Japanese Gourmet Town

Was rushing for a movie on the eve of New Year 2010 and did not want to fight the food court / fast food dinner seating problem. Chanced upon this neat and quiet restaurant which looks quite promising in the short wait time category . The orders were quickly taken and food was served within 10 minutes. Ordered a Volcano Ramen and another Tender Chicken & Vegetable Curry. My friend and I enjoyed sharing both orders quite happily for the price we paid. Serving size was suitable for two average eaters.

The volcano ramen was served with a rather oily chilli paste. Although a lover of chilli spiced food, and could not wait to taste the volcanity .. I still took pains to scoop the layer of oil onto the serving plate before digging in the food. ( look at the photo attached ) As for the tender chicken and vegetable curry, the herbs and curry flavour tasted like KamBing Soup without as much oil. The big chicken drum stick was tender and soft too. It was served with a big bowl of rice for my dinner partner who is also a big RICE eater. Just nice..

The overall experience was good, from placing the order to footing the bill, the whole process took just 30 minutes. We even had time to take pictures of the food for this review. :) Nice place for a quick japanese meal. See Through Open kitchen concept was refreshing too.

Bring your own chopsticks for your part in environmental conservation as they use disposable ones.

Perhaps the wide variety of dishes may be appealing to some, but the food quality is mediocre.

The lunch sets at $10.90 for a ramen, a side dish and a drink is good value for a quick lunch though.

The most horrific dining experience in Singapore so far.... We walked past this place a few times and it always looked interesting so we decided to try it and it was a MISTAKE! I had a curry noodle with veggie and the curry soup tasted like the instant noodle curry powder packet diluted with gallons of water. One bite of it and I gave up. My husband had another dish which I can't remember what it was but it was equally bad!! Really, why bother with this place when there are other Japanese restaurants in vivocity!

if you enjoy eating all kinds of japanese food, note down this place in your address book. the japanese gourmet town at vivocity houses three restaurants from three cities under one roof!

there's ajisen ramen (from kyushu), botejyu okonomiyaki (from osaka) and sapporo curry yoshimi (from hokkaido). how convenient that diners can get to sample dishes from different areas in japan!

i think singaporeans are already very familiar with the ubiquitous ajisen outlets. but the other two offer a very interesting deviation from your usual japanese fares. i'm not sure if the 3-restaurants-in-1 concept is anything new, but i love it!

let me start with the soup curry that hails from hokkaido. japanese curry usually comes in the form of a thick gravy. the soup curry, as its name suggests, is thin. it is also spicier and typically contains potatoes, carrots and other vegetables.

when ordering the soup curry, the waitress would prompt you for the level of spiciness — 1, 2 or 3 chilies. to play safe you can start with a 2. but those of you who are accustomed to eating spicy food can bravely go for the 3. it's really not that hot.

for our soup, we had the spicy tom-yam curry ($14.80). to be frank i was a little apprehensive about it as i'm simply not a fan of tom-yam. but fortunately, this fusion soup is delightfully seafood-sweet, and not that sour too. i drank every last drop of it. yes, it was easily the most delicious dish of the meal! (4/5)

if it wasn't so pricey though, i would have awarded it all 5 stars!

doesn't this look pretty? the sizzling okonomiyaki is a osaka-style pancake made of shredded cabbage. okonomi means "favorite", so you can select your favorite ingredient to go in the batter. we had ours with pork ($11.80).

by the way, i watched the cooks at work to check out how they made the pretty design. it is easily done with a fork!

this is one dish that actually looks much better than it tastes. after a while, you get a little sick of eating all that soft cabbage batter. maybe more of that dark sauce and mayonnaise on top would have helped. my suggestion is to make the serving smaller (and cheaper). (3/5)

the second item we tried from osaka is the seafood yaki-soba ($12.80), a noodle dish packed with squid, prawn, octopus and scallop. the noodles are stir-fried in a wonderful sweet-tasting sauce that i really love. what i didn't love are the cabbage leaves. can you tell i'm not a big fan of the greens? (4/5)

like most of the other restaurants at vivocity, the japanese gourmet town also has a sea view. in fact the sea-facing side opens up completely (like brotzeit the german bar) so even those sitting indoor can feel the breeze. it's pretty nice!

View full review and photos at Sparklette - Singapore Food Blog.

Japanese Gourmet Town is a collaboration between Botejyu okonomiyaki(at Liang Court), Sapporo curry and Ajisen. At this place, you can find food from all three different restaurants and it satisfies cravings for most people at once.

The differences is that Sapporo curry specialises in soup curry, unlike the normal thick and sweet curry of Curry Favor or of most places. The okonomiyaki on the other hand, by Botejyu is a sight to behold! Place upon a hot plate, this japanese pancake filled with pork and vegetables is savory, topped with a sweet sauce. The sweet sauce gets too cloying after awhile so remember to tell the waiter to reduce the amount of sauce or eat slowly lest you get sick of it. Note that the Ajisen's ramen is the standard fare that you can find at the other outlets so no surprises here.

The key attraction would be the convenience and variety factor that Japanese Gourmet Town is striving for. Beyond the limited okonomiyaki menu of Botejyu where certain dishes are contantly unavailable and the long wait for the okonomiyaki, the only reason that keep customers coming back would be indecisive diners who need variety and a long time to decide on their food. Ramen comes first so order that and wait your okonomiyaki out!

it's a place where it served 3 different restaurant's food in one place - ajisen, boteyju & sapporo curry yoshimi.

Upon placing orders, we realised there were round silver stickers on the Botejyu's menu to indicate the available dishes they had over @ vivocity outlet. Hence, it narrows down the choices one could have.
For a big eater like me, I would consider the food portion served over here relatively small.

we ordered:
[moonlight special okos - $14.80]
the name/word - moonlight represent the sunny side egg that's on top of the okonomiyaki..
saw quite a handful of fellow diners ordering that too..
it’s not that bad, just that personally prefer a softer and more moist okonomiyaki..
to compensate the above was their prawns - sweet and big.. ha..

[seafood yaki-soba - $12.80]
the noodles is slightly bigger den the usual we had outside..
and was a lil tough - wonder if it was meant to be like this or it wasnt that well cooked..
im someone who favour stronger taste hence i think it's a little plain.

[italian sausage & hokkaido corn soup curry - $14.80]
They have a chart showing the spicy level one would love to have for their curry.
We requested for the medium.
The dish is a mix of 2 Italian sausage, corn topped with cheese and vegetables.
And it doesnt comes with any rice or noodles to go along..
so i guess, it will get a lil plain after consuming for a while.

one thing i dun like abt the place was the service - inattentive staffs..
so hard to catch their attention for water refill - im thirsty!!

Overall, it was quite pleasant.

note: There's 10% discount for Citibank card holder (sorry guys, I aint sure when the discount ends)

Have been reading a few reviews on this restaurant from food blogs, haha finally had a chance to pop over to try it myself.

Luckily I was there before the dinner crowd so i can choose the seats. I prefer the alfresco seats although the surrounding may be warmer but the view... Oooo so much BETTER...

This Japanese Gourmet Town is the merger of Ajisen Ramen, Botejyu Okonomiyaki and Yoshimi Sapporo Curry all under one roof. The menu itself was WOAH!! B.I.G!!

Ok so that night we only ordered from the Botejyu side
1) Mochii and Cheese Okonomiyaki - $12
2) Moonlight Special Okonomiyaki - $14
3) Cold Tofu - $2.99

The cold tofu was the normal tofu with creamy sesame sauce vinegrette which tasted good and light, good starter for us.

The moonlight special was supposed to be their "most popular" item. However, we din really like it as the raw vegetable taste was quite overwhelming and did not motivate us to go for another piece. Hmmm maybe might not be Singapore TOP fav too lo..

On the other hand, the cheese and mochii version was super duper OoISHII!!! I like the chewy mochii and the melted savoury cheese and perhaps the cheese musked the raw cabbage taste which made it super yummy that we were fighting down to the last piece!!

Maybe i will drop by again to try the Sapporo Curry Noodles. (",)