Shinryoku Yakitori Restaurant

A group of 5 of us was there few weeks back for one of my ex colleague's birthday.

Another colleague recommended this place and we order the ala carte buffet spread. Indeed there were many dishes and it was almost 70% full on a wednesday. Some of the highlights was their tiger prawns grilled , their interesting japanese dishes (never heard of and now also cant remember the name). Here is supposingly known for their grilled food. We ate alot of food but service and ambience was lacking. Many tables occupied and only 3 waiter/waitresses.

For the price of $53 , I prefer to go to another japanese buffet in a hotel with more ambience.

Sorry if the rating sounds abit harsh but this is just my personal view.

You can easily miss this small restaurant tucked away in the middle of Purvis street had it not been for the bright green Yakitori signage. The restaurant probably seats no more than 30 and has a cozy ambience; can be pretty noisy once the dinner crowds packed in.

The Ala Carte Buffet goes for $58 on weekends with one complimentary choice of an alcholic drink (Asahi/Kirin beer, Sake or Wine). Green tea is free flow. You choose from a pretty wide selection of items on the menu and the staffers will serve the freshly prepared items to your table. No hassles.

Must Tries: Yakitori, Crispy Salmon Skin Salad, Asparagus with Bacon, Mint Oyster Tempura.

The food is good, and since we spent almost 3 hours there...got our belly and money's worth. Cheers!

A friend wanted to give me a dinner treat, but he's picky about his food. I was searching this forum for some inspiration where to go and found Shinryoky Yakitori. After reading the review, decided to try out this restaurant.

I must say, if you don't know this restaurant existed in the area, you really won't notice it. I have eaten at other restaurants on the same street, must walked by many times, never noticed.

We decided to eat early, 6:30pm, so when we arrived at the restaurant, there was only 1 other patron enjoying his dinner alone. When you first enter the restaurant, you won't be impress by its ambiance or decor; my friend started questioning why I picked the place.

And when you browse through the menu, again, you won't be impressed; no picture menu, just a simple laminated paper listing several columns of grilled, fried, etc. type of food.

I took the liberty to order and since this is yakitori, I order sticks of lady's finger, chicken with leek, unagi, platter of veggie (mushroom, cherry tomatoes, ginko nuts, eggplant, lady's fingers), onion, salmon shishamo, California handrolls, crispy salmon skin handrolls, fried soft-shell crabs, seafood tempura & miso soup.

Food tasted fabulous, and my friend was very pleased with my selection. He's even planning to go back with other friends. And I definitely want to return in the near future, to try the other meat items, beef, bacon, etc. (friend doesn't eat beef or pork).

Having read abt the reviews abt the crispy salmon skin salad here, i wanted to give it a try.

It was during lunch time n the resturant itself is quite busy. The interior is quite small n tables r lined up in a row. The waitress seemed to be a vietnamese who took my order. She doesnt seem to understand english very well. I ordered the salmon skin salad n ask her the price. I didnt noe that prices r written on the left hand side of each dish.(how careless i am!). Actually i wanted to order more besides the salmon salad. However, it cost $14(a bomb to me), thus i decided not to order any more things.(next time perhaps).

I waited for a while for it to arrive. I realised that the ppl who r preparing the food r frm mainland china. I look at their preparation of the yakitori(saliva salivating...). The prawns look so juicy n jumbo wrapped ard a slice of bacon.

The salmon skin salad comes in a big portion even though i ordered the small one. It's meant for sharing a between 2. I felt that the salmon skin that they gave were too little but it's very crispy n delicious as though im eating some sort of indian cracker that is served with curries. Yummy... there r different types of veg(spinach, arugula leaves, shredded radish, lettuce etc. They have added mint leaves to the veg n it gives a refreshing taste after eating. Good:)

The prices here r on the pricey side however food is decent n worth ur every cent. Service is good too =)

After visiting the art museum on free friday nights me and my angel walked to Purvis Street for dinner, well equipped with a coupon for free SALMON SKIN SALAD! Yes we read about the recommendation from Wong Ah Yoke and the evening combines tian1 shi1 (Friday night) di4 li4 (around the area) and ren2 he4 (with my little angel) to give the restaurant a try.

The restaurant was not very crowded when we arrived. On the wall there is a list of yakitori and people can paste "stars" to vote for their fav. Mint Oyster tempura, pepper prawn, asparagus with bacon etc were the favourites.

On top of the yakitori we also ordered a paper hot pot but found that it was below average - afterall yakitori is their specialty so next time just stick to it to be safe.

Stick with the sticks and you'll not go wrong

Oh ya, the salmon skin salad? Yes we were served the full-serving, no tou1 gong1 jian4 liao4. I think it's decent (I just don't like the mint part to comment further).

Shinryoku Yakitori is a very nice place to eat. I personally recommend this place to people who are easily bored and cannot eat too much of one thing, like a bowl of rice or a plate of pasta. This is because the place boasts a very extensive list of things that can be grilled for you to eat. I feel that its best to have the buffet as its all you can eat, for a reasonable price.

I have been to SY a few times and never have I been disappointed with the food. The food is fresh which is really important especially when it comes to Japanese food. Lets see, I think that after the many times I have been there, I can safely say that I have eaten practically every single thing offered on the buffet. A few things that I really liked were the salmon skin salad, garlic pork, unagi, mint oyster tempura, asparagus bacon, chicken wings and the chawanmushi. These are actually the few that the friendly waitresses always recommend.

The one thing that really got me so interested in the place was the waitresses there. They are from Vietnam and I swear are probably one of the friendliest and warm Vietnamese waitresses I have ever seen. They always have a friendly smile on their faces, ever ready to serve and willing to answer any query. "Do yu wan fri por?" *accompanied with a warm smile..

Tasked with organising this month's catch up sesh with my favourite bunch of girls, I decided to go with Yakitori so that everyone could have free rein to order whatever they liked and a protracted meat on stick dinner was exactly what we needed in order to get everyone to spill the latest goss in their lives.

Wanting to try some place new, I searched HGW and was heartened to read positive reviews of Shinryoku, but more than anything wanted to try out the crispy salmon skin salad which the reviewers were waxing lyrical about.

I think MyMelody (see review below) does a great job of describing the salad and I won't even try to top that. I loved the combination of greens which they used - especially how the mint leaves provided a wonderful burst of flavour juxtoposed against the bitter rocket and the other greens. Loved the dressing as well. This dish was such a winner that we ordered 2 large plates that night (at $18 each).

Yakitori wise, everything was competent. The tebasaki (chicken wings) was especially good - flavourful (with just the right amounts of salt) and well grilled to a crisp. The prawns wrapped in shiso leaves and bacon was also very good, as with the chicken meat balls.

We also ordered an array of other items including prawn croquet, tempura, makis, sashimi, etc which were all decent.

Total damage - $214 (including drinks and dessert) for 6 girls who eat like blokes. I thought it was very decent for an enjoyable dinner. The place is a tad small (really just a long narrow room) and it is easy to miss (I've never known a yakitori restaurant to exist on Purvis Street until I found this on HGW). Reservations definitely recommended. Definitely a place to check out for a value for money meal especially if you're dining in a big group (well definitely cheaper than the Cuppage Plaza yakitori joints for sure).

They also do ala carte buffets ($48 from Mon-Thurs, $58 from Fri-Sun - without drinks). Separate buffet prices are available which include free flow of alcohol.

Went there on 27th Dec with my chef buddies for a rare night out.
made our reservations for 4, looked forward to a night of catching up and swopping stories. read about their salmon skin salad, and heard it was a under-rated, good value place.

When we were seated and ready to order, 2 of us wanted the buffet, the other 2 only wanted the ala carte. The waitress informed that we had to sit at separate tables, as highlighted in a confusing small print (bad grammar) at the bottom of the menu. No problem, we accommodated that and rearranged ourselves so that the 2 having the buffet would be together, while the 2 pax ala carte would be at the other table and separated ourselves (it was 2 small tables joined together). Being from the F&B, we can understand that the mgt may have concerns about food sharing.

So we waved for service and a senior staff told us to sit FAR apart. We asked politely if they could accommodate us, but she blankly refused, no explanation

We had a short discussion and decided to take our business elsewhere. The restaurant had 3 other tables, 8 pax total. there were about just as many staff as there were customers, and they could have easily explained to us not to share food, keep an eye on us, or check with the chef or owner or the decision maker to let us sit together.

8 covers a night definitely cant cover rent. they lost $180 worth of biz straight away. We are terribly unimpressed with this place... just cant understand their rationale, cos 4 of us agreed that we would have accepted such customers' requests.

I have worked in a place where some diners in the same table, requested to have their mains from an adjacent restaurant and we had to work with the other restaurant's kitchen to make sure that the main courses were served together. or diners would request for a 2nd course from the adjacent restaurant and the staff would need to pick up the food from the other side and serve them.

Definitely a thumbs down. Disappointing

On a mission to eat my way through Singapore's 100 Favourite Dishes (Sunday Times Lifestyle Supplement, 14 Oct), we visited Shinryoku Yakitori at Purvis Street for the fried salmon skin salad recommended by Wong Ah Yoke. I can wax lyrical about the combination of salad leaves - crisp romain lettuce, soft butternut and baby spinach, bitter rocket and chicory, peppery radish and (surprise!) zingy mint leaves; or the superlative salad dressing - rich creamy sesame crossed magically combined with tangy plum sauc; or the amazing - "like-keropok-only-better" crispy salmon skin... but this hardly describes the sensation of having a bit of everything all at once doing a merry dance in your mouth.... but i am getting ahead of myself. Let's do this review properly.

Shinryoku is a charming cosy 18 seater restaurant at Purvis Street, staffed by a friendly (albeit a little inexperienced) crew. Like yakitori restaurants in Japan, an extensive yakitori menu handwritten in Japaneses adorns the walls. True to yakitori culture in Japan, the dishes at Shinryoku are timed so that one item is served at a time by the diligent staff. Except that given the number of yakitori dishes we ordered, we'd still be there in the early hours of the morning if we waited for each to be served in turn. So we ordered the kitchen to "hit us with it". And they did!

We had (in order of "favourites" rated from 1 to 10 in a straw poll taken by our party of 6 greedy girls) - prawns with shiso leaves wrapped in bacon (10), pork belly with leeks and garlic (10), cripsy pork (10), grilled squid (10), asparagus with miso (8), chicken yakitoro (8), quail's eggs (7), chicken skin (7), shitake mushrooms (6)... I am sure we had more but my fingers got too sticky to hold a pen for notes. Every item was evenly grilled and imbued with a smoky char grilled flavour without overpowering the individual flavours of the meat or vegetables.

The king prawn deserves a special mention - it is superb. Firm sweet prawns is wrapped in crispy bacon and grilled to smoky perfection. The sharp distinctive taste of shiso leaves adds a tantalising kick. The grilled squid was also especially good. I mention it here because it is so easy to overcook squid and you end up with chewy rubber tasting of nothing else but the sweet sauce it is drenched in. The squid served by Shinryoku was excellent; crusty on the surface and tender yet springy to the bite. It is served with brown wata miso sauce, clearly made from the squid itself as we could taste the squidy saltiness in each bite.

As for the salmon skin salad, I must give WAY his due for so kindly sharing his find with the Sunday Times readers; so quoting the gourmand himself "This is a salad to savour... all salads should be this good"

sick of traditional Jap stuff like ramen and etc. This place is famous for unique choice of Yakitori. My fav includes Pork, Chicken Heart, Salmon Salad.....

Lovely place, book early to avoid disappointment