Yazawa - 1st Oct 2016
This month I went to an oldie but a goodie. I have been to this restaurant numerous times and never thought to feature it as I assumed most people would know about this joint. Well many of you, my dear readers, are expatriates so this place may be new to you and especially useful if like me, you enjoy good meat! Yazawa has been around for a number of years and is one of the best yakiniku restaurants in Singapore.
The décor of this place is dark with lots of booth style seating and private rooms which is good if you want to entertain small parties. One of the good things about this restaurant is that the ventilation of the table grill is excellent and that means you don’t go out smelling like grilled meats. The menu is quite useful as it shows a diagram of a cow and where the various Yakiniku cuts comes from in Japanese.
Korean style seasoned vegetables
raw minced beef with egg yolk
Before the onslaught of meat, I started with a serving of the Yazawa salad which consisted of two types of lettuce, cucumber and sesame dressing. Simple but good. I further eased my conscience with a small platter of Korean style seasoned vegetables that included beansprouts, spinach and mushrooms. The beansprouts and spinach were seasoned lightly while the mushrooms were marinated in a sweet sauce with a slight hint of chilli. My next appetiser was yukke which is raw minced beef with egg yolk. Yazawa’s version is finely chopped Japanese wagyu with spring onions, onions, sauce and topped with egg yolk. This dish is delicious with the sweet and savoury sauce going so well with the rich yolk soaked beef.
jo kalbi
tokusen tan, the better part of the ox tongue
harami
Soon after the waitress turned on the table grill and brought the variety of meats I ordered. I elected to go with the shio seasoning for all except the misuji which was tare, a Japanese style barbeque sauce usually made with soy sauce, fruits, vegetables, sesame oil and herbs. Yazawa is famous for the variety of Japanese wagyu but very often I choose to go with Australian wagyu as the offal meat such as the tongue and skirt meat such as the harami is not available from the Japanese wagyu. I start off grilling the jo kalbi which is the short rib cut. I enjoy eating short rib yakiniku style as the marbling gives a lot of flavour and moisture while it is still tender because of the thinness. Next I had the tokusen tan which is the better part of the ox tongue, basically the fattier more tender part located towards the back of the tongue. I love to eat beef tongue thinly sliced and grilled as the springy texture and flavour is amazing. I like to have it just with salt and dipped into freshly squeezed lemon. Next we had the tokusen harami, the best part of the outside skirt. The outside skirt is a diaphragm muscle which is prized for its flavour and usually not its tenderness. However this part of the wagyu outside skirt is tender enough with a strong beefy flavour.
curry rice here is one of the best
I took a break from beef to grill mangalica pork collar. The pork is nicely marbled and the tender meat is sweet with a clean finish. Of course we did not just have meat for our mains. I ordered a portion of curry rice which was spilt into three. The curry rice here is one of the best I have eaten. They must use wagyu end cuts for this dish since they only sell wagyu. The rich gravy and fried egg is oishi (delicious). I also got the tokusei reimen, a cold noodle dish. I am not normally a fan of cold noodles but this version in a chilled chicken broth had a chewy texture that was most appealing. Topped with half a hardboiled egg, slices of chicken and punctuated with aromatic garlic oil, it all went down easily. I finished grilling with the Japanese wagyu misuji otherwise known as the oyster blade. This is one of my favourite cuts of beef as it is nicely marbled and still quite affordable. This piece was melt in your mouth and juicy, a good way to end the meal.
Yazawa is still my go to restaurant for yakiniku. The good quality meats coupled with the good sides are a winning formula which explains why you need to book days in advance to secure a table.
Yazawa
11 Unity Street Singapore 237995
6235 2941
