Now now, you must be wondering what’s a Red bean, black sugar panna cotta doing in a Japanese restaurant!

Yeah it’s an Italian dessert but nobody really cares when you can have gooey black sugar trickling down your throat! We all wish we could have more!

According to Nadaman, traditional cuisine such as kaiseki is described as ‘the art of transforming the blessings of nature into food’. And boy, we sure are blessed.

The Mini Kaiseki is $45.