September's a month of celebrations for our family! Papa, mama and ming's birthdays all in the month of September. Papa's birthday dinner this year was at Shinji by Kanesaka at Raffles Hotel. Korkor's recommendation and his treat haha.
This intimate restaurant is hidden at one of the corners of level 2 of Raffles Hotel. You wouldn't notice the activity going on in the restaurant from outside!
Dinner was around a sushi counter, that could fit at most.. 15-20 people? Heard from Korkor that in order to get a private table/room, everyone had to order a set of certain price, or maybe it's the total amount spent. Not that sure, but even the cheapest set there was not cheap! Anyhow, I think the best seats were around the counter 'cause we could watch the Japanese chef prepare the food and they would explain every dish to us.
There was some confusion at the beginning because our chef was trying to suggest something for us, but he's Japanese and not that eloquent in English so we didn't really get him. He looked a little stern and I was a little worried! But we sorted out the confusion, and dinner started!
Our starter. I can't remember what fish it was already. Fail.
First Nigiri Sushi, yellow tail I think! The sushi was smaller than the regular sushis you see at jap restaurants or cold storage.
Flounder. The chef applies the soy sauce so we don't have to dip ourselves.
Squid. One of my least favourites, but still acceptable cause it was so fresh.
Papa had a different set from us, and one of his dishes was a tiny deep fried river crab. We were still staring at the crab when the chef brought out a jar of live ones!!
Chutoro, medium fatty tuna. I was so amazed at how good it tasted. I never liked tuna sashimi but I would love to have so much more of this!
Otoro, fattiest tuna? Haha I can't remember what's the right way to call it. Very nice too! A bit.. Softer and melts in the mouth more easily I think?
This is the lean part of the tuna. Also nice! I think it was more marinated than the previous too. Anyway this is our chef! Didn't dare to take a direct shot of him so I took one of him in the background! Looks so serious preparing our food huh! After the initial introduction, he became quite friendly!
According to Korkor, Tuna's nicer when left outside for a while. So he actually prepared the tuna slices before he even served our first sushi.
It's interesting watching the chef prepare our sushi too. He coats his hand with vinegar before clumping up the sushi rice.
This is horse mackerel. Also marinated. Korkor's favourite and I understand why! Yummy.
Oh yes, the chef prepared each type of sushi one by one and places it on a plate that's kinda in front of us, but nearer to him. My first question before having my sushi was whether or not we were supposed to bring the plate nearer to us to eat the sushi. But Korkor said no! We were just supposed to take the sushi from the plate and pop the whole thing into our mouths. I was worried the sushi would disintegrate before it reached my mouth. And lucky the sushis were small so they could fit in one bite! I usually take a few bites out of the regular sushis.
I think this is bonito. (The only bonito I'm familiar with is love bonito)
Ebi! Very sweet. The prawn was quite long, so he cut the sushi in two for the ladies! But for Korkor and papa it came in one piece.
Hering. I was a little skeptical cause of the skin, I usually remove fish skin if I can. But it tasted okay! Pretty yums too.
Okay out of all the dishes, this is the only one I really disliked. It's some shellfish. It's hard, crunchy and tastes quite bad to me :/
Salmon roe with sushi rice! I liked this! When the chef was preparing this, Ming and I were hoping that this was for us. 'Cause our set menu's only supposed to have sushis, and this doesn't exactly look like a sushi, so we weren't sure!
Uni! Sea urchin. Although it's supposed to be really expensive and a delicacy? I was a little skeptical. Cause I remember trying a bit of it in some random sushi bar in Tokyo, and not liking it. This was much better though! Tasted a little sweet I think, and creamy. I might still prefer the sashimis though.
Soup with tuna meatball! Gotta love that I can eat everything in the set.
Unagi! One was sweeter and the other was salty. Both very good! Oh even the ginger was good btw.
Minced tuna maki and tamago! Smoothest softest tamago everr.
Very sweet rock melon and grapes. I remember mama buying back a super duper sweet rock melon. So I wasn't exactly thatttt impressed with the fruits.
Surprise celebration for papa! The chefs came out in masks! So cute.
Complimentary matcha ice cream for papa. Polished off by the Toh Siblings.
Post dinner photos!
Photos of cake cutting in next post. I'm sooooo tired! Longest post in a long while! It's so much easier typing and uploading pics from the phone though.
