Brunch @ Keyaki, Pan Pacific Hotel

This was an informal wedding bruncheon (is there even such a word?) of an old friend of mine. Hi Chris and Christy. You've been punk'd blogged. Enclosed in a Japanese garden, Keyaki at the 4th floor of Pan Pacific Hotel does a la carte buffet brunch at $58++ a head. Food was pretty good, though marred by less than enthusiastic service from their staff. The selection of the a la carte menu does provide a range of items with the baby lobster and sashimi being the ones that can only be ordered once. Do not expect the exotic and expensive. Like I have mentioned, the food's decent. Some were noteworthy and others, more mundane.

Here's are some photos which I managed to take. They're not exhaustive of what the brunch has. In fact, it was just round one for a table of eight.

cold sake

Not reviewing the sake. I'm not an expert on it and I don't drink it on any regular basis. At this point, sake is just sake. Perhaps I haven't the experience or develop a refined tongue for the subtleties of the drink. Drinks aren't part of the brunch, so it's something on top of the bill.

baby lobster

underside

"nude"

Not sure what to say about the lobster except that it is not bad. I know it's probably one of the laziest description. Not bad usually means not great also. Double negatives do not always imply a positive. But honestly, it is not bad. Just not exceptional. Couldn't really tell what was the greenish cream. The only ingredient which I could detect was mayo. I don't know what else was inside.

sashimi

The sashimi was not bad too. Just didn't look impressive. It tasted good, came in small portions and probably underwent fish carving skills of an apprentice. I'm generally in for variety with sashimi and three types in tiny portions does not much of a variety make.

stir fried bean sprouts

This was really popular at the table. There were a lot of garlic in the stir fried bean sprouts. The heads and the roots have also been removed. Fresh and crunchy with not the slightest hint of rawness in the bite. So we're getting well timed stir frying.

Ebi shioyaki (grilled prawns)

I liked these prawns. They're simply grilled prawns but they tasted good. Good in the sense that one's getting is the natural flavours of the crustacean and the meat was quite easy to extract from the shells. This one was at least twice as good as what I had from Azhang. For the production speed at this was done for a brunch, it speaks a volume or two about the quality twixt the two.

Hotate ebi miso (scallop with prawn miso paste)

Scallop which was neither warm nor chilled. The prawn miso paste was saturated with flavour. Miso, no prawn flavour and very salty.

Horenso gorna ae (poached spinach with sesame dressing)

Interestingly stacked like firewood, these spinach require an exercise of jaw muscle. There was not much of the sesame flavour with the dressing. I'm sure there's more to it than sesame, however the dominant taste was saltiness.

Gindara teriyaki (grilled cod with teriyaki sauce)

I like cod and am not so much into teriyaki. This really came well together. Being grilled, it's actually a little dry. Apart from that, this grilled cod had a good flavour from the meat and we didn't get a cheap drizzle of teriyaki sauce. It was a brush to coat the meat for the grill.

smoked salmon salad

No so interesting unless you really love salmon. It's so uninteresting I'm at a loss for words to describe the salad.

Yakitori

Competent and pretty tasty yakitori. The differences with these versus something like say ToriQ are the quality of the chicken and sauce. This one was not bad.

one of several tempura plates

I'm not so big on tempuras. This one comes with a hint of what I thought to be ginger in the batter. What the? As someone who generally doesn't like ginger, I tend to trust my ability to acutely detect them. Decently done, nothing more.

some really good creamy croquette which I don't remember the name

I am assuming these are croquettes. I couldn't feel the potatoes inside because it's a mostly rich creamy interior. Think comfort food. Think crispy breaded shell that explodes with scalding hot creamy insides.

Teppanyaki beef fillet....fantastic stuff

Hmmm....I'm a beef guy so this one really worked out for me. It's 'medium well' done and retained a lot of meat juices and had nice beefy flavour. I didn't see or hear of any disapproval of this at all. Went superbly with the fragrant garlic chips on the side. One of the dishes that saw repeated orders.

Jamaigo bacon maki (grilled bacon blanketed potato)

Bacon and potatoes are savouries of the masses. Everyone was ordering this. I'm not sure why this particular item took a really long time to prepare but it was pretty good. These are one of the not so salty bacon. The potato chunks were well cooked, no raw crunchiness.

Raw tuna cubes in grated mountain yam paste and quail egg

The grated mountain yam could have been grated paper for all I know. I could only understand the raw tuna and seaweed....and the raw egg.

nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with miso)

Nothing description worthy. Just as it is.

Kamo roast yaki (roasted duck breast)

Okay tasting, medium well done roast duck breast. Meat was a little dry and not so tender. I still generally thought well of it. YMMV.

Fresh fruits

rum & raisin ice cream which tasted really of neither

lime sorbet which isn't really sorbet

There were more stuff was ordered but these were the only pics I managed. It's generally easier to get the pictures in smaller groups with smaller tables but I didn't intent to blog this in the first place. It's not a place I would write off , but it does need work with the service.