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Food review: Syun

SINGAPORE — Let’s be honest, there are only so many celebrity chef-helmed haute cuisine restaurants this city can support. With a domestic market that is far too small to produce enough deep pockets that can afford their costly tasting menus, many big-name chefs have vacated their swanky kitchens at the integrated resorts to be replaced by humbler purveyors with less snob appeal.

SINGAPORE — Let’s be honest, there are only so many celebrity chef-helmed haute cuisine restaurants this city can support. With a domestic market that is far too small to produce enough deep pockets that can afford their costly tasting menus, many big-name chefs have vacated their swanky kitchens at the integrated resorts to be replaced by humbler purveyors with less snob appeal.

Case in point: Syun. The latest addition to Resorts World Sentosa’s stable of celebrity chef restaurants is helmed by chef Hal Yamashita, who runs nine restaurants across Japan, including his eponymous, high-end establishment in Tokyo’s posh Midtown area.

Despite Yamashita’s pedigree, Syun is decidedly egalitarian in its approach. “I want everyone to come and eat here,” says the friendly chef of his first overseas outpost, by way of explaining his very reasonably priced food.

His menu may boast luxe ingredients such as wagyu and uni (sea urchin), and premium fish from the finest sources in Japan, but prices still start at just S$4 for a piece of nigiri sushi and S$28 for three types of sashimi. Children’s sets go for a very agreeable S$12.

In Japan, Yamashita is known for using only ingredients sourced from his native Kobe to create Japanese dishes with a western bent. In Singapore, the food at Syun is more classically Japanese with a few touches of local flavour like the addition of chilli padi and garlic in shoyu that is drizzled over slices of yellowtail sashimi to “mimic the flavours of Chinese steamed fish,” said Yamashita.

Perhaps the most memorable dish here is a sliver of raw A5 Kobe wagyu wrapped around a creamy tongue of sea urchin and topped with pearls of caviar. This sublime spoonful just dissolves in layers of rich flavour as it slips down your throat — faintly smoky, creamy, and then surprising brightness from a slick of shoyu. At S$15 a spoonful, we think it qualifies as an indulgence that warrants a second helping.

Wagyu and sea urchin are also showcased to delicious effect in the restaurant’s version of sukiyaki (S$88 per person and S$158 for two people), where tender slices of beef are swirled in sea urchin instead of the usual raw egg.

A chirashi sushi box set for lunch goes for S$32 and includes miso soup, kailan and tofu, steamed egg custard and a green salad. You could also opt for the unagi (eel) and foie gras teriyaki box set for a reasonable S$37.

Dinner tasting menus start at S$95 for five courses that includes the aforementioned spoonful of sea urchin rolled in wagyu, assorted sashimi, charcoal-grilled wagyu or sea bream, and sushi. For S$120, you get seven courses — a steal compared to equally popular high-end Japanese establishments in the city. ANNETTE TAN

Syun

Where: Festive Walk, Resorts World Sentosa, 8 Sentosa Gateway

Telephone: 6577 6688

Opening hours: Daily 12pm to 3pm, 6pm to 11pm. Closed on Mondays.

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