Teppei Japanese Restaurant

 

With a min 4 months wait for a table @ Teppei, we were extremely lucky to nab seats when BFF's friend had seats to give up! I've heard raves about Teppei, especially their omakase sets, which they are popular for. Omakase (お任せ) is a Japanese phrase meaning "I'll leave it to you", so the chef will select what he wants to prepare/present to the audience. The cosy restaurant sits around 20 pax, with 2 seatings for dinner ~ the earlier seating starts at 6.30pm, while the later one starts at 8.30pm.

with BFF! We walked all the way from our offices to Teppei, working off those fats to gear up for a scrumptious meal.
 

A large pint of beer to go with food. Their omakase sets range from $50, $60, $80 and $100. Once we sat down at our seats, the servers will come around taking orders for your omakase. If you don't take raw food/beef/shell fish etc, do let the servers know so alternatives can be arranged. We ordered the $80 set which includes wagyu beef, haha! 

 

Introducing Chef Yamashita Teppei ~ engrossed in the food preparation. No wonder they say 认真的男人最有魅丽. Perhaps I should try to capture Leecher when he's making dinner next time, heh.

 

Counter seats where everyone gets to witness the live preparation of food. Honestly, I wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of dishes that Chef Teppei has prepared for us. I only remembered I ate non-stop from the time I sat down.

 

First up, we had salad with Japanese dressing served with fish cake. As regular readers would know that I'm not fond of my greens - however, the japanese dressing whet my appetite. Unlike my fave thousand island dressing, the dressing was light and flavourful. Radish and edamame were both delish, much to my surprise. Since Chef Teppei scored points (with me) on the items-that-I-usually-avoid, I was looking forward to see what tricks he got next :)  

 

Nv ending preparation. While he focused on his work, he still took time to chat & joke along with the patrons.

Sashimi plate, my fave :) Every slice was so fresh that it literally melt in my mouth. I wished there were seconds for this! How do you usually eat your sashimi? I'll normally head for any item, while saving salmon (my fave) for the last :) 

 

I remembered we had a tuna handroll, but most of my pics turned out blurry :( This is the only pic I have of Chef Teppei deep in concentration preparing for tuna handroll.

 Chawanmushi & fresh oyster with miso chilli. The trick is to slurp the oyster together with the small dab of miso chilli at the side, yums!
 
We are forever eating on every meet up, lol! 
 
 Looking very much like braised meat, I bit into it only to realise that it was actually saba fish! 
 
Once again, I was tricked into thinking that this was sweet potato only to realise that it was eggplant tempura.
 

Shellfish which Chef Teppei claimed it was "fresh from Sentosa", bringing laughter to us. Homemade beancurd skin and uni was so-so in my opinion. The colourful bits were purely for decoration much to our disappointment. 

 
Our stomach were only operating at 60% capacity thus far, lol! 

We were kept busy taking pics dish after dish #thewoesofbeingablogger, haha!

  Break time for pictures, lol! 
 
Another item ready to be served! 
 

 Tempura fish which I was hopping it will be prawn :( The fish was well-fried, but there were countless of tiny bones inside which made eating a hassle. On the other hand, cheese with salted egg yolk, pitan and sesame was good, haha! One of the mini surprises of the night. 

 Smoked radish served on satay stick ... one mouth and its gone!

  

Dumpling soup

 
The highlight ~ wagyu beef! Too small a portion but delicious nevertheless. Almost everyone on the table got excited when we saw the assistant chef taking out the beef, lol!
 
The main course is the last to appear & you get to pick from the selected range of fried rice with sunny side egg (spicy), sashimi rice, soba (hot/cold) and udon (hot/cold).  
I went with fried rice with sunny side egg & I was blown away by the portion. At  this point, my stomach was bursting and I had to remove my belt, lol!  
 
Both BFF & Leecher went for sashimi rice, which seemed more manageable. I shouldn't be so greedy next time. 
  
We each got a scope of ice cream for dessert. The range consisted of  calpis, durian, green tea, sesame and walnut. I still prefer green tea ice cream over everything else.

The end of the first seating at 8.15pm. The chef bid us farewell while he rewarded himself with a can of beer from the fridge.

The diners who have arrived for 2nd seating.
  

The beauty of omakase means I won't know exactly what I'm eating. It all boils down to the chef 's creativity, translating his thoughts into cuisines. We were extremely bloated from all the delicious food that we had to take a walk before heading home :) Wonderful experience & I hope to plan a trip back soon!

Teppei Japanese Restaurant

1 Tras Link, Orchid Hotel

Singapore 078867

Tel: 9229 4941

Restaurant Week, 2013 edition: Taratata Bistro

After our visit to Violet Oon's Kitchen, the 2nd stop for Restaurant week is Taratata Bistro, a Parisian-style chic bistro located along the rows of eateries at Keong Siak Street. Opened in 2011, I was surprised that I didn't hear of this bistro till now *mountain-tortoise, yet again*  Well, my motto is better late than never, so at least I got to give this a try :) 

The "Closed" sign was hanging on the door when we arrived 3 min early for 1.15pm reservation. For a second, I wondered if I was at the wrong place. I opened the door & was greeted by the waitress that they will be open shortly. In the few minutes, a stream of customers had arrived and we all had to stand outside almost blocking the walk-way. 

Egg-cited for our lunch meal :) 

Finally, at 1.20pm, they opened their doors and we were greeted by the friendly manager before being ushered in to our respective tables. Did I mention that one of the guy waiter (captured in the pic above) is rather cute? HAHA!

While I was in a dilemma over what to order, Leecher was more interested in his new phone (yet again!). He was busy exploring the various theme on his phone and finally put down his phone when I gave him the CAREBEAR stare. No, my carebear stare is not the friendly kind if you're wondering.

Lunch-date!

A basket of warm bread was served as soon as our orders were taken. 

Since wine was on discount .... why not? heehee!

As compared to the dinner menu, there are lesser items on the lunch menu. For appetizer, I had Demie-Douzanie d'Escargots au Beurre d'Ail Presille (half dozen snail baked in herbed garlic butter) while Leecher went or Saumon Marine Mi-Cuit au Poivre et Salade de Tomate Momotaro a I'Huile de Basilic (seared marinated salmon with black pepper & momotaro tomato salad with basil oil). Escargots were well-baked and goes extremely well with bread that I had to stop Leecher's hands from coming over, lol! Salmon was well-seasoned and light on texture. The mixture of tomato salad with basil oil was quite refreshing too.

We get to choose b/w crispy baked pork trotter & mushroom fricassee or baked sea scallops with mussels, prawns and mushrooms for mains. We both decided to go for the scallops, since I'm a big fan of it :)

 Scallops were succulent and juicy! Even though it came in a rather small baking dish, the serving was just enough for one individual. I was greeted with a generous serving of mussels and prawns underneath the blanket of melted cheese. Yums.

Lastly, we were served with chocolate & caramel tart (with vanilla ice cream) for dessert :) 

Taratata Bistro

35A Keong Saik Road

Singapore 089142

Closed on Mondays