Dinner @ WATAMI Japanese Casual Restaurant

Hi, I am back with my 2nd posting (haha, maybe this is what is known as strike whilst the iron is hot?! I seriously hope my enthusiasm & perseverance would last!) Anyway, today I am supposed to have my pilates lesson, however, much to my very delight, the lesson was called off! This gave me the chance to meet up with my unimate, CK for dinner.

I headed over to Bishan, Junction 8 to meet him for dinner as he mentioned that there's a new Jap restaurant which just opened lately. The name of the place is called Watami Japanese Casual Restaurant. I have been to the one in Orchard Ion sometime late last year & my experience with that outlet was not really fantastic. However, I decided to check out this new outlet of theirs.

The place was pretty big & there were quite a number of people there when I reached.  Luckily CK was already seated inside.The menu was quite extensive with plenty of choices to choose from, salads, fresh sashimi, sushi, pizza, rice, noodles, tempura, grilled stuff, soups & desserts!

After browsing through, we decided to order the Fried Camembert Cheese, Salmon sashimi, Sukiyaki nabe & Shishamo yaki! I would say that the restaurant could step up on its manpower & service as we had to try a few times before we caught the attention of the waiter to get our orders. Luckily, we did not have to wait long for our food to come.

First came the Salmon sashimi ($8.80). It was fresh & the slices were quite generous! However, the wasabi lacked some lustre to it.

Salmon Sashimi

Next up, the Fried Camembert Cheese ($6.80). I have always like this dish ever since I was introduced to it at Ma Maison! Over here, it came with some berry sauce to dip the cheese fritters in (which is quite an unique way of eating). It was not too cheesy & rather light which made it a good starter!

Fried Camembert Cheese

Woo can you see how the cheese is being melted! *Slurps*

Woo....next came the Sukiyaki Nabe ($13.80). I must confess that I have never really tried this dish & recently, I was told that you are not supposed to beat the egg into the gravy but the egg is meant for us to dip the cooked beef in! The beef was tender & when dipping into the raw egg juice, it gave it an even more tender touch! But the only thing that I wasn't used to was the overly sweet gravy of the Sukiyaki. (I guess that's why is not meant to be drank as a soup but more for the beef to absorb the sweet gravy to enhance its taste!)

Before the cooking begins...



Piping hot Sukiyaki

Lastly, we had the Shishamo yaki ($7.80). I would say that it is good value for $ as the shishamo were fat & yummy. 

Shishamo Yaki

Overall, the quality of the food here is quite good and the prices are reasonable but I guess there's definitely more room for improvement in terms of its service. I may decide to come here again for lunch/dinner or perhaps when I really have cravings for Jap food when I am in this area. 



After dinner, we decided to have some ice cream to satisfy my sweet cravings. So we headed to the Marble Slab Creamery (I have tried this once at the Marina bay link mall but it is definitely not on my list of my favourite ice cream places given a choice). We ordered 2 mini waffles with 2 scoops of ice cream, the Double chocolate (CK's choice) & Strawberry (my choice since I wanted something fruity/ sourish but a pity, there wasn't much of a choice there). Sad to say, this was even more disappointing than the one that I had previously. Personally, I doubt I would be revisiting them again.  

Marble Slab Creamery

 

It was a great catchup session with CK since the last time we met was during my birthday celebration last Nov.Thanks CK for the lovely dinner treat & till we meet again at Willy's birthday celebration (time for me to go & scout for new places for the birthday dinner!).

Nitez peeps! (",)