Tokyo

Any trip to Tokyo begets a visit to Tsukiji Market for sushi, and Sushi Dai is the superlative sushi experience to be had there.

If you have the tenacity to wake at the crack of dawn and brave 3 hour-long queues, you’ll be handsomely rewarded with a meal of the highest quality, skillfully crafted by artisans with nary but their hands and a very sharp knife, in an intimate, bar counter seating-only shop that just barely accommodates 12 customers.

Go for the omakase menu – 9 pieces of nigiri sushi picked by the chef and an additional one you can choose from the a la carte menu, in addition to sushi rolls, rolled egg and miso soup.

Every morsel served was delicious, and while the resplendently buttery tuna toro nigiri and briny yet sweet ocean fresh uni nigiri are obvious standouts, I also enjoyed the refreshingly new to me cutlass fish nigiri and botan shrimp nigiri.

Taste: 5/5

Have you ever seen anything like this before? Creamy camembert slowly melting in a boiling hot pool of garlic oil infused with the salty fishiness of mentaiko. So good when spread on a warm slice of baguette.

Taste: 4/5

Came expecting poofy, bouffant Hoshino-style pancakes but got these normal-sized ones instead. Light, fluffy and topped with stewed apple with caramel sauce, these were by no means bad, but left me slightly disappointed, probably due to mismatched expectations.

Taste: 3/5

World’s best pastry chef Dominique Ansel’s establishments are a dessert lover’s sweet dream come true. Besides stocking more conventional baked goods such as cakes, croissants, and eclairs, what really draws the crowds are his whimsical, creative creations. Think Zero Gravity Chiffon Cake(a cake inside a floating helium balloon), Cookie Shot and Cronuts.

The Frozen S’more looks simple enough, but bite into it and be pleasantly surprised by smooth vanilla ice cream encased in a rich salted chocolate and nut coating hiding under that charred cloud of honey marshmallow.

Taste: 4/5

Restaurant policy dictates a mandatory appetiser be ordered at this oyster bar, but I’m glad we didn’t have a choice given how good it was. Served on the charred rectangle of kombu it was grilled on, the very plump oyster was slightly smoky, very sweet and succulent. After you finish the oyster, make sure to have a drink of the lush, seafood-y nectar pooling on the kombu sheet.

Taste: 4/5

The cronut trend might have fizzled out in Singapore but it’s still going strong at Dominique Ansel’s Shibuya outpost. This is the real deal, straight from the source of the original cronut, and every other pastry pretender to the cronut throne pales in comparison. Each month, a seasonal flavour is released, and March has gifted us with the delightful Pomegranate & Kokuto Cronut – an impossibly fluffy, multi-layered confection of buttery bliss piped full of tangy pomegranate jam, then glazed with a smooth kokuto(Japanese brown sugar) ganache and lightly dusted with a fine layer of kokuto sugar. Even after having suffered the indignity of travelling for than 15 hours in an airplane’s overhead compartment, the cronut was still as fresh as a sun-kissed spring day.

Taste: 4.5/5

The burgers over at American-style diner The Great Burger are well... pretty great. With over 30 burgers to choose from, deciding what to order can put you in a bit of a dilemma, but fret not because almost every ingredient can be added on as an extra.

I pimped my burger with a fried egg and bacon, and it was uh-mazing. The combination of saucy bean chilli, thick-cut pork bacon, oozy egg and stretchy cheese almost burying a juicy patty sandwiched between pillowy, golden brown buns was immensely satisfying to chomp down on.

Taste: 4/5

This is some of the best tonkatsu you will eat in Tokyo(or anywhere), but come early as they don’t take reservations and the queue snakes up the basement stairs before spilling into the side alley.

Order both the Hire(fillet) – a tender, lean cut – and Rosu(loin), which is fattier and more flavourful. Don’t shy from the faint pinkness of the meat, rest assured it is entirely safe and your bravery will reap dividends once you sink your teeth into the most marvelously flavoursome and tender meat. The panko crumb coating is a paler shade than what we are used to, but is incredibly light, crunchy and not at all oily.

Every order of tonkatsu comes with raw cabbage, potato salad, pickles and miso soup, making for a complete meal.

Taste: 4/5

Our grilled eggplant was surprisingly tender and sweet. Topped with bonito flakes, shredded seaweed and spring onion, we enjoyed this the most.

Taste: 3.5/5

Most unusual for an izakaya were these Cheese Fritters(¥700), but these crisp, little balls of gooey cheese had us popping them one after another between each sip of beer.

Taste: 3.5/5

Good Yoshinoya, where have you been all my life? All I’ve ever had were your mediocre simulacrums in Singapore. This midnight meal of beefy goodness however, was fairly burgeoning with a thick blanket of saucy, tender beef, sweet onions and scallions over a bed of quality Japanese rice. That moment when you burst the glistening yolk and watch as liquid gold flows languidly into the meat estuaries is nothing but glorious. Or maybe it’s just the 5 bourbons speaking.

Taste: 3.5/5

I haven’t had a bad karaage in Japan yet, and Heart Beat’s didn’t disappoint either. Crunchy, paper-thin panko batter coats each chunk of juicy, succulent chicken. Perfect beer food for ¥700 a plate.