Saturday, April 26, 2014

Han, Odeon Towers


As far as I am aware, Han (#01-04, Odeon Towers, 331 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6336 2466) is the only kushikatsu specialist here. The chef, a Seiichiro Arakawa who formerly ran a cool little place called Si Bon at the Amara Santuary Spa at Sentosa serving kushikatsu that I never got a chance to visit, heads this place.

This would be another one of those places that I've been wanting to visit for quite a while. It's also one of those places that constantly went out of sight and out of mind for me, so until recently when I stumbled upon a piece from a certain someone who might have grown up eating rubbish that coincidentally shares a similarly pronounced first name as a certain Mr Sinister, I stopped the procrastination and forgetting and made my way down.

The menu isn't too extensive, but it offers a variety. There's sashimi to be had and a dedicated counter for that. There's rice bowls, sushi and sukiyaki. A curated list of offerings. But who are we kidding? I didn't come to a pricey kushikatsu specialist to eat all that other stuff. Not on a first visit anyway. I wanted to try the deep fried things on sticks.

Actually, we kinda took the advice from the previously mentioned article and ordered the cheapest lunch set along with supplementary sticks of their kushikatsu.


Otoshi. I think it's salmon.


There's generally nothing much to say about accompanying salads from these Japanese sets. I just had to mention that the dressing for this particular one was refreshingly tangy. It made me want to finish up everything.


First up from the order of 3 sticks of supplementary kushikatsu was the angel prawns. It had a nice firm texture, was slightly sweet and very fresh tasting. I can't tell if there's supposed to be any difference from regular shrimp.


Next came the scallop.


Sweet and juicy inside.


Cherry tomato stuffed with cream cheese.


Light tang, some sweetness and rich creamy insides.


The main lunch item was the Ohmi beef tendon omelette rice with kushikatsu. The bits of beef were probably trimmings off those cuts that made the sukiyaki. And because they were just bits, all I could taste of it was a pleasant beefy flavor that was fairly pronounced, but not exactly robust which I was really hoping for. The pork kushikatsu sticks on the sides were done with shiso leaves. The meat was remarkably tender.

At this point of time, we were more than convinced that the man behind the copper frying dome was indeed an expert in his craft. None of the batter and panko mixture had the slightest excess grease.


The yuzu ice cream was...well, okay. I think the fruit works better as sorbet.


This black sesame ice cream in wafer shell thing with red bean was very nice.

I think I like the food at Han so far. The prices are on the high side, I'm kinda cool with lunch. There's definitely no dispute about the quality of their kushikatsu while service was attentive and prompt if not altogether unintrusive. I'm not sure about dinner though.

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