08 September, 2007

Nihon Banzai

August has been a busy month for me. Besides having to attend a course twice a week after office hours, friends and relatives has been generous to buy me treats over this period because of my birthdays. Besides swearing by greasy hawker delights as my favourite, my other pet is Japanese food. It is during one of these treats that I was introduced to this Japanese restaurant, Nihon Mura at Revenue House.

Part of the sister chain to Suki Group, who brought in Suki Sushi and Sakura, this new entrant is offering sushi dishes at 99 cents each.

It is made possible, according to their director, Mr Kelvin Ong, because their business strategy is to avoid malls, which are overflowing with other chains, and opt for less expensive venues in suburban areas to keep prices low.

However, despite offering cheap conveyor-belt sushi, the peeve is that none of the tables are located next to it; hence you have to walk over to help yourself to the sushi.

The restaurant also comprises of various sections including:

Grills

Tempura

and Noodles, other than the Sushi - which is ready-made - all the other dishes are represented in placards placed in front of the stations, beside a batch of ice lolly sticks etched with the name of the dish.

Interestingly, to order, you collect the sticks of the dishes you want and hand them to a waiter with your table number, or simply drop these lolly sticks into a cup placed at your tables, and the waiter will collect it and take order.

With the amount of variety to choose from, the standard of the dishes were unexpectedly of a high standard.

Even the Sashimi were surprisingly fresh, so much so that we had a second order of the Akagai, or the Red Shell Fish, which is bigger version of what we commonly known as Cockles. The meat was so sweet and the texture was firm.

The other dish I enjoyed was the Salmon Belly Soup. A bowl of piping hot soup served in a ceramic pot with generous serving of vegetables and chunky pieces of Salmon Belly Meat was such a delight that we ordered a second serving as well.

For a lunch of 7 adults and 1 child, the whole meal was $220, which worked out to be slightly over $30 per person. My overall verdict is that for the price we are paying, all the dishes are pretty good. The only regret is that as most dishes are served at one go, such that some of the turned cold before we could have a chance to sample it. Nevertheless, this is definitely a good place to go for family gatherings and friends reunion dinner.

Rating

Food: 4/5
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4/5
Price: 4/5
Total: 15.5/20
55 Newton Road
#02-02 Revenue House
Singapore 307987




View Larger Map

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Been there before. Liked the big portion for the soup (& loads of the accompanying veggies) but the soup base was abit tasteless for me. Agree that the grilled stuff was good! But overall not a very cheap meal(which I thought would be, being distraughted by the signs screaming 99c sushi!- but then again i didn't eat any sushi...so...)

ty

His Food Blog said...

Hey! Nice to see a familiar name dropping by. Honestly I couldn't really rem how the soup taste like, but I was very much drawn to the big tender pieces of salmon belly. I thought for $30+, the value I get is pretty good. What did you eat that day? Perhaps its more worthwhile if you eat in a big group as places like Marche.

Anonymous said...

Yea, guess $30 was fair value for money considering the type of food. My bill came up to around the price too for juices,soup,chawanmushi, some grilled fish and scallop items, but no sushi or sashimi though. Liked the novel way of ordering food but Revenue House is really too out of the way for a 2nd visit!

keep the posts flowing :)
ty

His Food Blog said...

Yep. I reckon for a small group this place is not value for money as you cant eat that much a variety of food. It helps that someone from my group works in IRAS and thus an additional 5% off the bill for this outlet. Also, I figured a good way to order the food is to gather all the lollies at one go and drop the sticks to the cup as you deem fit, so as to regulate the flow of the food to ensure the food is served warm!

Post a Comment

His Food Blog Popular Posts

His Food Blog Food Cloud