While Kansai as far as I’m aware doesn’t have Ootoya, I had the chance to try it when i visited Sendai and boy was it good and cheap. Set dishes were generally about 650 – 850yen ($10.30 – $13.20), which was extremely good value for money given the quality of the food served there.
Hence, I’d been interested in trying it out when I discovered it had opened a branch in Suntec. Unsurprisingly, prices are higher here, starting from $16 for a meat set meal (chicken, pork) to about $20 for a fish set meal.
The food was pretty good though. I ordered the Chicken Salad set ($16), which came with a soup and 2 small side dishes (all so-so). The grilled chicken was tender and tasty, and the pesto-basil dressing was unique as I’ve never had chicken paired with these flavours.
There wasn’t enough dressing to go with the salad, but I liked the egg slices and the vegetables were crisp and fresh. Word of warning to non-fans of cabbage though: this salad was uniquely Japanese in that it consisted almost entirely of shredded cabbage. This is one aspect of Japanese salads (especially those that accompany rice sets) where I’d happily forgo authenticity and have tastier vegetables!
Ootoya offers several types of grilled mackerel dishes, and D. ordered the only one available ($20) as all the rest were sold out. Thanks to my lousy camera phone I don’t have a picture of it (it’s the last pic on the Ootoya website), but it was a big serving and more worth it than my chicken.
Some might find the fish slightly too salty and oily, but I liked it cos it tasted just the way it is in Japan. The bones were a little tricky, but it was done just right and not too dry as it often turns out to be here.
The best thing is, Ootoya’s food was, as D. described it, “light on the palette”. There’s no after-taste and the food, for those prices, is the cheapest you’ll ever get for authentic Japanese food in Singapore. I’m likely to return to Ootoya, just as long as I don’t think of how little these once cost me. Haha!
0 comments:
Post a Comment