Welcome to yet another episode of restaurant ratings by Japan-Guru.
Firstly, a quick disclaimer before we get into this thing. (Promise it's short!)
I just want to clarify again, that this review heavily takes into account the authenticity of the product or service from a purely Japanese perspective.
What does this mean?
What I’m saying is that even if my rating is low, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the product is not good.
For example, if there is a fantastic Japanese restaurant but is heavily localized, it’s difficult for me to recommend that restaurant as a Japanese-guru.
I can do that as a local guru! It’s a delicious local dish.
But I can’t do that as a Japanese-guru.
Make sense?
People who are looking for purely Japanese experiences ask me for recommendations, so a delicious, localized dish won’t be their expectation. I recommend experiences as close to Japanese as possible.
And hence the recommendation score will be low for fantastic, localized dishes.
Ok, that's all.
Glad we got that out of the way!
Today we’re doing Japanese barbeque.
Japanese Yakiniku. (Drool!)
Amazingly, this is the first time I’m doing a Yakiniku review despite the immense love I have for this food.
We’ll be heading over to one of the more competitive yakiniku areas in Singapore today – the Tanjong Pagar area.
shop profile.
Osaka Yakiniku Don-Don Singapore (1st)
Address: 90 Tg Pagar Rd, Singapore 088511
Website: https://www.facebook.com/don2sg/
And no, I'm not paid to review.
The company that operates this restaurant is a very interesting one. It’s called GENKI Factory and is HQ’d in Osaka Japan.
Let me touch on this briefly because I think it's interesting.
Its corporate policy is to have fun with food!
Well… in fact the way they word it – the corporate policy is more like “play with food”!
OMG, that’s like the last thing you want to teach your child! And yet, it’s their corporate policy!
The thing is, they’re trying to breathe fun into how they approach this dining space – which I think is absolutely incredible.
It holds about 8 different restaurant brands, with Yakiniku Don-Don being one of them. They reached 111 outlets in 2020. It’s an up-and-coming powerhouse in the Japanese restaurant market.
One of the over-arching themes of this restaurant group is that they have counter seats as the main part of the restaurant. Just as it is in Don Don in Singapore.
Ok, enough of this stuff. (Again, sounds like a corporate promotion, but no I’m not paid to write this!)
Let’s get into it.
So here’s how the restaurant looks from the bustling post-Covid Tanjong Pagar Rd.
We sat ourselves down at the counter seats area.
The restaurant is a nice and energetic atmosphere.
I feel it’s a great place to come with friends or with maybe colleagues. A great place to build comrade and have fun.
There are a respectable number of female customers in the restaurant as well. Always a barometer for quality food.
The staff are great and fast and helpful.
Let's take a look at the MENU (Sorry missing a few pages!)
Overall, I see what I want. (Sorry I missed a page of the menu which contains the meat)
It's the assortment of meat you’d basically want, to a nice variety of intestinal parts.
Delicious looking sides, and some of the soups as well.
(I usually like ordering soup. But didn't today)
The prices are decent.
So. this is what I ordered (For a party of 2).
Ox Tongue with spring onion (Negi-tan) - SGD $22.00 ++ Rib Eye (Rosu) (Tare) - forgot Short Rib (Karubi) (Tare) - forgot Beef Skirt (Harami) (Tare) - forgot Kimchi – SGD $7.00 ++ Potato Salad – SGD $9.00 ++ Ice Cream Sandwich Vanilla – SGD $8.00 ++
The problem with forgetting to take picture of the MENU is...
I can’t recall the prices.
But overall, it's decent. I'll touch on this later, but the quantity is good too.
Careful with the prices of the MENU on their Facebook page. It’s a bit outdated and some of the meats are more expensive.
This is a Sumibi-yaki style yakiniku, basically meaning that it’s Charcoal- grilled.
Each party gets a Shichirin (which is a small charcoal grill) on each table, which you would share to cook the meat.
And of course, sumibi-yaki is definitely my favorite way of cooking Japanese yakiniku.
Let’s get cooking.
The Ox tongue with spring onion looks like this.
Yummy.
This is one of my favorite Yakiniku dishes.
It’s the tongue part of the ox which comes with a nice firm texture.
It’s sliced thin, so you just bake it on one side while you keep the spring onions on top.
Once the side on the top looks good to go, just eat.
(You wouldn’t want to flip the meat over and bake both sides because all the spring onions will start falling off!)
Instead of using sauce, it’s better to dip it in lemon and eat. It gives it a nice refreshing taste.
This is perfect.
Really, delicious. Great quality meat. With the firmness of the tongue, but not hard. Not fatty, with a great, great taste of the meat itself.
The other meats which we’ve ordered look like this.
The Rib Eye (Rosu), Beef Skirt (Harami), and the Short Rib (Karubi) .
At a Japanese Yakiniku, you might be asked whether to go for “Tare” or “Shio” when you order. (Sometimes you get “Miso” as well – but not here in Yakiniku Don Don).
They’re asking for the sauce preference. “Tare” is usually a soy-based yakiniku sauce. - You can kind of say it's a Japanese style BBQ sauce.
“Shio” means salt. It’s a salt-based sauce.
Which is better?
It’s really just preference.
I tend to go for “Tare” for these 3 types of meat. I like the taste of the sauce adding to the meaty taste. I guess overall I’m a “Tare” person.
But I like “Shio” for things like “pork fatty” for example where the taste of the meat might be more subtle.
But again, overall, I guess it’s just what you like. Sizzleeeeeeee
So, how are the taste?
These 3 meats are fantastic as well.
The Short Rib (Karubi) I actually hesitated to order at first. My stomach is getting old and I might not be able to take too much fats.
But nonetheless we tried ordering, and yes it was definitely the correct move.
Not too fatty. Not too fatty at all, but yet there is the delicious flavor of the very soft meat. Fantastic.
The Rib Eye (Rosu) was wonderful as well. Same thing. Great tasting meat.
The thing about Rib Eye is that is doesn’t have too much fat in the first place. But yet this one is very soft and enjoyable because – again, the meat tastes great.
The Beef Skirt (Harami) might have been my favorite out of the three. Great balance of taste and oil. Really a satisfying dish.
All 3 were super satisfying.
And as you can sort of tell from the picture, the quantity is quite decent too.
Here’s how the other side dishes which we've ordered looked like.
The Potato Salad
Fancy, right!?
Yes it it! And taste nice as well.
Almost like an Italian dish, with the cheese and the minced meat inside.
It certainly is a unique dish, and worth the try at $9.00 ++.
Kimchi
Delicious as well.
The kimchi is a Korean dish, but I consider this as a Japanese-Localized Kimchi. Therefore, fits this Japan-guru review concept as well.
hahaha.
It’s a good tasting Japanese Kimchi with a nice level of sweetness.
At the end we added the Ice cream to our order.
It’s actually an Ice cream sandwich that looks like this.
Lucky we only ordered 1. It's huge and luckly it was already split to two.
We saw them actually prepare this over the counter. Not sure if you can tell from the picture here - but they take this sandwich and toast it with a burner.
This is deceptively delicious and actually a recommendation dish as well.
I think it has some hidden sweet taste – not sure what it is, may be honey.
That wraps up our meal.
So overall, all 4 meats were fantastic. The price was absolutely reasonable for the quality.
Service is great. Restaurant atmosphere is great.
Yup, so here goes the review. And before that, a refresher on how the reviews work.
Guru Rating Legend
7.5 - 10.0: If someone asks me for a recommendation, I will direct them to this service/product.
5.0 - 7.5: I might not go as far as directing people to this service/product, but I might go again myself.
2.5 - 5.0: I probably won't go again, but not to the extent of avoiding at all costs.
1.0 - 2.5: Avoid coming here again period.
Guru Rating
As a Yakiniku Restaurant: 8.9/10.0
I will certainly recommend this restaurant as a Japanese Yakiniku restaurant. The quality of meat is fantastic, while the price and quantity are very reasonable. I love the atmosphere and energy of the restaurant, and the staff are fantastically trained.