One thing that I quite like to do whenever I visit a country is to try out food that is not specifically from the country itself – obviously we’re not talking about the dodgy “Asian” restaurant down the road that does everything that is deemed “Asian” – but more the established ones which shows a bit of history about the country itself. Given that Singapore was at one stage occupied by Japan – I was keen to try out Japanese food – after some proper searching, I found Otowa Yakitori.
Maybe it’s just my ignorance, but being not familiar with the address convention in Singapore, I walked about 3 times around the block trying to find the restaurant before I found the security team and asked – turns out it was on Level 3…And I was delighted to find it finally!
When I got there, the chef and assistant was clearly Japanese and I motioned that I didn’t have a booking and I was by myself – the waitress (nice young girl who spoke English) guided me to the counter.
After being seated, I was provided with the warm towel and also menu, I heard that this place did really good raw Chicken (yes, I am not fearful of SARS) – so I ordered a bunch of items that triggered my fancy. The chef motioned that no photos was allowed but I “begged” and he eventually allowed it.
The first course that came raw chicken slices; you get a true taste of how fresh the meat is (and it has to be fresh otherwise it’d be unsafe) – the chicken itself has a slightly chewier texture compared to something like fish and the wasabi complimented it well with the added benefit of getting rid of the germs.
Next was another raw chicken dish but this time it was the liver; served up with some grounded ginger and sesame oil – it was excellent! Unlike cooked liver, the raw variety melts in your mouth and has this creaminess that you’d find in sea urchin.
Next that came was a stick of quail egg yakitori, and this is when you get a true taste of the skill of the chef himself. I love my eggs with a soft center and it’s normally hard to make with normal eggs, let alone quail eggs where the timing is even more critical. The quail egg yolks were all still very soft and just perfection.
Last was my carb hit for the night and it was chicken soup rice porridge – the chicken soup was excellent and the rice was perfectly cooked – the way this was made was the rice was cooked with the chicken soup to begin with, so the rice absorbs all the flavour.
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