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http://www.chubbybotakkoala.com/2013/05/satsuma-shochu-dining-bar-fantastic-food.html


Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar is an izakaya* with more than 100 labels of of shochu** by the glass. Located on the premises of The Gallery Hotel at Robertson Quay, there are two seating options. On the first level, you will have a more casual and relaxing dining environment and be seated on tatami, while the second floor offer more formal dining environment with table and chairs.
 
The décor of the restaurant is very casual, which is normal for izakaya type dining establishment, as in Japan. The most catchy decoration is the stack and stack of shochu bottles on offer.
 
As the little devil and I are unable to consume alcohol at the moment, we stick with the food. While our two other dining companion, decided on take on the shochu. Their food are served in a small portion, which is more to accompany the drinks.
 
Yellow Tail with Truffle Oil Dressing ($25) and Chicken Skin mixed with Cod Roe ($10) are our starters. The yellow tail is fresh with subtle sweetness, and the truffle oil dressing gives the taste another dimension. The Chicken skin salad is really an indulgence for chicken skin lover like myself, crispy deep fried chicken skins combine with fresh cucumber and coe roe to make you feel less guilty when you enjoy the yummyynesss!!!!
 
For Kushiyaki – Grill items comes in a pair, we ordered:pork belly ($7), cheese rolled with pork ($5), asparagus rolled with pork ($7), quail eggs wrapped with pork ($6), ox tongue ($9), goose liver ($13), prawn with basil leaves and pork ($13), prawn with sweet miso sauce ($18), meat bar serve with raw egg ($6), Squid ($9), Sishamo (pregnant fish - $6), mushroom stuffed with mince chicken ($6).
 
Most of the grill items are grilled to perfection. However, there are some items that you should not miss out on when you are here. Goose Liver, crispy charred on the outside and melting soft on the inside. Prawn with miso sauce, fresh, tender juicy prawns topped with miso. Of course my favourite, pork belly; crispy, tender and juicy.
 
In case the petite dishes do not fill up your tummy, you can try their zaru soba ($12) and oyster omelette ($15). The soba is nicely al dante, while the omlette is generous in serving with tasty soy gravy.
 
For the sweet tooth, you can try their Candied sweet potato ($10). Deep fried sweet potato, coated with liquid sugar. To satisfy those deserts cravings. Recommend serving for 2.
 
Service is very attentive and good. The grill stuff might come a bit slow when the place is packed.
 
Overall, this place serve excellent authentic Kushiyaki to accompany the shochu. It is a good place to catch up with friends or entertain your clients. The best part, you can eat grill food and come out from the restaurant without smelling like the food itself. Cheers!!

for photos and more reviews, visit http://littlemomentsofmylife.wordpress.com/ :)

this is a japanese restaurant that stands out from others in terms of its specialties! – it’s famous for its grilled meats and sochu.

so of course we had to try their alcohol when we went to this restaurant! i wouldnt recommend the one we tried though :P the drinks are pretty expensive by the glass, so we decided it would be better to get a bottle to share among the 5 of us. well, it was a little too much after awhile, especially since we didnt really like the flavour we ordered :P the one we got was the Fusa No Tsuyu ($75 for 720ml bottle) – described as having a mild fruity nose of pears, showing harmonious balanced between fruits and grain. perhaps because the texture was rather dry, so we didnt like it much xP

instead of ordering the usual salmon sashimi, the waitress recommended that we try the horse mackeral instead! sounded so exotic :O haha. it’s seasonal apparently, so since it was in stock, we decided to order it. pretty expensive though! alright, actually this entire meal was really quite expensive -.- the waitress kept recommending dishes that were pretty pricey. the horse mackeral sashimi was a whopping $55, but considering it was a whole fish, i suppose it was pretty worth it. i liked the taste and slightly crunchy texture! :) kinda reminds me of tuna.

in addition, to make your purchase worth the money, they even deep-fried the bones for us! deliciously crispy and surprisingly with a relatively generous amount of meat, this was quite a yummy dish!

we really loved the stir fry pork belly with kimchi ($18)! :) it was really flavourful, drenched in the kimchi sauce – absolutely wonderful ^^

the japanese yam tea rice ($12) was a really interesting dish! we completely did not expect it to be so soupy :P i thought it was fried rice!!! -.- but it was pretty interesting. felt like a wholesome healthy dish :) the tea soup had a mild flavour, kind of like soup for the soul :)

for grills we had the chicken thigh with leek ($6), the savoury pancake ($6) was another surprising dish! erm, we didnt really expect the pancake to look like what it did :P hahaha. it was quite yummy anyway :) we also liked the mushroom stuffed with minced chicken ($6) which had a good balance of flavours between the meat and mushroom.

Visited on a weekend evening and reservation is recommended. Small cosy place. Was there to celebrate a friend's birthday and we ordered lots of food. Note that the service staff might recommend some seasonal items, so do check the prices prior to ordering.

We had raw oysters, salmon and avocado tartare, sashimi moriawase (from cold dishes and sashimi selection), and charcoal grilled items such as chicken thigh with leek, beef rib-eye, chicken wings, grilled squid and Japanese mackerel with plum. For carbs, we got the mentaiko spaghetti.

Liked the meat portions for the yakitori. At least, it was of a good sized. All grilled items were good. Satisfied with the sashimi too.

Was a tad dissappointed with the mentaiko spaghetti. And it was a little overly salty.

I think for a small eater, two to three portions of yakitori should be more than enough to satiate the hunger (plus the vege sticks).

For more pictures, you may wish to click here.