Takaya Bistro

I love Japanese Food. I like to try the food, and try cooking at home. Heeheee..

My Dear loves Sashimi, especially Salmon Sashimi. But I am allegied to raw fish. Can’t touch and eat them. :( However, I am able to eat amebi (raw prawn) and ika (squid). :D & I LOVE IKA SASHIMI. Its quite tough to fine cheap and good Japanese Food. Cheap as in reasonable or best buy pricing; Good as in fresh and well prepared.

My Dear and I found out this Japanese Restaurant in Chinatown, hidden or shadowed by MacDonald, Chinatown Point.

By chance, we got an invitation from the Boss as my Dear posted a ‘heartful’ blogpost about Takaya Bistro. :D & so happen that they opened a branch near my place - Upper Thomson. They took over the place from Sushi OM, which the Boss is an interior designer, so the decor is damn cool. :D

We are fortunate to try their signature dishes at no cost. :p

Takaya Special Appetizer - consists of Celery, Carrot, and the unique roots - Huai Shan (淮山). Not sure what it is called in English, but I know we normally use the dried one for chinese herbal soup.

Japanese Braised Pork - Tender, juicy, not that oily like the Chinese style. Maybe its becoz they din use the belly meat.

Braised Beef - I dun take beef. According to my Dear, its flavourful and tender.

Yaki Shitake - One of my favourite dish! I will always order this dish. Its nicely grilled till crispy on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside. It is lightly sprinkled with salt to bring out the natural shitake sweetness.

Black Pepper Prawn - Spicy. I really do mean spicy. From the first bite onto the de-shelled prawn, I tasted the sweetness of mayonnaise, then the spicyness of the black pepper. The style is like the wasabi prawn, only different is one is wasabi, the other is black pepper.

Lobster Dish - I forgot what is the name of this dish, so I called it the Lobster Dish. The lobster is steam/boiled (not sure), and slices of lemon were inserted in between the meat. Eat it while its warm. Lobster’s meat as compared to prawn, is definitely tougher. This is dish when I tried, its abit over cooked, so the meat is tougher, and the lemon pieces were too thick, so it makes the meat filled with the lemon sour taste. Can’t taste any Lobster’s sweetness. If it was to be a Lobster sashimi (or the meat is 80% cooked) with thin slices of Lemon, might be better.

Salmon Roll - Tempura Prawn wrapped in fresh Salmon sashimi. A pity that I cannot eat the salmon. My Dear ‘undressed’ the roll and let me eat the prawn. One comment : FRESH! Even the prawn is fried, I can still taste its freshness! :D

Grilled Salmon Head - One of their top dishes. I admit that I dun really know how to appreciate Salmon, but this one really caught my taste bud’s attention. The meat is grilled just right, smooth and juicy. The best part is the cheek and the crispy skin!!!! Yummy!!! I LOVE SALMON SKIN!

Cold Sake - I am a wine drinker. Tried Sake before (on airplane), can’t really take the spicyness. Always heard how smooth and tasty warm Sake is, had seldom heard about drink Sake cold. But this one, this particular brand, must drink it cold. Really cannot imagine how sweet and smooth the taste of this cold Sake is. It run down the throat leaving a sweet trace… Shiok!

Grilled Ika - MY FAVOURITE! Not the hokkaido style, but its damn sweet and chewy… Heeheee…. Its all mine, coz my Dear dun take ika! :D

Swordfish Sashimi - One of the expensive sashimi. The Boss insisted that my Dear try it. Coz its rarely served. My Dear said it tasted smooth and firm, bery unlike Salmon which is smooth and soft.

Its not easy to handle Soba or Ramen. Coz you need to be accurate with the cooking time to avoid over cooked or under cooked. Noodles must Q. The soup base is also important as noodles itself is tastless.

So… much of introducation of their dishes. Go try it yourself lah… they got buffet lunch at SGD19.80nett and dinner at SGD23nett. Value for money! Coz their items are very fresh!