In the eternal battle for supremacy of the median Japanese Restaurant in Singapore. I have to say that I always knew who the winner was going to be. It all started at a dinner a couple of years ago at the Long Beach Seafood Restaurant at East Coast Parkway. My friend had a boyfriend who worked in Japan and could read and speak Japanese fluently. After the sub standard seafood dinner at Long Beach, we walked out and he said "hand made noodles." And I was like, "what?" Alas, he was talking about the sign above the restaurant called Sento, which shared the same car park as Long Beach.
That was 2 years ago and well, this is now. Sento is no longer there and now its called Waraku. The menu has changed several times for the better but the restaurant's service and quality remains the same. A couple of close friends and myself decided to have some Japanese food, and I managed to drag my beloved wife along. Got in slightly after 6 because it wouldn't be that crowded and we panned through the menu. We noticed the new menu and I have to say the food looks better in the menu now! Not that it was bad before, but now it just looks more sumptuous!
Seduced by the new menu, we ordered: an order of agedeshi tofu, chawanmushi, grilled mackerel, cod fish Kaminabe with spicy soup, claypot seafood noodles soup with beef, grilled chicken on leaf (that never burns!) A sukiyaki don, a sushi and udon set rinsed down with a couple of green tea and yogurt floats. Wow, that was a mouthful when the server repeated our order. But we were satisfied. We became even happier when the food arrived. I have to say that the portion in Waraku is huge! Bigger than most other Japanese restaurants like Sakae or Genki Sushi.
The food was very good. It was not fantastic like I wished it was but it was very good for the price we were paying. The chawanmushi was sweet and smooth with a hint of gentle delicacy. The agedeshi tofu was outstandingly crispy with its tofu skin well fried but the tofu was soft and slippery in the mouth. The claypot seafood noodles with beef was both soothing for the soul and fulfilling to the stomach. The handmade noodles were done al dente, and the mixture of both the seafood and beef made my day. The grilled chicken was sweetened with terriyaki sauce and was succulent and juicy. The kaminabe was slightly spicy and not as searing as we expected it to be. It was heavenly none the less. The sukiyaki don was well done, the beef was sweet and the mixture of the onions and rice made it not perfect but just right. My soft shell crab handroll was both warm and tender, the softshell crab was still warm unlike other places and the lettuce and mayo combination was spot on.
The ONLY bad thing about my whole meal that I want to complain about was my sushi. The rice kept falling apart. I didn't understand why but it did. I just felt that the quality of the sushi was not there. The raw fish was okay, it was the rice that fell apart. Now, you must be thinking maybe it was the way I was holding my chopstick. But the truth was that I tried many different ways, but each time it fell apart literally. In the end, I had to resort to putting the soya sauce and wasabi on the sushi instead of dipping my sushi into the deadly dark mustard combination.
Service was good. The servers were prompt. Kept a good pace on the refills and were polite. The total damage was only about $90 and I have to say it wasn't that bad, we could have done a lot worse for much more.
I would totally recommend Waraku to you. Bring a date. Bring your family. They even have those traditional rooms where you can sit on the tatami mats while your legs dangle under the table. Its worth every cent.
Food: 8/10
Value: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Waraku is the BEST chain Japanese Restaurant in Singapore. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
Hope this helps.
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