Yakitori and Horse Sashimi

Kazu Sumiyaki Restaurant
5 Koek Rd Cuppage Plaza, #04-05
Tel: 6734-2492


Homemade smoked pork belly

There is something about eating yakitori that gets me excited. Being so close to the food with little formality of fiddling with a fork and a knife or chopsticks, but rather the simple one stroke motion of but just simply lifting the stick from the plate and straight into my mouth is great for a moment of instant gratification. The simplicity but exquisiteness of the food is also a celebration of food. The morsels of meet are grilled in their naked state and lightly kissed with a brush of salt or sauce honours the food in its au naturel state, something so uncomplicated but so delightfully delicious.

Kazu, this yakitori place, is a fabulous place to slip to after a hard day of work. The informal and communal nature of the food makes conversation easy and the salty nature of the nibbles makes it almost necessary to sip of an ice cold beer or sake. Fan through the huge menu, give your wish list of meat on sticks to the wait staff and let them work the grill. The team behind the charcoal grill is headed by Kazu himself, will then get to work: sauce, salt, flip and grill your orders to perfection and send them to on plates to you.

I was recommended this place over a lunch conversation that ventured into the topic of eating offal, where a colleague made a plug for this restaurant’s grilled beef intestines and foie gras. For dinner that night, I was given specific instructions to sample the beef intestines, foie gras, salmon belly and other likes on the menu. The beef intestines however never made it to our table because it because we could not get a majority agreement on it and the salmon belly was unfortunately sold out. Instead, we had a fabulous hotch potch of dishes – angler fish liver, homemade asparagus tofu, chicken with leek, horse sashimi, foie gras, squid, sweet potato, mochi with bacon, unagi, mackerel with vinegar sauce, chicken balls, chazuke with mentaiko, nasu, uni wrapped in shiso, homemade smoked pork belly, homemade roasted duck, milk shebert and macha ice cream with adzuki that had no relation to one another, but were scrumptious anyhow.

Except for the terrible icy macha ice cream that was iced till it bordered on being a granita, everything we had that might was generally greeted with “mmmm.., that’s good”. Of the list, the excellent dishes that are on my list of must-haves for my next visit are: chicken balls, the addition of sesame seeds and the sauce are wonderful; foie gras, crisp on the outside and melt in your mouth goodness with a flavour to die for; angler fish liver, the slight homemade smoked pork belly, sweet potato and squid. Among the interesting was my first encounter was horse sashimi. It tasted like a milder version of raw beef, but what they served felt a little too cold and a tiny bit frozen, and tasted much better with the grated ginger and soy sauce rather than the oil based sauce that was served. To clean our palates from the savoury treat, the chazuke with mentaiko was a wonderful way to end off, the delicate warm fish broth and rice brings a warm and calm feeling to your stomach, and then you can move along and finish off with sweets.

This cosy yakitori place packs a full house on most days, reservations are necessary.

Pay: S$40- S$50 a person with drinks.