Hanabi Japanese Restaurant (Katong Mall)

Location: 112 East Coast Road #01-13/15/18/19 Katong Mall
Telephone Number : +65 6348 6626
Operating Hours: Lunch 1130am to 230pm Dinner 6pm to 10.30pm




RATINGS METER
FOOD : 6.0 out of 10
AMBIENCE : 6.0 out of 10
SERVICE : 7.5 out of 10
PRICING : Lunch $26++ (Adult), $15++(Child) Dinner $30++(Adult), $18++(Child)
OPENING HOURS : Lunch 1130am to 230pm Dinner 6pm to 10.30pm

After calling several Japanese restaurants in town on a Friday evening, it seems that I was out of luck. Most of the reasonably priced restaurants were fully booked. After reading some online recommendation that Hanabi was quite a value-for-money place, we decided to try it out despite it being in the inconvenient Katong mall for us.

There were still many tables available in the restaurant although it was a Friday evening. The overall service of the place was quite good, staff was polite, friendly and efficient. Except that we were "lucky" enough to be sitting next to a very loud group of diners... otherwise dining experience was quite pleasant.

The ala carte buffet menu has an impressive number of 118 items, definitely gave us a little headache on what to eat initially. Thankfully, the portions were mostly very small, allowing us to try as many items as we like. Food was generally ok (with sashimi, sushi, grilled meat, ramens, udons, etc etc.... the list is long), not high-quality food but acceptable.

Stir fried beef

Fried sweet potato with cheese

Grilled chicken wing

Salmon miso soup

Cold soba noodles

Cold yellow wheat noodles

Handrolls (California, Soft crab, Smoked pork)

Chuka Kurage (Marinated Jellyfish)

Salmon Sashimi

Unagi Sushi

Curry Rice with Fried Fish

Grilled Shishamo Fish

Grilled pork belly with shitake mushroom

Miso soup

Quite a value-for-money place to try if you have a pretty good appetite and not a fussy eater.

Waraku Japanese Casual Dining (Marina Square)

Location: 6 Raffles Boulevard Square #01-213 Singapore (039594)
Telephone Number : +65 6883 1123
Email : waraku@moreworld.com.sg

Waraku (Marina Square's outlet)

RATINGS METER
FOOD : 5.0 out of 10
AMBIENCE : 5.0 out of 10
SERVICE : 4.5 out of 10
PRICING : at least $20 to $50 per person (really depending on what you ordered)

Since we got a really great room at Ritz Carlton to celebrate Christmas Eve, we decided we wanted to have a great dinner too. But every decent restaurant in the vicinity were fully booked, hence we were left with Waraku as our last choice.

Service was really not worth mentioning.... When we called to book the restaurant, the person who answered was far from friendly and only allowed table booking latest 7pm. You gotta walk in and try your luck if u decide to come after 7pm.

Staff greeting us at the entrance were enthusiatic but thats all... Gave us only 1 menu for a table of 4 people and stared at us blankly when we asked for extra menus... didnt clear our table even when desserts was being served..Couldnt answer our questions about the menu etc.... Basically service was really slow, but I guess we shouldnt complain much since it was Christmas Eve.

The variety of food was great, had a hard time deciding what to eat. We tried the Gindara Teriyaki, Unagi Futomaki, Sakura set (Scallop Udon in cream sauce and Salmon roe with egg on rice), Unagi Kabayaki, Salmon Sashimi, Uni Sashimi, Umeshiso Bukkake (Cold Soba with plum and seaweed), Crab Seiro (Steam crab with vegetables) and Hokkai Don (Salmon and Squid on Rice)..... yeah we ate alot.. lol

Food was so so, not fantastic but not lousy either... Worth mentioning are probably the Uni Sashimi, Sakura set. Uni was quite fresh and sweet. The Sakura set was quite impressive since the bowl was so huge. haha. Udon was quite chewy nice in the cream sauce, probably gotta add some chilli powder since sauce was quite bland.

Unagi Kabayaki ($16.80)

Uni Sashimi ($28.00)

Sakura Set ($18.80)

Crab Seiro ($12.80)

Hokkai Don ($15.00)

Umeshiro Bukkake ($9.80)

Unagi Futomaki ($9.80)

Overall this meal wasn't memorable and not really good. But might consider trying another outlet a few months or many months later.