After Akane at The Japanese Association closed down, the next best place to have good Japanese food had to be a Tatsuya. After all, the head chef, Ronnie Chia (whose Japanese name is Tatsuya), is a disciple of Yoshio Nogawa at Akane.
So armed with some kind of expectation and a pocket which is ready to be burnt with a hole, our journey at Tatsuya begins.
The counter seats are where the action is. Unless you want privacy or you are afraid of sharp knives and chefs in white robes, just skip everything else and sit (make a RESERVATION first) at the counter.
Our first insight into the world of Tatsuya was this dish
The fish roe tasted different from those I've tried at Kuriya. The transparent and soft shell enclosing the fish roe juice (?) did not just break and disappear. It seemed as if the covering was thicker perhaps. Every spoonful of the roe gave way to a delightful burst in the mouth.
Our second dish was this plate of small red tomato. It's not exactly baby tomato because its not that small. The tomato flesh was firm and the insides were juicy and it was slightly naturally sweet. Did it taste a lot different from those normal red tomato we get from the supermarket? Well... maybe a bit. But of course this was better.
I think this was Angelfish liver. It's in the middle of the plate, the semi circle orange looking thing. It's very delicious and fresh. But nothing great. We had this at Akane too. Can't help with the comparison, but I vaguely remember that the one I had at Akane was better.
Ok! So after giving our mouth and stomach a good warm up, it was time for the real stuff! Sashimi! Everything was exceptionally fresh by which I mean you do not get this kind of quality at Sakae Sushi or whatever Japanese restaurant in whatever shopping centre. Prawn not as sweet as Akane. Haha.
This dish was suddenly popped up in front of us all the way from the kitchen. It's actually yam ball with unagi (eel) and mushroom as fillings. There were some pieces of prawn soaking up the atmosphere in the gravvy too. The yam ball was good enough to please any yam fans. The unagi however seemed to have teleported half of itself to somewhere else because there was not really enough of it. But it was amazing. The amount of stuffing inside the small ball.
The next time I go for a snorkelling trip, I will never look at rock fish the same way again. The fish was steamed and the meat had a sweet flavour to it. Taste like most well steamed fishes though. Personally I feel it is very hard to cook an exceptional fish dish.
Had a little break with some crunchy cucumbers. The red sauce looks like sambal but in actual fact it tasted kind of fermented. It was not horrible but made a nice and interesting dip to the cucumber.
Our first sushi for the night was this tuna belly sushi. Right before it was presented to us, the tuna belly was torched with a flame. Maybe I am seriously hung up with Akane or something, but this lagged behind to the tuna belly at Akane. This was delicious yes, but out of this world? No.
When we asked for recommendation for their soups, the waitress introduced us their tuna belly soup which I believe if I didn't hear wrongly was double boiled. The soup was light and clear with some oil floating at the surface but I attributed that to the presence of the tuna belly. Tuna belly meat itself was soft and it almost melted in my mouth right away. It wasn't as salty as the one at Akane and this version had better cooked tuna belly meat but maybe because I'm such a loyal fan, and because Nogawa is the master, I still prefer Akane.
We had prawn sashimi too and this too was torched. You can see the torched parts which are slightly black on the top. You know how prawns smell like when you barbeque them? It had the exact smell and taste when I tried it. Just that other than the torched part, the rest was raw and it was enjoyable as a whole.
This was an interesting and unique sushi. Scallop topped with goose liver. I thought this was worth it. The slight sweetness from the fresh scallop and the rich taste of the goose liver came together and the result was something really beautiful. My stomach can attest to that. YUM!
The chef behind the counter said this was sweet eel sushi. I don't know if this eel is different from unagi but if it is unagi, he would have just said that it's unagi right? The eel's meat was not as soft as other places, but at least the eel was not drenched with too much sweet sauce. Not too bad.
I think with most top notch Japanese restaurants, the peice of seaweed wrapping around the rice was exceptionally good. It had an above average crisp and it smelled and tasted very very good too. When you eat the whole thing together, you yourself can hear the slight crunch of the seaweed. The sea urchin sushi was almost identical to the one I tried at Akane but just that the see urchin itself tasted slightly different. There was another dish we had which I didn't get to take a photo of. It was wrapped with seaweed too but kind of in the shape of a california roll but ours were more like folded into a long and slim rectangle. It was filled with long thin slices of cucumber, those very very tiny orange ball which I do not know what it is called and also very crispy salmon skin. Wow. This had to be the best thing I ate for the whole dinner.
Before we eat this tamago(egg) sushi we were lalready ike pregnant whales. But since Tatsuya is not a place we come just for fun everyday, we ordered this anyway because only a good japanese restaurant can make a good tamago because this requires a lot of skills. The egg that you see here has a lot of layers. Just that its not visible in this photo. And verdict? It was good no less, but we're not really sure how good or better it is to the rest cos they all kind of taste the same just that some places may have sweeter versions.
For the closing ceremony for our stomach, we had honeydew which was sweet and chilled and we had a little bit of cheese cake in a martini glass and black sesame ice cream. The cheese cake was not really a cake. There was hardly any cake layer but the cheese mousse like parts were really very good with a satisfying cheese after taste.
Their black sesame ice cream was not home made but from Japan. Quite a good version.
Overall, the meal at Tatsuya was quite an experience. The sashimi and sushi were no doubt very good and very fresh but because I still cannot get over Akane, I would say its still second fiddle. However, if you have not tried Akane before, Tatsuya will not fail you. The chefs at the counter were all very friendly and the waitresses were knowledgeable about what was offered and they were very attentive.
Tatsuya Japanese Restaurant
Park Hotel Orchard
Tel: 67371160
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
