Tempura Makino, Suntec City

There's been a bit of chatter on Tempura Makino which has opened at Suntec City (#02-305/308/311 Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard). I had the impression that these guys are supposed to be tempura specialists. I think. Right? While I was curious, we were also skeptical. After all, social media is always full of buzz even through the sludge that is mediocrity. More often than not - especially so when it is through the sludge that is mediocrity.

I know it's not fair to compare this guys with Tenshin so I won't. Not even going to talk about Tenjin which I liked better on hindsight.

But I did want to point out that we were graced by the other half of Jeff Goldblum's character in his 1986 horror which could be spotted quietly hanging out on the bronzed tempura dome.

The first two thirds of our order for some reasons came together in a plate. There's scallops (not bad but Anzu kinda got their timing better), corn (couldn't beat Suju) on partial cob, kisu fish, maitake (tasteless mushroom that was mostly batter, have had better), prawns and nasu. Was very disappointed with how these people had handled the maitake.

Bacon wrapped asparagus and mentaiko were decent. Actually I liked the mentaiko but it had nothing much to do with them being tempura. It was salty, spicy and delicious with rice.

Oysters didn't taste bad but the batter was kinda thick. And soaked with oil if your eagle eye hasn't caught on.

The tempura steak was being sucked dry of juices as it was served. Most of the flavour came from the shiso at the beginning and at some point, if you were still chewing and not swallowed already, a bit of the beef flavour came through. Wouldn't bother with this again.

I had hoped that they would surprise and do something good with the fried Okinawan mozuku. Also disappointing. Not much flavour coming from the seaweed. Most of the taste was the batter and the oil that was trapped in it. For better tasting tempura seaweed, there's Nirai Kanai's rendition.

Should have read the warning signs on the uni from how much they charged. This wasn't enjoyable.

Their tempura egg was pretty good though. Came with a nice tare.

Good with their rice but not yet.

More like this with the bleeding molten yolk.

Chilled soba was not bad tasting.