Food review: Sushi Mieda

SINGAPORE — Last November, one-Michelin-starred chef Nobumasa Mieda opened his first kaiseki restaurant outside of Japan within the revolving Tong Le Private Dining restaurant at the top of OUE Tower. With just eight seats around its counter, reservations have to be made well in advance in order to experience what some regard as the best sushi and kaiseki in town. The kitchen is helmed by chef Kenji Okumura, who is also the executive chef of Takumi Kacyo at Keppel Bay. Prices start from about S$80 for a seven-piece sushi set; while for the omakase (chef’s choice) dinner, featuring ingredients flown in daily from all across Japan, can run your bill up to S$400.

In the non-sushi portion of our S$250 omakase lunch, there was a blush-hued nugget of octopus boiled to melting tenderness, a lump of earthy, creamy monkfish liver and a smooth, viscous morsel of delicately flavoured house-made sesame tofu topped with crabmeat to waken the palate.

A plate of deep-fried fugu or pufferfish, with its firm, meaty texture, could have been mistaken for some superb fried chicken — wrapped in a thin, crisp batter and kissed with subtle notes of curry powder.

Even the ubiquitous chawanmushi (savoury egg custard) was a cupful of complex, nuanced flavours backed by a subtly salty base of dashi and lifted by the sweetness of crabmeat, the brininess of ikura (salmon roe), and a miniscule dollop of wasabi to add vibrancy to it all.

There was also a tasty broth flecked with the meat and roe of snow crabs, harbouring a chunk each of sharks fin and abalone, and delicately redolent of shellfish.

What felt like course after course of dainty sushi followed, each rooted by a lump of gently sweetened rice and crowned by slivers of raw fish brought to just the right temperature so that their natural oils released their optimum flavours. Think chutoro and otoro (from the upper section and the oily belly of Bluefin tuna), sea eel, amberjack and yellowtail, and some exquisitely crunchy-creamy yellow-shell clams.

With a meal like this, timing is everything. Which is why, although diners can order from the Sushi Mieda menu when seated in the Tong Le dining room, the chefs highly recommend that the meal be taken at the sushi counter itself. In that way, the sushi is served and eaten as soon as it leaves the chef’s hands, at exactly the right temperature.

To end a meal of such exacting simplicity was an apt wedge of Japanese honey dew that was pitch perfect in its sweetness and succulence. Indeed, sometimes, it is the most uncomplicated things that are worth forking out for. ANNETTE TAN

Sushi Mieda is at Tong Le Private Dining, 60 Collyer Quay, Level 10 OUE Tower. Telephone: 8425 7835. Opening hours: Noon to 3pm, 6pm to 10.30pm, Mondays to Saturdays; closed on Sunday.