Tburu is a new Japanese restaurant in Orchard Gateway @ Emerald opened by the same group that operates Kiku. Chanced upon their opening promotion offer of 8-course degustation menu and went ahead to try them out.
Located on 5th floor of Orchard Gateway, the restaurant is only accessible by taking a lift up. Pros – made it seems pretty exclusive and privileged, cons – not much footfall. After entering the restaurant through a discreet door and walking through a short walkway, a full-height window offering expansive view of Orchard Central came into sight. Needless to say, I was impressed by view offered and there is even a small alfresco bar area for drinks.
My dinner started with a small appetizer, which the staff didn’t even introduce what it was…but based on my own taste bud – it should be crab cake? The 2nd dish was Pumpkin Salad. Both were ordinary and acceptable. By our 3rd dish, we started to observe other diners seated along the bar counter to see what’s our next dish (if the others were also having the same menu). We started to notice that for some diners the sequence of the food order was different. Some had the Salmon Carpaccio while some had the Sashimi Platter as the 3rd course. I really enjoyed the chilled Salmon carpaccio which had cured salmon slices along with a dash of truffle oil, topped with some salmon roes.
Once again for the Sashimi Platter, we weren’t told of what were the exact items served though we could figure it out ourselves. The sashimi weren’t the top quality freshest kind, but was ordinarily acceptable. Although I heard another customer next to me commented that the sashimi was pretty good. So I suppose its up to individual’s sense of freshness.
We were now waiting for our 5th dish in anticipation and it was Chawamushi. Our chawamushis were served in a rather large bowl, while others were served in bowls of varying sizes. However the interesting sight was the 2 huge green leaves sitting on top of all the steamed eggs.
The Buta Kakuni was well-braised, so soft that it almost melts-in-your-mouth. Another one of the more memorable dish here.
Skewers were served next. In fact while waiting for them, we spent some time observing the staff working in the small clear kitchen which had pretty powerful exhaust system installed. The smoke from grilling the skewers were well-contained within the partition and interestingly the staff was seen donning a mask (looked like N95 kind, not the surgical kind) while at work.
The skewers would make a good accompaniment with beer~ Each of the four has a different texture: crunchy ladies’ finger, chewy squid, tender pork and the savoury mentaiko tori. A great mixture.
Our meal ended with a Miso soup.
The degustation menu is priced at $100 per pax but was on 50% discount as part of their opening promotion. However if the $100 per pax menu was the one I had tasted, I don’t think it is worth the money. Nonetheless through this promotion we get to know of the place and tried their food. It’s a matter of whether the experience is good enough to attract returning customers.
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