Hanabi Japanese Restaurant
Hanabi Japanese Restaurant Ptd Ltd
559 Bukit Timah Rd
Kings Arcade #01-03 Singapore 269695
64655525
This inconspicuous Japanese restaurant is hidden among a row of misfits along bukit timah road. (its next to a B-class gym, which is next to child care centre, which is next to a pub, which is next to a petrol kiosk. See the connection?)
my mister and I went there once, swearing never to return. But we always do. Outside this jap eatery, are A4 laminated paper menus. All in English (sushi: fat roll. What the hell is a fat roll?), with no pictures.
Ok lah, we decided. One last chance. Big mistake.
Oh yes. I was hungry that night. Really hungry.
Ambience
Pretty nice. Big canvas paintings of koi, soft red lighting, Japanese pop music.
There was a lot A LOT of people in there- families, office people, aunties with their uncle-husbands, more office people.
Hint: Rank your Jap food by the customers.
1. A lot of Japanese + cheap = good jap food
2. a lot of Japanese + expensive= good food, only meant for business and entertainment
3. no Japanese+ cheap= come on, make a guess
in this case, it was
4. no Japanese, all locals + expensive food= crappy jap food which stupid ppl like us will pay so much to eat such food.
Food
This restaurant is popular for its ala carte buffet, which has a hefty range of sashimi, sushi, vege, noodles yakyakyak. The stuff which us crummy locals in our limited exposure will recognize as jap food.
oh there was this attempt to impress by serving a "complimentary dish" of either teppan prawns or some cheem sounding beef roll with gnnochi. so i asked, is it one dish per person? cos in that case we'll take one each. and the manager replied its only complimentary with two adults. *woOOw* so exclusive. ok. we'll go with the beef.
*drum roll* wrong. so wrong. it was served in this sauce dish with two weak stalks of gnocchi wrapped in weak-dried-and-over-marinated beef bits. shudder.
We had that steam egg thing. Chawanmushi. This was possibly the best dish we had for the evening.
Followed that we had the sashimi platter (sashimi platter-Sound so cool hor.) passable. Palatable.
We ordered round two of the sashimi. Gah. It was horrendous. It seemed like they recorded the number of times you ordered. *ding!* round 1- fresh fish. *ding!*round 2- get it from the freezer. *ding!* round3- get it from the trashcan. For the record, we stopped at round 2- where the hamachi got mushy and the toro got fishy.
Btw the wasabe sucks. Its bland. And monotone. I think it comes in a bucket. Sorry ah. Being a bit critical here.
We had the soft-shell crab sushi thing. Which was ok. Quite good. Mister had the soft shell crab hand roll. Which I dint try and he claimed was urgh-not so fantastic.
We also had the pregnant buttered fish. Which tasted like frozen fish- Those that you eat with your porridge, where its wrapped in a box, wrapped in plastic, left to defrost for 2 hours before microwaving it.
As the night wore on, people continued to stream in...nonstop. I just don’t get it.
I digress.
We ordered the cold soba thing. What I cant stand the MOST about soba is when they cook it 3 hours in advance, pack it all into a bowl and leave it in the fridge to coagulate into this giant soba cake and when you order it they take it out rinse it apart and throw a handful into the plate. Not cool I tell you, not cool.
And that was EXACTLY how we had it. With no wasabe summore.
The mister decided to order a bowl of ramen. When it came he took a mouthful, and there was this glimmer in his eyes and a twisted smile. “Let me try! Let me try!” I took a mouthful. “MMMMM! This taste SOO GOOD! There is SO MUCH FLAVOR! And the noodles are SOO NOT LIKE MAGGI MEE! Here!” I pushed it back to him. “You can have the rest.” “no, you have the rest”, “no! YOU have the rest” mister said that it tasted a lot of like the crummy chicken noodle soup desperate Asians buy in new york .
Service
Service sucks. The place is understaffed. It takes 15-20 minutes before each order is served, even if its raw vegetables. Or raw sashimi. Or tea to be poured.
the mister said that the waitresses are like army boys. Nod. Agree. But never ever execute the duty.
They’re quite cute. Like Japanese.
“excuse me, can I have more tea please?”
smile. Open mouth. kawaii kawaii Blinkblink. Walk away.
WAHLAO. Damn infuriating.
We left before all the orders could arrive cos it was just getting damn tiring.
Price
30 bucks +++ per person. *faint* its not the price I tell you. It’s the value for money. (it will be value for money if it was about 15 bucks.)
Overall
To each his own. I have friends who swear by the place. “oh the fish is so fresh! The fish is so succulent! The range is sooo wide”
Blink.
if you must go, make a reservation. Cos apparently, its full house, even on a Wednesday night.
Blink.
The night came to an end, and I was more than ready to give the mister a good night kiss as my lips were all puckered up by the over dosage of salt and msg.
(Oh yar. I do remember one Japanese place worse than this. Its called the Gapz, which serves Chaipanese (Read: Japanese and Chinese) food. I swear, it’s the crappiest shittiest thing ever. Located at pacific plaza. Oh wait, it closed down.)
excuse me while I go get some water.
