EPICURE

Aoki: Singapore’s best value fine-dining sushi?

There may be newer and fancier sushi restaurants with a star but they can’t beat Aoki Restaurant’s price-to-quality proposition

 

Aoki Restaurant

Chef Aoki Kunio with his ultra-luxe tray of tuna and Chef Ewan Soh

February 2022

As omakase menu prices heat up in the bonfire of inflation, one high-end Japanese restaurant in Singapore has resisted the upward pressure and continues to offer good value, if not affordable high-end sushi (if there is such a thing).

While new names boast Michelin stars with ever ballooning bills, Aoki Restaurant has resisted raising prices for its fine-dining experience.

This sushi stalwart has been a fixture for 19 years now at the corner of Shaw Centre. Even without a star, it is a pleasure to sit at Chef Aoki Kunio’s long counter to savour everything from reasonably priced chirashi sushi to blowout omakase with a tokkuri of premium nihonshu.

Aoki Restaurant’s cool yet comfortable space stands out from the glaringly bright interiors of some fancy new sushi joints. Withdrawal symptoms from two years of being shut out of Tokyo? Then bask in an elegant sanctum decked out in intricate wooden screens from Kanazawa and the same handmade fridges with wooden doors as Sushi Saito and Sawada in Tokyo (not to mention the same fish suppliers too).

But back to the value proposition. While omakase prices at some of the top sushi restaurants have soared like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Aoki offers a range, starting from surprisingly inexpensive “entry-level” omakase, to a couple of premium but still pocket-friendly seasonal menus.

The top-of-the-line omakase presents 11 otsumami (small dishes), 16 pieces of sushi, miso soup and a small fruit combo. It is so filling you will roll out of the restaurant if not for the small flight of stairs leading up to the door.

Aoki Restaurant meiji maguro

Young and fresh: Three cuts from a meiji maguro

Best savoured with an ichigo (180 ml) of junmai daiginjo by cult sake brewery Isojiman in Shizuoka, the seasonal menu begins with an ode to otsumami.

  • Sweet and creamy – Yuba (beancurd skin) is covered with uni (sea urchin) and swimming in thick soy sauce
  • Firm and clean – Soramame (broad bean) is boiled and lightly salted
  • Slippery with sour – A bowl of clean-tasting baby eel is paired with a ponzu dip
  • Deliciously different – An oyster on the half shell (from Akkeshi in eastern Hokkaido) is topped with caviar and bathed in Spanish olive oil and lemon juice
  • Fresh and fatty – Three cuts of sashimi (otoro, chutoro and akami) from a meiji maguro (23 kg baby tuna from Yamaguchi) that is oily with, as Chef Aoki says, “a young taste”
  • Mousse-like monkfish – Ankimo (monkfish liver) is first steamed, then mashed for an airy, velvety mouthfeel and served on ponzu jelly
  • Bouncy buri – The belly of an end-of-season buri (yellowtail) from Sado Island is rich and resilient, and nicely complemented by grated spicy daikon with a slightly bitter aftertaste
  • Warm and sweet – Fluffy shreds of zuwaigani (snow crab) with a sweet ginger/vinegar dip
  • Twice as special – Homemade karasumi (dried mullet roe), served natural and blowtorched, with the latter unusual for its richer taste; the baby daikon is a crunchy and yummy addition
  • Crunchy yet tender – Grilled scallop is wrapped in toasted nori seaweed and slightly spicy
  • Oily perfection – Salt-grilled nodoguro (black throat perch) is perfectly grilled in all its juicy, oily goodness
Aoki Restaurant karasumi

Delicious duo: Karasumi au naturel and blowtorched

After all that seafood comes more fish on rice, with a wave of nigiri and gunkan sushi. Aoki’s signature sushi is a thick slab of neta (topping) on shari (sushi rice) that is firm but slightly soft with retains its individual grains.

  • First up is Hirame Engawa – a thick, chewy and almost crunchy slab of a flounder’s fin
  • Next is Sumi Ika – firm but resilient cuttlefish with a sprinkle of salt
  • Four types of Toro follow: Shimofuri otoro (a fatty cut near the neck) akamizuke (marinated red meat) from Shizuoka; another piece of almost “crisp” otoro, also from near the neck but this time from a 115.2 kg tuna caught off Miyagi; and otoro from the same fish but a belly cut that is sinewy and even fattier
  • After all that rich and oily fish, Kohada (gizzard shad) provides some welcome tang with the sharpness of vinegar
  • Mirugai (giant clam) continues with some crunchy freshness
  • After the toro smorgasbord comes a uni buffet with three kinds: Awaji Murasaki is fresh with a light creaminess; Hokkaido Murasaki gunkan is creamier; and a bright orange Hokkaido Bafun that is sweeter and surprisingly flavorful for bafun
  • Hirame sushi
  • Shiro Ebi (baby white shrimp) marinated in seaweed
  • Hotate (small scallop) gunkan
  • Tuna Ehomaki (rolled sushi)
  • Anago (sea eel) with salt and with tare sweet sauce
Aoki Restaurant uni

Muraskai and more: The first of three uni sushi

By this time, you should be stuffed to your gills but if you’re not, you are either a very large person or someone who just ended an extra long quarantine.

But if you are neither, a bowl of piping hot miso soup with shijimi clam is the ideal end to your sushi journey. Some sweet fruit will also hit the spot – a portion of a white strawberry, two small grapes, and a wedge each of apple, orange and musk melon.

Some places may be newer and have a star but Aoki combines quality with value – something that inflation will find hard to beat.

https:// www.aoki-restaurant.com.sg

Aoki Restaurant otoro

Belly fatty: The fourth otoro is from Miyagi

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