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Food review: Takumi Kacyo

SINGAPORE — The backgrounder printed in the menu holds promise: Established in 1927, Kacyo in Tokyo’s Shimbashi district is a top-class ryotei — a traditional, fiercely private Japanese restaurant reserved for business entertainment, with performances by experienced geishas. It has famously hosted guests such as Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney in its tatami-lined rooms and snagging a reservation is impossible without a referral from a trusted friend of the restaurant.

SINGAPORE — The backgrounder printed in the menu holds promise: Established in 1927, Kacyo in Tokyo’s Shimbashi district is a top-class ryotei — a traditional, fiercely private Japanese restaurant reserved for business entertainment, with performances by experienced geishas. It has famously hosted guests such as Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney in its tatami-lined rooms and snagging a reservation is impossible without a referral from a trusted friend of the restaurant.

The Singapore outpost doesn’t have such exclusivity, but it does promise fine seasonal Japanese cuisine and with that kind of pedigree, a certain level of service. We didn’t expect to be left standing at the entrance of the dining room when you arrive, twiddling thumbs as you wait for someone to ask if you would like a table. Neither did we expect every member of the service team to vanish from the dining room as soon as each dish is served, never to return until the kitchen sends out another dish. That also means that no one clears your empty plates until your server comes to your table holding your next course.

The saving grace is that the prices here don’t reflect the privileged nature of the mothership in Japan. A pretty tray of three seasonal appetisers featuring ingredients imported from the restaurant’s homeland goes for S$20 and includes a bowl of marinated radish topped with salmon roe, slices of grilled duck breast with an assortment of fish cakes; and a dish of creamy sweet black beans and crunchy pickled choroge (a Japanese root). Now that it is winter in Japan, there was also grilled kinki (market price), a Hokkaido rockfish known for its silky flesh that was lightly grilled and salted to retain its natural flavours.

Our teppan-cooked Premium A5 Miyazaki Wagyu sirloin (S$98 for 120 grams) certainly looked promising, with a nice char on the outside and a ruby rare centre. However, the meat simply refused to yield — I chewed till my jaw hurt. I gave up and concentrated instead on the rather delicious grilled vegetables that accompanied it.

Suffice it to say, to best enjoy the spoils of Takumi Kacyo, one must come without the expectations that Kacyo’s pedigree brings. After all, before Takumi partnered with Kacyo, it was already serving up some pretty good food. At lunch, there is a list of excellent value-for-money sets that start from S$15.

For that price, you get a main such as teppanyaki ginger pork, charcoal-grilled mackerel or mixed tempura, served with rice, a small appetiser, chawanmushi, miso soup and dessert.

In any setting, these S$15 meals are a steal — more so when the restaurant comes with an alluring view of the marina’s waters. ANNETTE TAN

Takumi Kacyo

Where: #02-01 Marina at Keppel Bay, 2 Keppel Bay Vista

Telephone: 6271 7414

Opening hours: noon to 2.30pm, 6pm to 10.30pm daily

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