TacoCat's TrEats #141: Yummy Yakiniku on a Budget! 🤑
Hey Steemit!
Now that a lot of people here have already gotten vaccinated, I'm very happy to hear that Singapore is now allowing in-house dining again but obviously you have to be vaccinated. But since there aren't any restrictions this allows us to try out different food places again!
So the other day we visited this mall in Singapore called IMM which is known for being popular with tourists since the mall is full of outlet stores by pretty famous brands. These outlet stores tend to have off-season or soon-to-be outdated products so they're sold here on sale or with many discounts.
Sean was pretty insistent of me buying some new nike shoes so we visited the Nike outlet store and I found a pretty decent comfortable pair for a reasonable price! After that we got pretty hungry and it was almost time for dinner! We could smell the delicious aroma of Japanese barbecue from this Yakiniku shop and thought we'd try it out!
I think this restaurant is related to a previous restaurant we tried called Tokyo Shokudo where we had tempura bowls and it was pretty good too! After researching I found that they're under the same parent company here in Singapore called Japan Food Holdings, which actually owns many different Japanese restaurant franchises here.
It was before peak dinner time but there were already quite a few people enjoying Yakiniku here. Thankfully we still managed to get seats pretty quickly.
The interior of the restaurant is pretty clean and minimalist, and it looked quite modern with the natural wood and black wood furnishings. There were also diagrams of beef and Japanese words of the different beef parts on the wall.
We unfortunately didn't get a table to ourselves though. We were seated at this long table in the middle which had 4 grills so we sat across each other with a grill between us.
But thankfully the restaurant wasn't crowded so we had empty seats beside us.
This is what the menu looks like! Sorry for the glare but it was laminated and the lights kept reflecting off no matter how hard I tried. They have various different yakiniku sets of different meat and parts of the beef.
Each set also comes with a bowl of rice, miso soup, different sauces and some kichi, for some reason. Even though it's supposed to be a Japanese restaurant. We thought it was kinda weird too. You could also order ala carte and they had some rice bowls and side dishes too! The prices for the sets are actually pretty affordable here compared to many other places we've seen, which is why we haven't eaten much yakiniku in Singapore.
They made ordering really simple by giving you a QR code to scan and add items to the cart. I like when restaurants digitise the menu and ordering so you don't have to struggle with getting a waiter's attention and they can just focus on serving the food.
After a short 10 minutes or so, our order arrived! We got different types of meat to compare but from experience eating Gyu-Kaku (a yakiniku place we like in Japan) we already knew the only type of beef we would eat is the karubi, which is boneless short rib / flanken-cut rib.
So this was the chicken set. The chicken pieces were definitely thin so you could cook them fast and evenly on the grill but I didn't expect them to be so narrow either. It was already so skinny raw I expected them to just shrivel up when I cooked it.
And this was the double beef karubi set! It's double because there are two plates stacked on top of each other. The beef definitely looked a lot more appetising imo.
The marinade smelled really good, so we couldn't wait to eat it already! We immediately placed a fe slices of meat on the grill and waited for them to cook.
They don't take long to cook either; just 30 seconds to a minute and they're done!
I tried the meats on their own first before dipping into any of the sauces and it was actually really good on its own already! The meat was nice and tender and juicy. I think both the chicken and beef was good, but because of the size to price ratio I think the beef is more worth it value-wise.
Dipping the meat in the sauces was good too! I think it was a shio-tare sauce and a spicy sauce that wasn't that spicy but more of slightly sour-spicy? They both added a slightly different taste to the meat but one that still complemented the taste of the grilled meat.
Everything was just so good! The rice was also nice and fluffy Japanese rice, although the soup and kimchi were kinda average. The meat was really good though; I'd say it's a pretty accurate representation of good yakiniku, and for a reasonable price too!
It'd been a while since we had barbecue so we were careful not to make too big of a fire and I was kinda scared of overcooking the beef but each piece was nicely cooked and really juicy nonetheless.
After a while we got the hang of it and managed to get some char on the meat! It was so good Sean finished his rice so quickly that I had to give him some. We definitely enjoyed the meat very much and while I didn't have a craving per se, I was happy to eat such delicious food!
I don't think we ordered enough meat though because even Sean said he could eat another 2 plates of the beef karubi to be satisfied. I wasn't that full after that either but the soup helped. I guess meat isn't that satisfying stomach-wise but it was getting crowded and we didn't feel like ordering too much so we left after that.
We'll definitely visit again if we ever have a craving for yakiniku though! And the great thing about this restaurant is they're halal as well, so muslims can enjoy their delicious grilled meats here too! If you're in the area and looking for affordable Japanese barbecue, check out Yakiniku Shokudo!
Thanks for reading!
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