Today's review will be Japanese Restaurant Suju Masayuki.
It's a traditional Japanese restaurant - more focusing on "home cooking" type dishes from the looks of their menus.
Suju Masayuki at Mandarin Gallery
333A Orchard Rd, #04 - 05, Singapore 238897
Homepage: https://suju-masayuki.com/sg/#box01
I'll just say this upfront. As a Japanese guru, this was a fantastically satisfying experience.
Truly delicious. Absolutely authentic. Pure Japanese.
Let's jump right into it!
The Mandarin Gallery is really a beautiful experience. All the shops and restaurants are uniquely and conceptually designed one by one. It truly is a gallery. Suju Masayuki is no exception.
The entrance.
Reservation relatively easy to make (for lunch at least)
This was a Sunday lunch. I called right before - at 10:30 am for a reservation, and made a reservation for 1pm. It seems like calling in for reservations for weekend lunches may not be too competitive.
The restaurant wasn't empty, but wasn't full either.
When you walk inside the restaurant, you can notice the subtle smell of quality authentic Japanese food. It's really hard to go wrong when you notice this scent. It's already a great sign.
The Menu
The Lunch Menu was a booklet with the cover looking like this.
I won't show the whole menu here, but mostly the major traditional Japanese home-cooking dishes in the menu.
I went for the "Shoga Yaki Teishoku" $28.00 SGD. It's a Teisoku which means it usually comes with rice, miso soup, and a type of pickle. That's what a basic "Teishoku" consists of, and it was the same for Suju as well.
There are a few other pages in the menu. Other dishes they serve are items such as....
Tonkatsu (200g) - Deep fried Japanese pork loin cutlet - $36.00
Chicken Nanban Teishoku - Deep fried juicy chicken with Suju original tartar sauce - $28.00
Aojiso Fish & Yasai (Vegtable) Tempura Teishoku - White fish wrapped with perilla and assorted vegtables Tempura - $27.00
Suju "Hayashi" Rice - Rice with premium beef stew served with miso soup - $28.00
Kaisen Chirashi Don - Sushi Rice with assorted sashimi - $38.00
Salmon Don - Sushi rice with salmon sashimi - $21.00
etc, etc....
Now, as a Teishoku, this is super expensive. I'm not sure if I'd be willing to pay this price if I was in Japan.
Tonkatsu for $36.00 is common. Depending on the quality of the Tonkatsu. Nice Tonkatsu can be much higher. I'd say the same for the Chirashi Don.
But dishes such like Chiken Nanban Teishoku, or Hayashi Rice - I wouldn't say it's unheard of, but it's really on the high side.
But of course, if you look at some of the other restaurants inside Mandarin Gallery, this suddenly seems quite affordable hahaha.
Free Flow Houjicha
The first thing I liked about this restaurant was the tea.
After our order, they served a complimentary, free flow Houjicha.
While complimentary, it was a nice Houjicha.
Houjicha is a Japanese green tea, but is roasted. That's why it looks brown rather than green. It's a light and heartwarming tea.
You can definitely taste and smell the floral notes of the Houjicha, which won't be found when the quality of the tea is low.
It's really nice to have good Houjicha as a free flow complementary service. It matches perfectly with the food served.
The Teishoku
The Teishoku part of the meal came out first.
As expected, consisting of rice, miso soup, and some pickles.
I waited a little bit for the Shogayaki to be served.
Once the Shogayaki came out, the whole Teishoku is quite large. Here's a picture of the whole thing. It looks delicious.
The Shogayaki
The meat slices are huge.
They're sliced nice and thin (but thick enough) as a Shogayaki dish.
Nice soft meat with lots of juice. Not all fatty either, so good balance.
There are types of Shogayaki that do a light deep-fry and add a flour crust around it. This is not that, it's a good old traditional Shogayaki.
Contrary to how it looks, the sauce is relatively light. It has a fresh citrus dressing touch to it.
My recommendation is to eat a few solo and enjoy the meat. Then wrap the cabbage with meat to make a "niku-maki".
The crunchiness and freshness of the cabbage compliments the Shogayaki very well.
Talking about complimenting very well, we must talk about the rice.
The Rice
Look at the rice.
Honestly, this could be what impressed me the most about this restaurant. They use really premium rice.
Just by looking at it, you can tell the quality of this Japanese rice. It's cooked perfectly too.
For those of you that are on a carb-diet, caution to you! It's honestly hard to stop eating.
It's very rich in the taste and smell of rice. The more you chew, the umami gushes out. You can taste "Amazake" which is a drink made from rice that brings out the taste and sweetness of the rice.
According to their homepage...
Brown rice and miso arrive directly from the local market of Nagano. The brown rice, in order to serve in the best condition, is polished every morning and cooked with copper pot.
OK, wow.
And then the Miso soup.
The Miso Soup
Delicious as well.
The brown objects floating around are Shimeji mushrooms. So this is a Shimeji mushroom miso soup. It also had tofu inside.
You can taste the fantastic miso mentioned in the quote above.
It has a very defined Katsuo (Bonito strip) dashi taste within the soup. Very much on the sweet side of the taste spectrum, as opposed to the salty side.
It's perfect to reset the taste inside your mouth after eating the Shogayaki.
The Pickles, or Otsukemono
Not the best angle on this photo. Forgive me.
I think it's a type of turnip, in a sweet and vinegarish sauce similar to that of a Senmaizuke.
It's well pickled and well balanced. Usually a pickle that comes with a Teishoku won't have this quality. This is a fine Otsukemono.
The desert; Custard pudding
We went for the custard pudding as desert.
Perfect as well.
Not the baked type.
Very rich. Nicely controlled sweetness. Delicious, delicious caramel sauce with really high tasting notes, almost like honey mixed in.
Overall a great place to experience a high-end Japanese traditional dish.
Japanese dishes are traditionally very simple. They don't overcomplicate by combining different "main" tasting ingredients to a single dish. There is a main, and there is everything that maximizes the characteristics of that main. And that's how you can focus on the quality and enjoy that "main".
Suju Masayuki epitomizes that concept.
looking forward to trying the other dishes that they have.
Guru Rating
As a Shogayaki Teishoku
9.5/10
If I were asked for a place for Shogayaki, this would be the place I would currently recommend. Hands down. Not a 10 because it's quite expensive.
As a Teishoku Restaurant
9.7/10
Same as above. I would recommend this on the drop of a hat. Not a 10 because it's on the expensive side.