Kuriya

Address: No.1 Scotts Road, Shaw Centre, #05-01, Singapore 228208
Tel: (65) 6735 5300

Kuriya is a massive Japanese restaurant group that first established its Singapore flagship restaurant in this modest space on the fifth floor of Shaw Centre. As you exit from the lift, you see nothing but closed shops and it almost felt like as if you were visiting a deserted building. However, as you walked inside Kuriya, you’ll find groups of Japanese men cheering and pouring beers down each other's throat after a hard day’s work.

Unlike its contemporary, chic, black and marbled outlet at Raffles City, the vibe in the flagship restaurant is basic and no-frill Japanese. Furnishings are wooden, lights are soft and yellow, and the restaurant manager is a serious but hospitable Japanese man. They ran out of tables on the Tuesday night but the manager offered us a table in a private dining room. So thumbs up for the excellent service.

We ordered a sushi moriawase (which was pretty nice but the sushi rice could be a bit more firm), a few yakitori (very standard), and some tamago slices (they were okay). Kuriya has a Japanese tasting promotion every month whereby they bring in seasonal specialties from Japan. This month’s special was Japanese mushrooms. There were a few varieties, but we ordered the steamed salmon and mushroom with grated yam dipped in a sweet chrysanthemum sauce. The mushrooms were chopped up so finely that none of the salty and pungent flavours came through, which was a pity, but having said that, the mushy grated yam complimented the salmon perfectly. The sauce tasted like thickened nabeyaki broth infused with light flavours of white and yellow chrysanthemum petals. We ended our meal with black sesame ice cream, and green tea ice cream with adzuki bean paste and mochi. The former was rather plain and resembled a mixture of vanilla ice cream and coarse sesame. My green tea dessert was, fortunately, pretty nice though I figured you can’t really go wrong with ready-made green tea and mochi together with adzuki paste from a can. As the movie Ratatouille has it: Everyone can cook (that dessert).

Verdict: Nice place to go when you are running out of ideas because you can check out what’s in-season in Japan at Kuriya – something a little entertaining. Otherwise it’s just another decent Japanese restaurant. Price is above average, but service was smooth.

Bill: SGD$142 for a sushi moriawase, 4 yakitori, plate of tamago slices & steamed salmon with mushroom and grated yam.