Sushi Tei’s Atas New Kushiyaki Joint Offers Good Skewered Meats & Wagyu Don

Like Sushi Tei next door, the restaurant sports lacquered wooden tables, but it feels a tad posher thanks to dimmer lighting and dark slate floors. Guests can choose to sit by the counter that frames the open kitchen or at tables set around the perimeter of the restaurant. The counter offers a view of chefs grilling food over Japanese bincho-tan or white charcoal, which doesn’t release smoke or odours into the ingredients. That also means you won’t emerge from the restaurant smelling like grilled food.

The restaurant’s a la carte menu features a section of small bites with the likes of edamame, uzaki (unagi and seaweed) and dried pufferfish; a selection of 20 kushiyaki sticks, mostly chicken (think skin, thigh, neck and gizzards) and bacon-wrapped veggies; larger grilled items like wagyu and lobster; rice bowls such as Truffle Tori Omu Rice; and some noodles like Inaniwa udon.

The a la carte menu is available at lunch and dinner, but you get the best value for money if you order one of the three weekday set lunches, which start from $25.

This set starts with a lovely Aka Misoshiru or prawn and red miso soup. Much like a Singaporean prawn mee soup, this one is redolent with the savouriness of toasted prawn shells and briny clams. It’s a great appetite opener. In this set, guests get to choose from a variety of three types of kushiyaki. We like that our Bacon and Tomato Kushiyaki ($6 a la carte) is deftly grilled so that the meat remains moist and tender, and isn’t overly salty. The cherry tomato in the middle is fresh, slightly squishy from the grilling, and sweet. The Chicken Wing Kushiyaki ($5 a la carte) is also lovely, their fat having been rendered over the coals so that they are succulent, lightly smoky and perfectly seasoned. Shiitake Mushroom Kushiyaki ($4 a la carte), which we expect might be dry and rubbery is surprisingly juicy and tender. Most impressive is the bowl of Gobou Gohan or burdock and dashi-infused Japanese rice. The kitchen first steams Kubota rice from Niigata Prefecture and then stirs in a light sauce made with shoyu, mirin and minced burdock cooked in dashi. The result is umami-rich grains of rice flecked with the gentle bite of burdock, so that they have the lightly chewy texture of good brown rice.

After nibbling on the chilled mound of fresh edamame that counts as an appetiser in this set, we dig into the silky Kagoshima Pork and Truffle Chawanmushi ($8 a la carte), which is satisfying comfort in a bowl. The chopped pork is first cooked in sake to remove its porcine flavour before it is seasoned with shoyu and mirin. This imparts a sweet lilt to the chawanmushi which is also rich with the earthy scent of truffle oil. For our main, we get the Tontoro or grilled Spanish pork jowl with chilli oil ($18 a la carte). The 100g slab of meat is well-charred and tender within, and topped with a mildly sweet-spicy sambal made of leek, garlic and chillies. There’s also an onsen egg that you can stir into the bowl of gobou gohan rice so that it’s extra rich.

This set offers the best value simply because the Wagyu Foie Gras Don it comes with already costs $45 on the a la carte menu. The portion is generous too, with unctuous chunks of seared duck liver, 90g of grilled medium-rare Miyazaki A4 rib-eye cubes that are tender and boldly seasoned, and salmon roe marinated in sake. The latter is the only thing that lets down this bowl as the sake gives the salmon roe an oddly sour note. The Ebi Misoshiru Soup ($10 a la carte; pictured below) is the same tasty prawn and red miso soup that you get with the $25 set, except that this one comes with a whole prawn and chubby shimeiji mushrooms.

Meanwhile, the morsels of salmon tataki ($16 a la carte) are lovely too — gently seared to release their tasty fat, and raw in the middle. For dessert, you get a scoop of ice cream, its flavour dependant on what’s in season.

If you come with a group, this is a great dish to order, but note that it requires a 30-minute wait. It’s worth it, though. The rice, steeped in a burdock and dashi stock, is perfectly cooked in a Japanese claypot — the grains are firm, separate and anchored by the clean umami flavour of the stock. There are some nice charred grains at the bottom of the pot which we scrape with gusto, and it’s all topped with plenty of grilled unagi brushed with a sauce made from tamari, shoyu, mirin, sake and brown sugar. Comforting and tasty, and feeds four people amply.

Another generous offering, this thick slab of duck liver is expertly cooked so that it has a crisp exterior that shatters pleasingly to the bite, revealing a rich, creamy and earthy interior. It may be served as a single skewer, but it’s so rich, you’ll probably want to share this between two people.

These chicken balls are so tender, they practically melt in the mouth. We like that they are flecked with minced chicken cartilage so there are contrasting textures with each bite. While the balls are smoky and lightly sweet, the accompanying dip is joltingly salty, even after we break the accompanying egg yolk into it.

Kushiyaki never makes for a cheap meal since you’ll need more than a few skewers to fill your belly. But what’s impressive here is that the rice dishes are so satisfyingly delicious, you’ll want to spend some money on them to make up for the small bites that contribute to a larger bill. There’s no faulting the men behind the grill here — the kushiyaki we tried are generally beautifully cooked so that the meats and vegetables retain their juices while sporting a light char on their surfaces. The reasonable prices of the set lunches make a great case for trying out the food here. Otherwise, the a la carte prices are on par with other kushiyaki joints in town.

Matsukiya is at #05-02 Paragon, 290 Orchard Rd, S238859. Tel: 6219-1771. Open Mon-Fri noon-2pm; 6pm-10pm & Sat-Sun 11.30am-2.30pm; 5.30pm-10pm. Last orders at 2pm and 9.30pm. www.facebook.com/matsukiyasg

Photos: Kelvin Chia