You have to try the lamb chop......incredible.

10/10

Had been meaning to try out Nanbantei and the chance presented itself one evening when I happened to be at Orchard with my gf. Located on the 5th floor of the hip Far East Plaza, Nanbantei, which specialises in Yakitori, has garnered many accolades and rave reviews including that of Tatler's Singapore's Best Restaurant.

The interior of Nanbantei is rather tiny and cramp and the bulk of the seating comes in the form of counter seats (there are a few tables that can accomodate 4 though), which offer a live view of the chef grilling your orders. When I say cramp, it means almost shoulder to shoulder with the person beside you at the counter, which is really disconcerting to say the least.

The scallop was quite a size and came very well seasoned and grilled. A nice smokey taste lingered, complementing the fibrous texture of the scallop. I did find the salt a little too heavy though.

Asparagus Maki & Nikuzume Shiitake - If I may say, the asparagus maki was nothing short of excellent. It really surpassed all expectations. Soft asparagus covered with a layer of pork grilled till crisp and a sprinkling of salt for that extra flavour. If not for the price($5.70), I would have ordered more.
The Shiitake mushroom stuffed with chicken was average really. The chicken taste overwhelmed the mushroom and it was a tad too salty.

Ebi - At $7 per relatively large prawn, its honestly quite expensive especially when there was no marination or anything, save for the dash of salt sprinkled whilst grilling. To give it credit, the prawns were sweet with a nice grilled taste. But believe me, take away the shells and the meat is minimal.

Tokusei Tsukune - Nanbantei's Tokusei Tsukune or house special meatballs, was essentially 2 skewers of meat merged into one huge and rather unsightly chunk and came served with a single raw quail's egg sliced off at the top. The meat was nicely minced with bits of uneveness but I did find the dish to be very salty probably due to the sauce. A decent dish, but not fantastic.

Shiitake - Yet another overly salty dish, the shiitake didn't come across as too dry though due to the sauce. Not something I would order again for just over $5.

Yaki Onigiri - A Japanese speciality according to the waitress, the Yaki Onigiri was rather interesting and looked very much like a corn cob. Grilled to charred and hard on the outside yet a little soft and sticky on the inside. The flavours were a mix and match of salty and spicy, which honestly was a terrible end to the meal. It definitely didn't help that bits of the charred rice were very prone to getting lodged in between my teeth.

$68 for a meal with such meagre portions is ridiculously expensive in my opinion, even though the food is fairly decent. To be fair, Nanbantei does offer set meals at $32++ for 8 sticks of yakitori which does seem a better deal, but going ala carte is definitely a big no no. Drinks are expensive as well and no complimentary iced water is served.

See all my pictures here.

I'm back with a photo of the obento set lunch, which also comes with chilled mochi in red beans for dessert. The meats (pork roll, meatball, chicken with leeks) and vegetables (asparagus and okra) were nicely grilled, not too salty. Only $15 inclusive of taxes for everything.

N.B. I asked to have the okra instead of the standard quail eggs, which can be seen in my previous post.

This is one of my favourite restaurants, and it's been around for more than 10 years. The meats are grilled in full view of the patrons but they leave the place still smelling fresh.

For lunch they have bento sets which come with kushiyaki, salad, rice covered in minced pork, mushrooms and seaweed, miso soup and mochi in red bean paste. The meats were tender with a tinge of salt on the surface, but the rice with mince is still my favourite part of the meal (it's been like that since I was a child). You can also order other kushiyaki a la carte, and I adore the plump and juicy scallops we once had. (Edit: Read more in the subsequent post above)

I popped by for dinner recently and this is what you get for the $40 set I ordered - 12 sticks of kushiyaki (as shown in the photos, aside from meatballs and grilled chicken with leeks), rice, salad, miso soup and dessert. I wasn't a fan of the beef as it was a bit flavourless but I enjoyed the gingko nuts, the plump chicken liver, the juicy prawn and the smoky-tasting chicken wings. I dislike okra but manage to eat this bacon-wrapped version. The pork rolls and chicken with leeks are served with the lunchtime bento.

Dinner was a lovely experience, and I'm glad I got to try it once, but due to the constraints of my wallet, I'll return just for lunch.

I’m sick and tired of poseur Japanese food being marketed as the real deal in Singapore. Your brand just doesn’t look Japanese enough? Slap on a cutesy logo with Engrish slogan and Viola! You’ve got yourself a healthy following of jap-food crazed Singaporeans. Too bad not everyone is as discerning when it comes to flushing out the wannabes from the authentic.

So THANK GOD for Nanbantei. Understated shop front, next-to-zilch advertising (unless you count good’ol word-of-mouth), it recedes to 80s nostalgic incongruity in teeny-bopper Far East Plaza. If my dad hadn’t brought us there some 6 or 7 years ago, I would have walked right by and been denied some of the most authentic Japanese kushiyaki 6.5 hours away from Japan.

And to this day, Nanbantei remains on my crave list, that is, a must-go spot should a heart-stopping, mind-numbing and spasm-inducing lust for meat on sticks with a healthy sprinkle of salt besets me. And trust me, since Nanbantei, such episodes have been often. At Nanbantei, they do not dunk the prized sticks into teriyaki sauce. The offending sauce is one of the best known and ubiquitous exports from Japanese cuisine and has, unbeknownst to non-connoisseurs, invaded every dish that sounds remotely Japanese. I’m sorry but I’m not one for desert-sweet meat for my mains, thank you very much. So not only does the teriyaki sauce colonize every known Japanese dish, it has also been bastardized to a much sweeter, south-east-asian variant. So imagine my relief when Nanbantei had none of such nonsense. My stamp of approval was given on first visit.

Though commonly offered by other restaurants, you have to try Nanbantei’s version of the bacon asparagus. There tissue-thin bacon wins the day over the overly fatty and chewy offerings I’ve had elsewhere. Tebasaki (chicken wings) is also prepared the authentic way where the chef actually splits the mid-joint apart, so that as you chew through the deliciousness, the bones falls right off your stick. No fuss, no grease and god only knows why nobody else lack the sense to follow suit (except for Kazu and maybe Shin Kushiyaki). Nanbanyaki is beef grilled with a healthy dash of miso. A must-have at this joint!

Most of the menu items come in pairs and the more premium ones will be served solo. One such premium item is the Salmon wrapped with Bacon. It’s just the brilliant pairing of 2 of my favourite meat in the world, served with the bacon grilled to the right amount of crisp and the salmon never overcooked. Most items average at $5 per 2 sticks whereas the premium ones could range anywhere from $6 and up for a stick.

Kushiyaki is standard Japanese salarymen fare after a hard day’s work over copious amounts of beer. In Singapore, it tends to get overly expensive too quickly if all I had were miniscule amounts of meat on sticks. I tend to have my dinner here paired with garlic rice and a tofu claypot soup, so some semblance of a balanced meal will go easy on my stomach and my wallet. The chefs may be a largely Singaporean crew these days, but I’d wager they went through Japanese boot-camp to qualify a place behind that charcoal grill. I’d say skip the sashimi if you can help it, this is simply not the place where one should lose focus from amazing kushiyaki, so don’t let lackluster sashimi do this place any unneeded injustice.