Oh dear, this isn't going to be easy nor pleasant.

French and Japanese. My two favourite cuisines. At $58++, this sounds like a dream come true.

Unless of course you love overkill.

AMBIENCE:

Step right in and I thought I was in a high-class karaoke joint. A noisy table with yuppies toasting wine was a tip off that this is anything but 'high class'.

We were shown to a table along the walkway, that had 1) POLYESTER table cloth that was TOO LONG; 2) tacky colour; 3) too noisy and bustling

However, upon request, they did accommodatingly give us another table that was less harrassing.

SERVICE:

OK, now the service. Some service staff have it (that is poise, charm, eloquence and wit). Undoubtedly the wait staff at Dozo were friendly. BUT, come on, repeating the SAME CORNY jokes to the next table is a real turn off. If you haven't got natural chattiness and charm, please, save it! Not to mention, their spoken English was so horrendous that our poor assigned server had to repeat what he was saying at least 3 times. Even then, we had to guess what those rolled together words with appalling pronunciation, were. On top of that, the service was very intrusive. I mean, come on. I don't need to be attended to every 30 secs! Sorry. You people are lovely, but too much of a good thing is a waste.

FOOD:

What was I eating? Actually, I know what I was eating, but I do not need the wait staff to explain to me as if I had just stepped out of my home for the first time in my life. Please. Oh, and to use my cutlery to cut my steak to explain 'doneness'...well, I thought that was plain rude and inappropriate. Service staff should NEVER touch my food with my cutlery. And besides, I like my steak rare...It came medium/medium well.

Let's see, if the chef would like to indulge himself by cooking supposedly 'high-end' food, then work in a high-end restaurant. Instead, the food came off over-presented for the price, over-manicured, overkill overkill overkill. It wasn't exceptional. It was forgettable. Then again, what do you expect for $58? Threw me for the loop the way it was all brought out. What's with all the gimmicks? A truly great restaurant never has to rely on gimmicks and cosmetics to draw people back. It's like a plain looking girl that wears too much make-up in order to get noticed (HAHAHA)! Sad but true.

7-courses - that's how good 'value' this place was supposed to be.
But 7-courses of what? Tiny bite sizes of overly presented, forgettable food. And the 6th course is an ice refresher? What's that? A glorified name for fruit juice with cut fruit bits and tea. The dessert, our server was boasting, was the 'best choc lava cake' in Singapore. Really? Sorry for the disappointment. I've had better. WAY better.

The Japanese bit wasn't really good. Then again, the French bit was a huge disappointment too. Pity. It didn't encapsulate the essence of Japanese (simple concepts, natural flavours) and French (robust flavours with simple home-grown ingredients) cuisines. Once again, too much cosmetics!


VALUE:
$58++ for 7-courses initially seems like a good deal. On hindsight, I'd rather pay more to have a beautifully cooked 2-course meal, than pay less for SO-SO, FUSSY, FORGETTABLE (not here not there) and GIMMICKY food that's nothing but cosmetics. Not so good value after all.

To sum it up, Dozo pretends to be a fine dining restaurant without the 5-star price. Isn't that just pretentious then? The old adage of quantity does not equal quality is applicable here. Always best to be good at a few things, then to try to be overly ambitious and not be very good at many things. Scale down from 7 so-so bite-size courses, and focus on 3 or 4 good size portions of signature courses and do it really really well. In the end, ultimately it's great food that wins. Not the number of courses and gimmicks a restaurant throws in.