Wednesday, October 22

Kaiho Sushi, Cuppage Plaza

These days, only sushi does it for me. When the opportunity to try out new sushi restaurants came up, I made reservations at Kaiho Sushi at such speed that would put any fastest-finger-first finalist to shame.

Kaiho Sushi is located on the 3rd floor of The Very Dodgy Cuppage Plaza, not the newly renovated Cuppage Terrace. We were entertained by the extremely affable owner / Chef Bernard Tang and I must say this is one unique chef. I told him I was interested in going 'sushi omakase' and while most chefs would have obliged almost-too-willingly, Chef Bernard merely smiled and said,

"Why not just order the sushi mori first and if you want more, we will add on... "

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For starters, we had a small dish of fried fish, accompanied by strips of daikon and carrot, dressed in tangy sauce.

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Kaiho Sushi Maori

I'm not sure if everyone gets the same Kaiho Sushi Maori because Chef took our preferences into consideration. No maguro, thank you very much. Our 11-piece sushi maori came with otoro, hotate, smelt, hamachi, chutoro, uni, negitoro and unagi.

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The sushi was on par with some of the other establishments I've visited recently. The uni was the freshest I've had since my trip to Tsujiki. Completely devoid of the metallic-ky aftertaste, it was a lucuious rich molten object.

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Usually otoro brings out the worst in me as everything I learnt about "caring and sharing" is thrown out of the window; however tonight I was in luck as my friend's indifference to otoro meant I had undivided satisfaction. Ahhh, the milky otoro is defnitely within top 3 items on my Last Things to Eat Before I Die list.

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They had to grill a whole slab of unagi just for this sushi. It was worth all that trouble for this nugget of smoky delectation; then again, I wasn't the one slogging over the grill.

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Ever since Tomo, my love for aburi-ed sushi grew. The aburi-ed salmon sushi each received a squirt of Japanese mayonnaise and sweet sauce, and torched on the surface. Marvelous.

Watching the chef handle his blow torch made for a theatrical affair. I think not-very-deep down inside, I have always loved the theatrics of sushi and dessert chefs. Crepe suzettes, anyone? Also, I think we should all consider investing in a blow torch.

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Kaiho's Aburi California Maki was an elaborate affair of tabiko topped on flamed Japanese mayonnaise and sweet sauce, which resulted in a lovely caramelized saltish combination.

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We didn't have too much hot food. I'm someone who favors the unsophisticated parts like cones, crusts, tart shells and tempura batter so I had no issues with the thickish tempura batter of Kaiho's tempura.

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Almost -just almost!- stuffed from dinner, we decided to have a final 'fish dish'. Chef had the kitchen prepared something not on the menu - matsu mutsu fish, a firm fleshy deep water fish , braised in sweet soya sauce.

It was a lovely slow unharried dinner. As a business student who is about to graduate, I really appreciated the calmness and peacefulness of the meal. At Kaiho, the financial crisis and gloomy job market seemed like a distant memory - all thanks to great company and our warm host Chef Bernard Tang.

11 comments:

red fir said...

I think you just ate dolphin. :O

Hey have you tried Nara? The makis are really good. Skip the raw and go for the makis, Nara special maki and california maki.

Anonymous said...

What is the damage of this meal?

Anonymous said...

was abt to ask the same thing..the sushi mori n arburied salmon looks yummie

yixiaooo said...

hey ice, what dolphin!?

anon and nadbelle, the meal was $120 for two. we expected worst... =)

red fir said...

"Chef had the kitchen prepared something not on the menu - matsu fish, a firm fleshy deep water fish , braised in sweet soya sauce."

I think matsu is dolphin. Try surfing the web to confirm. I did. Scary but it sounds reasonably correct too. "deep water fish" and "firm flesh".

Anonymous said...

Oh no Flipper! Maybe the Chef should have called it Matsu mammal instead of Matsu Fish. Haha (ok maybe laughter is a little inappropriate here, bad dave! bad dave!) But for some reason I'm very curious as to how it taste now.

yixiaooo said...

matsu is a fish similar to cod fish. defnitely not dolphin! yikes..

red fir said...

heng heng... :)

red fir said...

hey yixiao! I think it's mutsu, not matsu. I saw the sashimi at Isetan today so I asked the err..."chef" loitering around. He confirmed it's a species similar to cod but bigger. Sashimi shows a white flesh fish. :)

red fir said...

hey yixiao! I think it's mutsu, not matsu. I saw the sashimi at Isetan today so I asked the err..."chef" loitering around. He confirmed it's a species similar to cod but bigger. Sashimi shows a white flesh fish. :)

yixiaooo said...

yeah i think you are right..!