Painting flavours

There’s a lit­tle Japan­ese restau­rant on Sen­tosa whose name is an insti­tu­tion in Sin­ga­pore, and we were for­tu­nate enough to be invited there to eat our­selves to death last Sat­ur­day night.

It was by far the best Japan­ese food I have ever tasted in my life. I know Japan­ese food is sup­posed to be del­i­cate and its flavours intri­cate, but Nogawa’s newest restau­rant at Sen­tosa Golf Club is really a hid­den trea­sure — espe­cially if you’re not accus­tomed to trav­el­ling to Sen­tosa for din­ner (we were say­ing we were a few years too early — there’d be much more to do if a casino were already there), or if you were not a mem­ber of the Sen­tosa Golf Club.

I’m not a foodie, and I find it dif­fi­cult to describe food, unlike them slow food con­vi­vi­vivors, and I often just say if the food’s “good” or “bad”.

But at Nogawa’s Sen­tosa… Man! Every morsel of every dish seemed to paint a sub­tly dis­tinct flavour in my mouth. If you can imag­ine a Pan­tone chart-like chart of flavours, you’d know what I mean.

Tech­no­rati Tags: food, japan­ese, Nogawa, Sen­tosa, sin­ga­pore

Before you rush down Sen­tosa Gate­way and pay the toll and entrance fee to Singapore’s Last Resort Island to check out the menu, you might want to do what some sea­soned sushi affi­ciona­dos do — chat up the sushi chef and ask what’s good. You’re likely to sam­ple things not on the menu, like Fugu, the very poi­so­nous puffer fish which, if not pre­pared prop­erly, might kill you where you sit. (In a rep­utable Japan­ese restau­rant, you’d be able to enjoy Fugu and live at least till after you’ve paid the bill).

There was a soup dish which our host­ess described as ‘puffer fish sperm’, and hav­ing writ­ten that, I feel obliged to show a pic­ture of the soup dish — just so you know that it looks as good as it is palatable:

Sounds bet­ter in Japan­ese, I think

Then, we were treated to the sweet­est, best-tasting tomato in the entire universe.

It’s sup­posed to be sweeter than the Momo­taro tomo­toes (at $3 each at Cold Stor­age) that are sold locally along­side other cur­rently fash­ion­able fruit such as blood oranges, and they’re smaller and are shaped like small onions. You can also ask for these toma­toes to be juiced, and the restau­rant will serve them in shot glasses to you. How good are these things? Let’s see how I’d describe them if I were a slow food con­vi­vi­vivor:

“You say tomato I say tomato… let’s call the whole thing off and just eat the damn things cos they is dope!”

Lack­ing a bit in the the­atrics, but can lah!

Flickr Set of Nogawa

Nogawa Sen­tosa Restau­rant
27 Bukit Manis Road
Sin­ga­pore 099892
Tel: 6373 7120