Yatagarasu, Circular Road

Yatagarasu (#01-01, 72 Circular Road, tel : +65 6221 7785) refers to the three legged crow. It exists as a bird of legend in some East Asian mythologies - namely for the Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Not to be confused with a certain three eyed raven. It is also the name of this yakitori joint. 

What have we here? Small potatoes it seems.

But we got ourselves some simmered eggplant in some sweet soy/dashi broth. These were tender.

We were reeled in by the ankimo which were tender and creamy. Notice that the ponzu is drizzled sparingly over the rough chopped daikon instead of having them pooled at the bottom of the plate. Those daikon also tasted a little sweeter with no bitterness.

The first sticks that hit the table were my favourite of the lot - the hatsu. These were pretty good. Those hearts had a nice bite to them.

Followed up by some crunchy sunagimo.

There was sanma on the menu so I thought why not. The fish was gutted, cleaned and beheaded before it was put on the grill. While I missed the bitter sweet guts and head, it was still delicious.

The way they grilled the reba here left them very tender, creamy and not dried out at all. Kinda like foie gras minus the fatty flavours.

Then came nankotsu and momo. I've never been big on cartilage but am definitely am not beyond eating them once in a while. Just to check if my opinion on them were still valid. The former was crunchy while the latter was tender and juicy.

We had to try their tebasaki since we're doing yakitori. These wings were dripping juices. However they did not achieve what I thought was a more optimal crisp on the skins. No complains though.

Like Otowa, Yatagarasu specializes in yakitori and they aren't so much a kushiyaki at that. There were still a bunch of pork belly items on the menu though. Like this one that's wrapped around spring onions. Those spring onions were pretty fragrant and barely cooked in those belly rolls.

Shiso in pork belly were also in the cards because we thought they might be good and they were.

Apparently their tsukune is an ice cream scoop-ful of minced chicken on each stick. Because we were at the counter, we saw them make them on order. I liked that the mince was a little coarse.

Following that was sasami with a little bit of yuzu pepper. Again, tender and moist. These guys definitely knew what they were doing.

Their kawa had more chew than crisp. Many yakitori here makes them with either a balance of or would have more crisp. 

The score cup.