Beef sukiyaki don ($16.90++)!
Tanjong Pagar Japanese beef sukiyaki don: sweet-savoury simmered beef with cabbage, mushroom and glass noodles over rice, with chawanmushi and miso soup. $16.90++.
Lunch at a Tanjong Pagar Japanese restaurant: beef sukiyaki don, $16.90++. π
What was on the table:
- Beef sukiyaki bowl: thin-sliced beef simmered in the sweet-savoury sukiyaki sauce, with cabbage, shimeji mushroom, narutomaki (the pink-spiral fishcake), glass noodles and scallion over rice
- Chawanmushi: the steamed savoury egg custard, in its own cup
- Miso soup and a small dessert on the side
Sukiyaki (γγηΌγ) is the Japanese sweet-savoury hotpot, and the don version brings it over rice: thin beef and vegetables simmered in warishita, a sauce of soy, mirin, sake and sugar, until everything takes on the glossy, sweet-savoury glaze. It is the comforting, homely register of Japanese beef cookery, gentler and sweeter than a peppery gyudon.
The beef is the centrepiece: sliced thin so it cooks in seconds and stays tender, simmered just until it loses its pink and soaks up the sauce. Over-cook thin beef and it seizes; done right it is silky. The glass noodles (harusame) are the sukiyaki sponge, drinking up the sweet sauce, and the cabbage and shimeji add their own textures.
The set extras lift it above a plain don: the chawanmushi (a silky steamed egg custard, the test of a kitchenβs gentleness) and the miso soup round it into a proper teishoku. At a sit-down Japanese restaurant, this is comfort food with sides rather than a hawker bowl.
At $16.90++ for a beef sukiyaki don with chawanmushi and miso soup in Tanjong Pagar, this is fair mid-tier Japanese-restaurant pricing.
Overall: 4.3 / 5. πππΌ The sweet-savoury simmered beef with the sauce-soaked glass noodles was the standout. Japanese comfort, would re-order.
