Bf's birthday falls on this weekend. And to prolong the happiness he had from our very recent Japan trip, he wanted to have Japanese birthday meal.
After a quick search online, I decided to lunch at:
Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre
134 West Coast Way S(127064)
Tel: 6776 3919
The restaurant is tucked away at West Coast and has a homely feel. It is run by a Japanese lady boss who speaks a little English and her daughter, who can speak English.
I called to make reservation a day earlier and received their menu through email. It was stated that they prepare their ingredients only when needed hence it would help if we place order beforehand. We did and it might have reduce our waiting time to be served.
Inside, they provide Japanese comics and magazines while you wait to be served and there's even a photo of President Nathan taken in the same restaurant some time back.
We were first served fragrant roasted barley tea when we settled in. While bf kept himself occupied with his favourite golf stuff, I just snapped away with a soft traditional Japanese music playing away in the background.
For starter, we had the Ikabata-yaki, cuttlefish sired fried with butter and garlic. And I must say, this is the best fried cuttlefish I've had. We would definitely want to order this starter if we do visit Restaurant Chako again.
I had the Gyutamaju set meal which is thinly sliced beef with egg and onion gravy over rice, whereas bf had the Beef Hamburg Steak set meal which really is like a fusion dish with beef patty and spaghetti. For the set meal, it even came with rice in addition to the spaghetti; good for big eaters! Both were good but not fantastic.
It was a plus for us today as we had the whole place to ourselves for lunch.
As for the dessert, I had Soya Vanilla ice-cream and bf had Tofu Cheesecake with Tofu Chocolate. I prefer the former which was a light and refreshing sweet ending to my meal.
Restaurant Chako would be a nice charming place for a sit down meal. And it has a really impressive selection of around 50 mains or so. The food down to the sauces are all handmade. If you can pay by cash, they'll even offer you a 10% discount costing us about $30 each for this meal.
