Tarabagani, Kuriya, Great World City, Singapore

Lasting 10 years in the fickle and volatile food and beverage industry is no easy feat. Kuriya dining is currently celebrating their 10th year anniversary with an Alaskan king crab (tarabagani) set. I've always been a pretty loyal patron of Kuriya because their food is consistently fresh, tasty and their promotions and monthly specials always make dining here refreshing.

We started with a monthly special of black sesame seed beancurd fried agadeshi style. This was pretty tasty. It's softer but chewier than conventional beancurd and the black sesame seed flavor was aromatic and pronounced.

Our next starter was pan seared foie gras. Quite well executed too. These little chunks of fatty liver did the thing to whet our appetites.

Another special was the fresh conger eel tempura.

The flesh within the crisp tempura casing was all so fatty and succulent. Although the tempura batter here isn't as light as Tenshin's, it's still pretty damn good and most importantly doesn't come too greasy either.

Horse mackeral sashimi was up next. Now you guys know I'm not a fan of sashimi but this is probably as fresh as it gets in Singapore. No hints of fishiness at all, just pure delicious mackeral flavor.

Finally, our first course of the tarabagani set arrived haha. The king crab salad rice paper rolls were quite fun but nothing mindblowing really. I wished they had placed the condiments as toppings instead of placing then by the side, it would have been a lot easier to eat that way.

Grilled king crab legs were next. I've always loved grilled shellfish (if done properly) and fortunately it's done pretty well here.

A nice smoky taste hits you before the sweetness of the fresh and succulent flesh. The great thing about the crabs here are they're either shelled or sliced saggitally, allowing easy access to the flesh.

Tempura king crab was up next. The batter was actually thinner and lighter than the one used for the conger eel and therefore made this alot more delectable.

The tasty flesh of a whole shelled king crab leg in crisp tempura batter. This course was unarguably the best in the set.

The first of the last two "filler" dishes arrived. The king crab paper steamboat had quite alot of meaty crab portions in it. Let the soup come to a boil first and once the essence of crab seeps into the broth, it tastes pretty super.

The udon which accompanied the steamboat was blanched to the point just before it's fully cooked. In that way, you can finish it off in the steamboat so that it may absorb the flavorsome broth without going too soft and soggy.

Earlier on, after finishing the horse mackeral sashimi, we requested to have the bones deep-fried. It took awhile to arrive (in fact we thought they might have forgotten about it) but when it did, it was worth the wait. Like eating crisps and crackers, we could crunch down every bit of the mackeral skeleton.

The last savory course was the assorted sushi which of course featured a king crab one as well. Somehow I felt the winner in this was the sea bream though, it tasted so fresh and sweet that it could probably be one of the best raw sea bream sushis I've had so far.

I've always enjoyed desserts at Kuriya. They actually put in effort here to create something nice instead of some places which serve just a plate of "Japanese" fruit. You could taste the vanilla beans in the vanilla ice-cream which complemented the tart raspberry mousse perfectly. So far, I've yet to be disappointed with Kuriya and I sure hope it stays that way.

D