Tatsu Sushi and Teppanyaki, CHIJMES

This place (30 Victoria Street, #01-15/16 Block F, 6337-6691) has been here for a long time (it was one of the first restaurants I'd ever been to in Singapore). But it was mainly a sushi joint until I noticed this teppanyaki extension a while back. I finally came by tonight to try it out.

I grabbed their basic namesake set, but unfortunately, I didn't really care much for it. The salmon was tender but wasn't really anything memorable, the garlic rice had potential but was ultimately very uninspiring (and just needed a bit more salt), and the steak was tender, but so tender that it was disturbingly unnatural. Worse, it was drenched in some sauce that didn't let you taste the meat itself (a simple pinch of salt would have been much better).

The only thing I kinda liked was the prawns, which were firm and fresh, and went well with this garlic mayo they used. But that was another gripe of mine - they kept using so much garlic in everything (they even threw deep fried garlic chips on your plate as if to help you season things) that it became the same story as the steak: all these extras just overpowered everything rather than letting you taste the food itself.

After getting rather discouraged, I decided to fall back on a few basic items from their other shop in hopes of some salvation, including a basic hiyayakko, maguro natto, and kawaebi karaage. While none of these were bad, none of them were particularly memorable either (although I did appreciate how the kawaebi were nice and small). I think these guys were trying to cater to passing tourists from all the neighboring hotels...the teppanyaki chefs went through a bunch of noise making and theatrics that evoked a bunch of "ooohs" from some of my tourist neighbors but ultimately really did nothing. Oh well...I guess I'll have to wait for my next trip to Japan before getting any real teppanyaki.