Fast forward a week, we found ourselves in Thomson Plaza, trying out this new menu. Mind you, it was with trepidation that we decided to give Sushi Tei Thomson Plaza another try; experience has told us that this outlet is not very good at all. Normally, I wouldn't order fried rice, but that time, we ordered the kimchi fried rice and the kimchi hotpot. Boy am I glad we ordered the fried rice. It was shioookk.
From the very first bite, I was awe-struck. It had a very distinct wok hei, the kind that you can only find in tze-char places. The kimchi and the japanese rice went very well together, it was a delightful blend of spicy, sweet and savoury. And of course that heaven-sent wok hei. We really really liked it. Although come to think of it, its really just tze-char right?
So anyway, we liked it so much we decided to go back the next day. This time to the Taka outlet.
As usual, we had our quintessential salmon sashimi which was aight, nothing to shout about. (Nothing compares to Akashi's salmon sashimi.)
We also had the aburi salmon belly. Which is always good. Fatty oily fish with rice. :) Although I have to admit that you can get better elsewhere, at a premium of course.
We had this deep-fried octopus dish, which was really a surprise find. It was on the conveyor belt and we decided to try it for fun. It tasted like calamari to me actually, and frankly, its hard to go wrong with deep-fried food right?
Soft-shell crab maki. Again, you can't go very off with deep fried food. Especially since I have a weakness for soft-shell crab. That said, not the best I have had again. It was aight, no biggie.
Now, the highly anticipated fried rice. After the hype of the previous day, we were really looking forward to this dish. Unfortunately, this was a far far far cry from the one we had at Thomson Plaza. It did not have that wok hei. It was a lot less oily. (You could see the oil glistening in the bowl after our meal at Thomson Plaza. Not here.) And the chef was a bit heavy handed on the garlic.
My guess is that the Sushi Tei outlet at Thomson Plaza is a lot "rougher" than the one at Taka. Which is normally frowned upon, since Japanese food is usually so delicate with an emphasis on exquisite skill and fresh fine ingredients. Fried rice, especially tze-char styled fried rice, on the other hand is a lot more robust with strong flavours etc. So is Korean food.
It naturally follows then, that a more cavalier culinary showing would be more appropriate than dainty handling. And if we are right in that the chefs at Thomson Plaza cater more to the average robust Singapore palate then naturally, they would be better at preparing kimchi fried rice than those at Taka.
As you can tell, it has actually really little kimchi. Maybe we really are just paying jacked-up prices for yangzhou fried rice with a morsel of kimchi.
I would not want to try the tofu and bittergourd dishes. They seem like such an utter waste of money. Especially the "century egg tofu". I don't get it. We tried the hotpot the day before so we decided to try the kimchi with pork this time. Sharon thought it would be good since she likes the Korean version.
I don't know if the Thomson Plaza would have delivered a better version, but the one we had was blah. We were not impressed.
The one dish that did get us talking, however, was the gindara. Now, we have had the gindara multiple times at Sushi Tei and enjoyed it thoroughly each time. Especially if we were at Raffles City. And that night, the gindara stole the limelight.
Not for a good reason.
It was overcooked and rubbery. It had a nasty aftertaste. I mean, I didn't think it was that bad, I think an undiscerning eater would have eaten it. But it was definitely off. Sharon, on the other hand, was greatly displeased. In her own words, she calls it the "pui cod".
Naturally, she complained to the manager who did not find anything wrong with the cod but who also waived the cost. Great service, I have to say.
Not just because they waived the cost of the gindara, but because they also threw in not one but TWO desserts for free. Ahh, the power of complaints..
The first dessert we had was this wafer in the shape of a fish enveloping vanilla ice-cream (not photographed). It brought back fond nostalgic memories of the ice-cream man in Primary School who sold ice-cream for 50c. You know, cool thick slaps of raspberry ice-cream sandwiched by cheapo wafer slices? Yea, good times honey.
The second one was similar. Wafer biscuits positioned to resemble a clam with yuzu sorbet in its clasp with mochi and red-bean encircling the sorbet, much like a chain of maidservants around the princess pearl ;)
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The yuzu sorbet was refreshingly tart and light. It was not sour at all, it had an invigorating zest to it and did not have the squeamish saccharine-infusion that desserts are wont to have. I like desserts like that, but that's just a personal choice. I know many people who adore that sugared taste in their desserts that I find so cloying.
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