Kazu, Cuppage Plaza, Singapore

Kazu Sumi-Yaki Restaurant has to be one of the best, if not THE best yakitori joint in town. This place is so popular that I once had to wait twenty minutes for my table on a Monday night despite making reservations.

I'm still more of a fan of Korean soju but I could not resist ordering a bottle of their "Premium Sweet Potato Shoju".

The Japanese chili pepper powder is kept in the nifty looking container which a wooden peg plug. Somehow this reminded of a gun powder barrel and I was inspired to form this trail.... BOOM!

Since the shoju was a rather large bottle, I thought it would be better to have it on the rocks with lemon instead of drinking it straight.

There's this game I play everytime when I'm at Kazu. It's called "Fill the Container". It's actually very similar to playing pick-up sticks except the sticks are pretty much the same color and you don't really take them out of the container after you've put them in and you don't really pick them up hmm.... come to think of it, this game is NOTHING like pick-up sticks hahaha!

Grilled beef tongue. A tasty and chewy morsel, this a great way to start off this feast. The ones at Kazu are actually a lot more tender than others I've had but it's still chewy enough to give you a bit of bite.

Grilled asparagus wrapped in pork belly. I love this dish because it's such a contradiction. What better way is there to eat healthy crunchy asparagus than to encase it in fatty pork belly?

More pork belly wraps. These are the enoki and shimeji mushroom variants. I love mushrooms, they taste like magic hehehe.

There aren't many things not impaled by a stick that I would order at Kazu but their croquettes are really one of the best I've tasted. These are their pumpkin and crab croquettes. Crispy (but yet not greasy) on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, this is a low-carb dieter's nightmare but who really cares seriously. Hahaha!

Angler fish liver in ponzu sauce. I'm not a fan of this really but she always orders it when she's here. It's actually quite refreshing (in a tangy way) and rather smooth but definitely not something I would crave.

Grilled chicken skins in salt. You know chicken skin? The stuff some people peel off their KFC which creates such a tragedy every time I see it being done. It's a dish here and it tastes so good.

Half-time and D is still going strong. Will he survive the other half? Please stay tuned for more...

Foie gras.... this stuff literally melts in your mouth. Be careful not to hold the stick at an angle lest you drop a piece and risk spiralling into a bout of massive depression.

USDA Wagyu beef, this stuff is so marbled with fat that it was almost as tender as the foie gras. The amount of marbling in this cut is so abundant that it's really sinful but yet so tasty.

My personal favorite; grilled pork with apple. The sweetness of the apple permeates the juicy tenderness of the pork to create a match made in heaven. I've always wondered why pork is paired with apples. Maybe someone took that apple stuffed in that roasted pig's mouth (you know like the ones in cartoons?), took a bite and went, "Hey, these two go together pretty well!"

Grilled savory mochi. These little rice cakes puff up quite a bit when grilled and provide a nice chewy and sticky bite. Everytime I eat these, I'm reminded of the Marshmallow Man from Ghost Busters. Something about "stay puff" I reckon... my mind is weird haha.

Grilled chicken hearts, these are cleaned out a lot better (no coagulated blood) than the ones at the various churrascaria restaurants and hence taste a lot better too.

For er... purely "academic" reasons we ordered a serve of the Australian yakiniku Wagyu to see how it stood against their USDA counterparts. It's almost a walk-over here, USDA wins; hands down.

I was pretty full by the end of the meal (plus a few more rounds of some of the favorites) that I didn't really want any dessert. But I was so intrigued by the "Milk Sherbet" that I had to give it a shot. Intrigued because by definition sherbet is very much a sorbet i.e. there is not much dairy in it at all, so "Milk Sherbet" sounded oxymoronic enough to pique my curiosity haha.

There was nothing really mind-blowing about the milk sherbet. It was quite refreshing but I would still have preferred a citrus sorbet instead. This actually tasted like the Rabbit Milk Candy you get during Chinese New Year.

Close to forty sticks, not near my record but this will do for tonight.

The green tea here is roasted with some barley and rice which gives it a nice malty flavor. Great stuff to sober up with. By the way, I passed the keys for my ride to her (never drink and drive!), one of the perks of having dinner with someone else haha.

Just as I was about to leave, I saw this slogan on the back of my chopstick sheath that I never took notice of before. "Feel the heat" haha, I thought this was rather tacky but I was feeling warm, then again, it could have been that huge bottle of shoju at work.

This meal cost about 300SGD but if you don't drink just minus about 80SGD from that.

D

p.s: This will be last post... for a few days because I'm flying off for a short holiday tomorrow (another food haven no doubt). More to come when I return.