In the era before refrigeration and canning, fishes were salted and dried. These salted and dried goods were referred to as himono. The techniques are still in practice today but the purpose is for flavour rather than preservation. Himonoya (#02-14 Robertson Walk, 11 Unity Street, tel : +65 6235 9110) is an izakaya. They have a few himono of their own and I wanted to try them.
We started with some of their little plates. That's potato salad with bits of crab, ikura and kani miso.
Followed by shishamo. Not the most pregnant ones we've had. These were pretty good though.
Ankimo ponzu was delicious.
So was the creamy shirako ponzu.
The himono we chose for tonight was kinki. Not so impressed by the flavour. Then again, we didn't really know what to expect since it's the first time we've had it. The meat was a little fishier than I had expected. Perhaps I shall stick to kinmedai the next time.
Surprisingly good was their shoyu butter onigiri. The rice ball was infused with shoyu, grilled and butter was melted over. The grilling created crusty caramelized bits on the surface that had flavour that was akin to coffee. The savouriness from the soy sauce and the bit of richness from the butter crept up from behind and killed it. Would eat this again.
Then came croquettes with more bits of crab meat and kani miso. I'm not sure I even tasted crab from the creamy innards of the croquette but the kani miso pretty much saved it.
Slices of buri and chutoro they served were nice. Both fishes were fatty.
The aburi-ed wagyu roll with blobs of uni we couldn't taste much of served as a filler to close the meal. The maki wasn't exactly a flavour bomb on it's own but with the left over ponzu from the shirako, the rolls became pretty tasty.
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