Kazu Sumiyaki on 10 September

Kazu Sumiyaki. A lovely little Yakitori place in Cuppage Plaza that (in my opinion) serves the best Japanese food in Singapore. There's no lunch at this place, they only do dinner. Which, again in my opinion, is the beauty of it. Like what the waitress said on our first visit, lunch is simply too rushed as the whole concept was to eat a little, chat a little and drink a little. Then repeat the same whole process again and again till you hit the 3 to 4 hour mark.

Me and CK just came back from a fantassstic 16 day trip to Japan where we ate and ate so much good food (will blog about this in my later posts). Anyway we decided that Kazu really held it's own even when up against the fantastic food we ate in Japan (even though it doesn't really have the luxury of having purely japanese supplies). So we're back.

I went with my sister and CK this time.So first off we ordered a bottle of red. Kazu has this little basket displayed at the corner of the counter that showcases the items that are in season. This time we went, they had Momo (peach) and musk melon amongst a few other things displayed. The last time we were here it was some kinda Japanese root vegetable and bamboo shoot which was served as an appetizer. The bamboo shoot was excellent.. crunchy texture with none of the overpowering bamboo sharp taste.

Anyway, back to what we had. We started off with a few sticks and the wagyu beef stew we had the last time we were here. The wagyu was flavourful with a distinctive Japanese taste (incidentally we ate something like that in Iggy's before too) and the meat was so tender it melts in the mouth. Some very good sticks we had included the lotus root stuffed with minced chicken, Kurobata Pork with eggplant, Pork belly wrapped around hotate & prawn, Silver cod belly, Zucchini with chicken, Pork belly with sweet potato... in fact all the skewers we had this evening were all very very good...

Some special mention to a few seasonal/non-skewer items we ordered. We ordered this salmon milt (read: sperm) gratin baked with pumpkin skin and mushrooms. Salmon milt tasted very much like a denser tofu but with a faint fishy kick. Incidentally, the waitress told us we were the 1st customers to order it. Another thing that left an impression on me was the Konnyaku Cold Appertizer we ordered coz my sister actually wanted to order the Konnyaku skewer but the waitress recommended the appetizer instead.

Konnyaku (also known as devil's tongue) is some kind of root with a gelatine like texture. And this appetizer we ordered tasted very much like the bean sprout appetizer me and calvin had in Maisen Tonkatsu in Tokyo that comes when u order a beer. The only bad thing was that we did not have it at the beginning, if not it'll be even more perfect.

We finished off with dessert which included the highly potent Mocha Ice cream, a slice of musk melon and 'Snow Drop' a mochi filled with pumpkin mousse. My sister was totally blown away by the ice cream. I should know why... it tastes like cream of expresso. It's that good. I highly recommend it. The musk melon was a little disappointing. Though it had the juiciness characteristic of a japanese melon, it lacked the sweetness. And for snow drop, though I am not a fan of mochi, this one was fantastic. The skin was ultra thin and light, melting in the mouth, in unison with the creamy mouse filling. 5 stars for this one.

Eating at Kazu is like an experience. The atmosphere is always fantastic and you have waitresses who really know the food, and who are interested in the food. I highly recommend this place. Come with friends!!!