Nagae is located at the Waterfront Plaza but in a completely different tower to
Grand Shanghai. That's why I've never seen it before. I was asked by a friend to try out their seasonal
kaiseki and thought, "Why not?". Afterall, there are only that many Japanese restaurants in Singapore who do kaiseki and since I had some time to spare that evening (kaiseki dining can be quite time-consuming) as well.
For the
saki-tsuke/Japanese delicacy course we had lightly seasoned raw squid. Ok, I've
never been fond of raw seafood but at least this didn't taste fishy. Still, I only had two and gave the last one away.
The
zensai/appetizer that followed was more of my kind of thing. Perfectly grilled Japanese bamboo clams covered with a generous coat of mentaiko, this was very
nice. The giant bean pod there only had about four beans in it haha. It reminded me of some sort of overgrown edamame. The grilled asparagus side was also very fresh and refreshing.
On to the
sashimi course; we both agreed the red snapper tasted the
best in this. The large shrimp wasn't too bad either and was a lot less slimy than I feared it to be but as with most of my sashimi meals, my dining companion had an extra serve courtesy of
D.
The
yakimono/grilled item was a mana-gatsuo (silver pomfret) fillet. Being boneless was a great plus and this was very nicely grilled with a hint of sweet sake but very lightly salted so as not to overpower the freshness of the fish.
Here's
D waiting for the next course. He's wearing his "Fugu Survivor" t-shirt from
Kuriya as a form of subtle intimidation to the Nagae crew. So
subtle was it that no one really cared nor noticed haha!
The
taki-awase/braised meal consisted of fresh young bamboo shoots and asparagus braised in a very light miso broth. Although some may find this bland, I actually enjoyed it quite abit, especially the bamboo shoots which were cooked to the right texture.
For the
agemono/deep-fried dish, we were presented with a crab cake. Whilst this was only slightly smaller than the ones at
Morton's it was fried in very light crisp batter coated with shredded potato.
The crab meat within was still very moist and
succulent. I'm not sure if the flesh was pre-boiled first before the quick fry or it was cooked during the fry but it still tasted very sweet and fresh.
The sunomono/vinegar dish was Hokkaido hairy crab.
Although this was served with additional vinegar by the side, the light rice vinegar seasoning in the crab was
good enough for it to be eaten straight. Unlike the
Shanghai hairy crabs, Hokkaido hairy crabs are normally served for their flesh, not roe and indeed, this was
tasty flesh.
The
gohanmono/main course comes just before the dessert. This course almost always takes the form of
rice; be it a rice-bowl, fried-rice, curry even and this case, a sushi platter.
Praise has to go to the unagi which has to be about one of the best unagi sushis I've had in Singapore. Moist, oily, not too sweet but still flavorsome with a nice smokey tang, this was my pick for the plate. The whitefish and clam were pretty decent too.
While the star of this plate was
supposedly the otoro-sushi, I thought it was ok. Then again, I'm not into raw food. If only they did it aburi-style instead, that blow torch would have been great to sizzle out some of the fat.
Ending the
gohanmono was a bowl of miso soup with seaweed and soft beancurd. Made from pretty good quality miso, this didn't taste like salt-water and went down pretty well.
I was slightly
disappointed with the
mizugashi/dessert of Japanese persimmon. This was naturally very sweet and crunchy and I know this stuff isn't cheap. Perhaps they were leaning towards the original zen concept of kaiseki but I would have liked something more indulgent, like
ice-cream!
Some say that a true test of a Japanese restaurant is to try some of their simpler fare. Afterall all, if they can't get the basics right, how may we have confidence in the other more complex dishes? But that's
not why I ordered this. I just like tamago sushi alot that's all haha. It's nice that the quality of the sushi rice was the same as the sushi served in the kaiseki. The egg was very nicely flavored but I just thought it was very very
slightly overcooked and dry.
All the courses were accompanied with good old ice-cold Hakushika.
If you took notice of
all the courses in this kaiseki, you would realize that it had a seafood theme. Great for the seafood lover but I prefer some mammals in my food. The freshness of the fare is certainly evident and I didn't have much complaints throughout the
two-and-a-half hours of dining. But as an overall assessment, I'm still partial towards
Kuriya for kaiseki (they tend to regularly serve something more indulgent for dessert, like
ice-cream haha). However, if Kuriya's kaiseki menu hasn't changed yet, I may consider checking out Nagae. This meal cost about 250SGD for two.
D
At about three, we were feeling rather peckish and thought it appropriate to indulge in some afternoon tea. I didn't get the name or exact location of this Indian coffeeshop but there are quite a lot of them scattered across the old town. We started off with the onion roti canai. Crisp and fluffy without being too greasy this was a pretty good appetizer.
Maggi mee goreng was next. I love this dish and yes, I do confess that I love it partly because they've amalgamated two-words together. Stir-fried pre-cooked instant noodles with ample ghee and a squeeze of lime (it neutralizes all the oil haha), very yum.
We rounded up the meal with another well-done chicken murtabak and washed it all down with some creamy milk tea.
