Takumi Restaurant @Keppel Bay

We took a leisurely stroll from Vivocity to Keppel Island, in our attempt to make our space in our tummies for dinner 😛

We read some good reviews at Takumi, and we are always eager to try Japanese food!

Takumi is a Japanese fine dining restaurant headed by Chef Okumura Kenji, and hails both a Robata and a Teppan counter all under one roof. The environment is uniquely Japanese zen-like with lots of space and private dining options too.

Fresh seafood is sourced from Tsukiji market and served at the special sushi counter and one can watch on as Chef Shigeru Shiraishi puts his knife skills and nimble hands to work.

Undecided with what to try, we ended up with the Yamamoto Dinner Set ($128++ each).

The first appetiser today was a mildly sweet fig with green chilli in a warm soy broth. It was an interesting blend of flavours, and we rather enjoyed it.

This was followed by a platter of 2 fish, the Cougar eel, which has a good smokey flavour  (pity that the sauce was a bit too salty), and the Spanish mackerel (pretty alright). There was also a mini flounder sushi. We could see the leaves through the translucent fish, making it a pretty visual pleasure.

The flavours were well balanced. We also liked the slight saltiness from the skin as we popped the mini grilled yam into our mouths. It was also our first time trying the jade green colour gingko nut, which was slightly bitter and chewy. The clear winner of this platter was the deep fried sweet potato, with the light batter and the natural sweetness that was oh-so-nice.

The assorted sashimi was served with ponzu and soy sauce, and the snapper fin was deliciously sweet and with a light crunch, which went well with the ponzu sauce.

The rest of the items were white snapper, yellow tail, chu toro, and scallop, which were all very fresh and sweet. This was a lovely sashimi platter.

Today’s stewed dish was Spanish mackerel with eggplant and burdock. The egg was added after the food was cooked, absorbing the flavours of the broth. This dish was super delicious!

There was a choice of tuna steak with salad or foie gras  with daikon for the Teppan item, so naturally, we opted for one each. The foie gras was way better than the tuna steak, which felt a tad overdone.

There was supposed to be a refresher before the grilled dish option (Ayu or A5 Premium Japanese Wagyu), but the grilled dish came first. We preferred the well-marbled beef to the Ayu, which had rather flaky meat, and we thought that the skin could be done abit longer.

Then there was a super long pause to our food… And we occupied ourselves catching lots and lots and lots of Pokemon. Finally, someone seemed to realize that there were still customers who had not finished their set meals, and came to clear away our main dish, but not the tiny plates that were filled with fish bones. Why would they think that we could continue to use the plates?

For the sushi or noodles option, we decided to both have sushi.

After another short wait, finally, the Japanese staff came with our 3 standard pieces of sushi, and an empty saucer.

Out of curiosity, I asked her what was the “refresher” in the menu… Because if the pause in serving was meant to be the “refresher”, the pause was 1 dish late.

She hurriedly left with our bone-filled plates and returned with some Japanese tomatoes, which we could only assume that it was meant to be a palette cleanser, served too late.

Finally, we ended our meal with a soup, followed by the very sweet honeydew and persimmon.

What started out as a rather promising meal took a disappointing turn towards the end. There is a need to improve the service, and some of the staff did not really know what they were serving. It was almost comical when the staff proudly presented the dish as “fish”. When we queried what kind of fish it was, he had to seek help… Erm, we kinda knew that we would be eating lots of fish tonight. It would be good to know what exactly we were having.

The restaurant also had a rather good view of the marina, but a pity, the design of the restaurant was such that the windows were the backdrop of the teppanyaki counter, which meant that the view was blocked by the stacks of plates.