Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant

It was a strange time for the Teapots. They had left New Zealand for Singapore together and Piao Yi now wore Timothy’s ring on her finger, both of them clueless and rather apathetic to what it actually meant. Due to Piao Yi’s father’s whimsical internet purchase of cheap air tickets, they had travelled to Saigon, gotten thoroughly depressed by the War Remnants museum and, after a terribly harrowing flight back in a storm, ended up hungry and tired in Singapore.

“Let’s go to the office and see whether I can get my check,” Piao Yi said. Timothy responded with a sigh. Perhaps a different approach? Piao Yi thought. And thus, due to Piao Yi’s whimsical internet purchase, they ended up at walking up and down Tanjong Pagar looking for the M Hotel, a place that housed the Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant, where they had been promised (by Groupon.sg) an eight course Wagyu Beef dinner.

“We don’t have a reservation,” Piao Yi whined, “there might be heaps of people there. Do people eat out on weekends?” “Oh here it is! Doesn’t look like there’s too many people around,” Timothy said. “Well, I think it’s upstairs.”

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“Table for two? Do you have a reservation?” “Umm no. Also we’ve got this Groupon thing,” Piao Yi replied. The place looked mostly empty so the maitre d’ ushered them to a table. On presenting the Groupon PDF via Piao Yi’s iPad, however, they were told that since they hadn’t printed out the vouchers, they would have to pay a surcharge of a dollar.

“A dollar! Preposterous!” Timothy yelled. “Don’t mind him, it’s his birthday (it wasn’t),” Piao Yi said and proceeded to order some kind of delicious Yuzu soda thing.

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They didn’t have to wait long for the food to arrive. Advertised as a nine course Omakase set with Wagyu Beef, it started off with a tiny bowl of Wafu Salad. The fresh leaves were drenched in vinegar but it was rather unexceptional. “A pleasant start!” Timothy pronounced. A child of New Zealand and thereby a master of Self-Cookery, he had been complaining for weeks that people in Singapore ate out too often and also far too much meat and not enough greens.

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The next course was a little plate of Homemade Pitan Tofu. Pitan, they later found out, referring to something called Century Egg, an egg preserved in clay, lime and other things resulting in a rather vile, dark-colored, gelatinous item. The sauce covering the tofu was made out of the yolk of this egg and fish roe gleamed on top like jewels. They nibbled on the pretty thing gratefully. “Why does this taste slightly curried? It’s warm and light at the same time!” Piao Yi exclaimed. The tofu was soft and melty, perfectly complementing the deep flavor of the sauce.

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Next came the Sashimi. Artfully arranged on a blue plate were two pieces of Salmon, two pieces of Tuna, two pieces of Swordfish and one curled up piece of Salmon Belly. Timothy was overjoyed. Salmon was his favorite food! It took a great deal of restraint for him not to gobble up all the Salmon on the plate immediately. Instead, he took his time deciding what order to eat the Sashimi in and stuck to it, finishing off with the fatty Salmon Belly. Can anyone say anything truly bad about Sashimi? Of course it was all delicious, the Swordfish especially a pleasant surprise.

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And after that – more Salmon! Cooked this time! They were served plates of Grilled Salmon with a Spicy Cod Roe Mentai sauce. “Bit dry…” Timothy mumbled, stunning Piao Yi into silence. He’s saying something bad about Salmon! It was a bit dry though but their point of comparison, an intensely delicious piece of Salmon they had in Saigon the previous day, was unfair since that Saigon Salmon was the most succulent they had experienced. Anything compared to that would seem dry. The Mentai sauce was also slightly cloying. “Oh god! The courses are getting heavier!” the small-stomached Piao Yi fretted.

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for the rest of this review please visit kentuckyfriedcooking.wordpress.com

Full Review Here.

This restaurant's modus operandi seems to rely on marking up their ala-carte prices, packaging a few dishes together then advertising them on deals/group buying websites. If you google around you'll see that almost every single deals website will carry a set meal of some sort from Hokkaido Sushi. Even when you go to the restaurant and eat you'll notice almost every table eating similar stuff.

Having said that, as long as you keep this in mind and ignore the quoted discount percentage, the food actually isn't that bad. I paid $40/pax for a "Spring Kaiseki Set" (not real kaiseki, and most definitely NOT worth $105 as the "original price" claims), but the food is OK for the price. After all, we go eat 1 bowl ramen + 1 side dish already $20+ mah!

So anyways the kampachi sushi with truffle oil was pretty interesting cos I thought the aroma really complements the raw fish well. The rest of the dishes weren't particularly special or memorable but then for the price ... OK lah :D

For more photos and reviews check out fourleggedfoodies!

Once again lured by the promises of huge discounts from such websites (never again!), we bought a $49.90 for $153 omakase set for Hokkaido Sushi (which apparently has won awards before).  Prices below in brackets are the claimed value for the dishes that make up the $153 price tag.

First two courses were a Pitan Tofu ($5), just decent and the century egg flavour too diluted, and a Wafu Salad ($6), which was just ok. 

Sashimi plate ($35) came with a cold plate, meant it was pre-cut and kept in the fridge. What I believed to be salmon, aji, tai and maguro, they were not bad by any means, but no where near what I assumed freshly prepared air-flown Hokkaido sashimi to taste like.

Hokkaido Beni Shake Ikura Chawanmushi ($15?) - a little unusual - there was a layer of soup-like thingy housing the ikura just above the chawanmushi. This was pretty good actually, if you like the popping of the ikura roe, mildly sweet and salty. Chawanmushi was lukewarm, bordering on cool, but flavour was not bad.

Wagyu Tenderloin Beef with Mixed Mushroom ($25) - not bad - the beef was soft and tender and flavourful and the mushrooms were especially tasty. But I wouldn't have thought this was Wagyu and I definitely would not have paid $25 for this portion. Was served lukewarm.

Nama Shake Mentai Yaki ($18) - This was probably the highlight of the night! Perfectly grilled salmon steak with (overly) generous spreading of mentaiyaki - light, flaky, sweet and the skin full of omega 3, and went well with the sweet sweet mentaiyaki.

Signature Hokkaido Maki ($10) - surprisingly good, can't go wrong with fried seafood in a sushi roll! The bits of roasted sesame and the generous tobiko gave a really great flavour overall, sauce was a little too creamy and we hoped it was by the side instead of sitting on it.

Wakame Soba ($10?) - I thought there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary of this supposedly $10 bowl of soba, and in fact I thought the soba was a little too chewy.

Matcha Ice Cream ($6?) - a little too sweet and not enough Matcha for my liking, Haagen Dazs or Tom's Palette's variation is definitely superior.

I thought that the dinner overall was okaay but definitely not worth the supposed $153 in total. Thing is, we don't know if the restaurant serves the exact same thing if we were to order ala carte. If it does, then this place is waaaay overpriced. There is a pretty good chance of getting food of equal quality for much cheaper elsewhere.

Deal was oversold - not worth the $80 plus it said it was worth, hence the high discount, but worth the price I paid for it.

Ambience:  Lovely setting, with dining area for Teppan, hot pot and comfortable tables and chairs.  Quiet - until the lunch horde came in.

Food:  We had expected to be served individual portions but all the food came in a tray.  The salad with Jap seasoning was tasty, miso soup good - but not worth the $5 for another bowl (I asked for it), 2 pc each of salmon and tuna were delicously fresh, succulent and not mushy.  Thickly sliced, it went well with the wasabe n good quality soy sauce provided.  Saba fish was not so fresh, too strong fish smell. Although the chawamushi was tasty,  the piece of dead chicken meat in it spoiled the overall pleasure of the fresh shrimp and mushroom in it.  What a pity.  The worst was the chicken n rice, chicken was not well seasoned and had an overwhelming sweet taste,  not even teriyaki taste.  Packed it for home.

Value:  Not worth the purported full price but OK at discount.

Service:  It wasn't so crowded but waitresses were not attentive as it should be for this class of restaurant and its prices.

See title. I'm really not kidding, went there with 3 friends and had a delicious, super worth it meal so I'm probably going to buy like 10 more of those deals. The sashimi was thickly cut and melt-in-your-mouth fresh. Everything was done to perfection and there was complimentary hot green tea and matcha ice cream at the end! (I think it's only if you go there for dinner on weekdays and lunch/dinner on weekends though)

Service was excellent compared to Singapore restaurants but not up to super high Japanese standards. When the bill came, I informed the waitress that they missed out on one yuzu tea ($4) and she was like 'oh sorry' and went to get it changed. In Japan, the waitress would probably apologize profusely to the point of seppuku and say it's on the house for their mistake. I mean, a tea is only like $4? But it's no biggie, really :)

Ambience was alright, a little plain and not much of a view. The food stands out the most. Their menu prices look really scary though. If I won the lottery I'd splurge here.

Bought a good deal to enjoy a $232.85 worth of Teppanyaki with hubby. Our set consisted of: 

1) Salad - fresh greens tossed in Jap sauce. Ok, pretty nice.

2) Sashimi - 3 cuts of salmon and 2 cuts of tuna, very fresh and thick slices too 

3) Chawamushi with shark-fin - I must say this is the first time I have steamed eggs with shark-fin on top. I am not a fan of shark-fin and I thought that as topping was a little over-the-top. On it's own, the steamed eggs were good. 

4) Salmon omelette - the sauce that the chef used to cook the salmon in the Aluminum foil...awesome. I almost asked for a spoon so I would not waste the sauce!! But I must maintain my atas composure mah... 

5) Scallops & Tiger prawns tossed in mayo - the scallops and tigers were HUGE! The chef grilled the seafood first before coating it with mayo & this secret sauce = woohoo!! 

6) Chicken & Beef - grilled chicken skin side first to get that crispyness. Then chef cubed it together with the beef steak and he glazed it with his secret sauce. Yummy. 

7) Mushroom soup - I know... Funny dish to appear in Teppanyaki but I didn't want the Miso soup lah. Mushroom soup is decent. 

8) Garlic rice - I always look forward to this dish and always hope chef will give me the bigger bowl!! :) The garlic rice turned out to be a rather big serving and I was stuffed at the end of it. 

9) Vegetable - another one of my fav and chef didn't disappoint again with this dish. 

10) Dessert - almost too full to move, still with a dessert to round off a wonderful meal! We chose Green Tea ice cream as it was in line with the Jap cuisine. Hubby and I agreed that their Macha is really really good, I can't explain it, it just doesn't taste cheap lor! One of the best I've tasted. :) 

I don't think I'll return as it's really too expensive without the discount. But if I have the cash, then BRING IT ON!!

oIt was really terrible experience, Friday dinner at Hokkaido restaurant in M hotel. The restaurant was horribly crowded. So the number of staff was not enough to serve the hungry crowds. For the first one hour, on our table nothing but a Sake bottle. Can you believe it there was no appetizer at all for an hour!?

Finally a plate with Sashimi came to us, the taste was not bad. Then after a plate of Sashimi, there came an appetizer. Problem is the service attitude of staff. No apology at all. They should not handle the customers which they can handle.

Overall, the taste is not bad, but it is strongly recommended that we should not visit this restaurant with hungry stomach. At least prepare for 10 hours to spare, then go and try. Fish is very fresh and nice. But do not expect the service. It was really terribly SLOW.

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow.

Cheapskate strikes again! Took advantage of the online coupons. The 9-course would cost $242 but with the coupon, only $68!

"Omakase" means "it's up to you," which means the chef will pick and choose for you after knowing your likes, dislikes, and allergies. We saw Chef Thomas Kok at the restaurant; he is one of the pioneers of bringing Jap food to Singapore in 1980s. Voted as best restaurant in 2009, I know why it hasn't been picked for 2010 and 2011 - for what reasons, read on.

The discount coupon website said that the food is safe (from radiation), but the restaurant claims to fly the food in from Tsujiki market, which is near the radiation site. A little confusing. Die lah, what if I get cancer?

The decor is simple and elegant, dark tables and chairs, with dimmed lighting, creating a zen feel to the place. I feel that the tables are too large, prevent intimate conversations, and knowing this, 14K very sweetly asked if I wanted him to sit beside me.

Now the food: Complimentary stewed shredded radish and carrots. Eh, no taste.

First dish. Salad. Vegetables were fresh, but I thought the dressing was too heavy, oily and too vinegary.

Starter: tamago (egg), tofu with roe in a sauce that tastes like salted egg, deep fried salmon skin. The egg and salmon skin failed to impress, bland. I threw the skin in the salad to provide a more layered taste. Didn't like the texture of the tofu, rather hard, but the sauce was delicious.

Third dish: sashimi, including tuna, salmon, swordfish and yellowtail. Not the freshest I have eaten. 4th dish: Cod fish on salty roe sauce. Overly oily. The sauce didn't blend with or into the fish. 5th dish: Tempura scallops. Oily, hard scallops. I like my men hard, but my scallops tender.

6th dish: Wagyu beef in foie gras sauce. Best dish. We love it. The beef was tender and soft and the foie gras covered the beefy taste, although it didn't penetrate into the meat. (usually it is the meat who does the penetrating, so I forgive foie gras for lack of practice.)

Tea Soup. Squeeze the lime in the soup and pour in cup to drink. Blah. Bland.

8th:  Assorted sushi. If you notice this blog, I haven't been eating sushi for the longest time. That's because in May 2010, I ate at the most amazing omakase-styled sushi restaurant, Yasuda. I described it to my friends as I ate the sushi, I felt like I was in the countryside with a wide open field of tall grass and lalang, and a breeze blew, and the grass swayed. Good sushi, you shouldn't dip in soy sauce or wasabi at all. Unfortunately, Chef Kok couldn't achieve what Chef Yasuda did. It was very disappointing. T he restaurant is named Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant. Why is the wagyu beef better than the sushi? When I go to Sakae, I expect crappy sushi, so that's fine. But here, I had high expectations after all the good reviews. The ingredients were fresher than Sakae, but the sushi are basically the same.

Dessert: Homemade green tea ice cream. Too sweet for me.

14K and I thought although the service was excellent, the dishes were served up too quickly. Usually in a classy restaurant, you take 2-3 hours to eat the meal but here, they served us the dishes when we hadn't even finished the last dish. You would expect such a quiet place to be romantic, but the restaurant decor and the attentive service made it difficult to be romantic.

Overall, the food was average to sad, the ambience and service excellent, but I wouldn't pay $242 for a meal like this.

Hokkaido sushi Restaurant is located at Level 9 of M hotel. They are currently having promotions for their bento sets. You are entitled to 30% discount if you possess a DBS card and order the bento sets during weekends and public holiday. I made use of this opportunity to try their Japanese bento sets as I find it’s quite worth it.

They offer ala-carte and bento sets but I highly recommend the bento sets as the portion is just perfect for 1 pax and it is 30% off during weekends! There are different bento sets for you to choose from thus please make a wise choice.

Salad with Wafu dressing

As I opt not to have pickles in my bento set, they kindly prepared this Salad with Wafu dressing for me.

I know it is weird to order a salad in a Japanese Restaurant but I really do not like pickles and vinegared stuff. This salad is pretty to look at and it has strips of surimi as toppings. I like the wafu dressing which has a tangy flavour.

Gindara Teriyaki

I opt for the Gindara bento set- comes with miso soup, sushi rice, fruits and side salad. There was a choice of either TERIYAKI / SHIOKAYI for the cod fish. 2 fillets of grilled cod appeared in front of me, perfectly grilled with oomph factor.I always like fish skin thus I left it to the last to savour it slowly. Look at the charred fish skin, it looks so beautiful and on top of that, it was crispy and has a smoky flavour…. definitely shiok!The cod is soft and tender, it flakes off easily using the chopsticks. Be sure to enjoy it slowly to enjoy the delicious cod in Teriyaki sauce.

The bento set – Nasu with seafood

A little confusing, I ordered this Nasu with seafood as an ala-carte order but they serve it with the bento set while the cod teriyaki is served separately.

I love Nasu thus I had this nasu with seafood with the recommendation of the manager. The nasu is sliced into small pieces and cooked with some fish , squid and a prawn.When the dish is presented in front of me, I could literally see the pool of oil but I thought it was the sauce. Taken a closer look at it, the nasu slices are ”swimming” in a pool of oil. I think there should be some QC check as they actually serve a plate of super oily dish to a customer! But, I still managed to finish this dish as I hate wasting food !

The nasu is soft but soaked in oil and I had to ”drain’‘ away the excess oil on a piece of tissue paper. It was just a disappointing dish.

Mango ice-cream

If you pay by DBS credit card, you are entitled to a free scoop of matcha/mango ice-cream. I thought I should get the matcha flavour since I was in a Japanese restauarnt but the waitress told me to get the mango instead. The ice-cream is served almost instantly as she told me the ice-cream was from a supplier.

Anyway, the ice-cream was just average, with bits of mangoes in it.

Overall verdict: I would strongly encourage to come on a weekend/ PH to enjoy the discount and get the bento sets as it is more worth it.

Having read recent reviews of this restaurant and upon learning that it had come up tops in a recent online survey, my better half and i decided to pop down to this restaurant to sample the food.

Ambience

A typical japanese restaurant setting in a business class restaurant; i made reservations to be seated at the sushi counter and we have always enjoyed watching sushi chefs at work.

Food

As is quite often these days when we are in japanese restaurants, we opted to go 'Omakase'. This is probably my favourite way to sample japanese cuisine at the top end as it proffers the opportunity to taste items we would not have ordered otherwise.

We started off with an appetiser of tofu with century egg, squid and fish liver. The presentation was delightful and i was most impressed with the fish liver (it is a bit of an acquired taste - i recognise that the missus has yet attained). Next up was the obligatory sashimi platter - we had a bountiful of scallops, uni, kanpanchi, prawn (a large one at that), and the achingly tasty otoro. There was no question about the freshness of the fish and we requested for the large prawn heads to be deep fried and put in soup.

We were then served a soup consisting of bamboo shoots and winter melon, followed grilled Kama. For me, this has got to the be the highlight of the meal. The fish was slightly charred on the outside but retained moisture in its flesh. It was undeniably fresh and i could certainly eat that everyday. Foie gras chawanmushi made an appearance; there were very feint hints of foie gras, but the taste of crab was much more evident in the chawanmushi. Following this, we were crab meat in a concotion of potatoes and cheese in a crab shell. This reminded us of something we had had during our trip to hokkaido a few years back.

Next in the firing line was wagyu beef steak served with young japanese potatoes. The steak was medium rare at best, and it provided a bit of a respite (not that we needed one to be truthful) from the seafood dishes we had been having all evening. By the time we had finished, we were almost filled up but we did speculate that there would be a sushi dish. Lo and behold, we were proven right and we soon saw a plate of 4 pieces of sushi (uni, scallops, otoro and a fish which i did not recognise). The sushi was good though i would not rate it as highly as what we had had before at Tatsuya (very few places in SGP would be that good). We finished dinner with a serving of musk melon and strawberries; it provided the perfect ending to an almost perfect meal.

Service

Not much to complain about there; the wait staff topped up our sake efficiently, and service was executed in a polite fashion.

Verdict

Not cheap, but it was good value. Will certainly go again.