Tucked into a small corner of the Orchard Rendezvous Hotel lobby is Unkai Sushi, an unassuming restaurant and bar serving up quality omakase at good prices.
Comfortable Interior With Omakase View
The place is demarcated into two sections – the omakase seating and alcohol bar plus two private rooms.
With the omakase bar comes a great view where you can watch Chef Eugene Lam hand cut and handmake your sushi in front of you!
Despite the omakase concept, it’s not intimidating and comfortable with Chef Eugene guiding the meal.
Unkai Sushi Menu
The 舞 Mai 8-course lunch omakase ($68++) comes with a set dishes but seasonal ingredients. Aside from their omakase, you can indulge in their Maguro Sushi Set ($68) and Umi ($48) sashimi set.
For a more substantial meal, there are heavier omakase sets like 彩 Aya ($88++) and Umi Chef’s Choice ($238++).
There are also cooked options like Wagyu Sukiyaki ($48) and Asari Butter Yaki ($22) but do note their menu is more focused on raw seafood.
They also offer 5 course lunch sets with salad, chawanmushi, miso soup and dessert! The don options include Bara Chirashi Don ($26), Salmon and Roe Don ($26) and A5 Kagoshima Wagyu Don ($68).
We had the opportunity to try the 舞 Mai 8-course lunch omakase.
Appetizer
The appetizer we got was a cold dish of yuba (tofu skin) and Koshibi (young baby tuna) with a ponzu sauce.
This was light and refreshing which whet our appetites! The yuba was soft and silky while the Koshibi had a firm bite without any fishiness.
They even age their Koshibi in-house for extra tenderness. Koshibi tuna are only 3 to 6 months old so their meat is much more tender and does not have a strong iron taste.
Seasonal Sashimi
The next course presented Akami (lean tuna) and seabream, with a light grating of yuzu. Everything was extremely fresh, with the seabream being flown in that morning!
The seabream was our favourite, with a clean and sweet flavour. The meat was also tender but retained a great mouthfeel.
Lean tuna usually has an overpowering iron taste, but the addition of yuzu alleviated it by perfuming each bite. Their tuna is even aged in-house!
Chawanmushi
The chawanmushi came garnished with water lily and hairy crab plus a savoury gravy. It was smooth with a great seasoning from the gravy.
The water lily has a unique gelatinous ‘coating’ around the main stem, which is actually crunchy! The hairy crab added a pleasant seafood flavour, bringing the dish together.
Gindara Miso Yaki
The second cooked dish is grilled miso black cod, with a crisp skin. This was flaky, fatty and juicy (we never knew fish could be juicy!) with a charred flavour from the miso!
Seasonal Sushi
Chef Eugene expertly handmade three sushi – Scallops, golden ice snapper and Chutoro. His experience is clear from how quickly he shaped them, each taking less than a minute!
Our favourite bite was the scallops. They were quite big-sized but retained the same sweetness, pairing great with their speciality seasoned rice.
The rice they use for the sushi is seasoned with ume (Japanese plum) and special rice vinegar, providing an added fragrance to each bite.
Mini Don
Usually, the omakase set would come with a mini chirashi don to finish. However, we got to try Chef Eugene’s special Magic Bowl!
The Magic Bowl is an additional $38 but we think it’s worth the upgrade. Each bowl comes with a bed of seasoned rice, abalone liver sauce, negitoro, white shrimp, ikura and finished with uni.
It tastes just as good as it sounds! It’s best eaten mixed and you can enjoy all the tastes and textures from the different seafood.
The abalone liver sauce and uni made for an umami creaminess, contracted by the bite from the negitoro and white shrimp. There was no fishiness at all!
The don is served with a side of miso soup, which was chock full of umami and seaweed.
Ice Cream
A sweet treat to end the meal is matcha ice cream, served in a cute espresso cup. It’s definitely dessert matcha with a creamier, sweeter taste instead of a strong matcha.
Pork Cheek Rice Bowl
We got to try the Pork Cheek Rice Bowl ($28) from their 5-course lunch menu, garnished with slices of grilled pork cheek.
The meat was melt-in-your-mouth tender, with a caramelisation from the glaze. It also sat on a bed of rice seasoned with furikake and tempura flakes plus an onsen egg.
Affordable Omakase In Singapore
Unkai Sushi offers a satisfying omakase meal at an unbeatable price without compromising on quality! If you’re looking for more unique omakase experiences in Singapore, check out our tag!
Unkai Sushi
#01-10, Orchard Rendezvous Hotel, 1 Tanglin Road Singapore 247905
Open daily: 11.30am-2.30pm, 6pm-10pm
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