Nogawa Restaurant, Concorde Hotel, Singapore

Mr. Nogawa is known as the man that trained some of the most successful Japanese chefs in Singapore. Ronnie of Tatsuya fame, is one of them.

After many years of hearing of Nogawa, I finally, finally, made a reservation and had the omakase sushi menu. The meal had a promising start with fresh gingko nuts lightly salted and grilled. I was pleasantly surprised by how tender and succulent the octopus starte was. I am also a fan of well-prepared pickles and these were crisp and crunchy with a little sour kick. Just the thing to whet your appetite.

When I was served the first piece of sushi (we sat at the counter), I was looking forward to a burst of freshness and flavour but became completely distracted by the rice. Sushi rice is meant to be firm but soft enough to provide a nice base to the fish on top. However, either there was not enough vinegar and mirin or the rice was a tad undercooked but the rice started to crumble the minute I put it in my mouth. Unfortunately, this rice texture continued throughout the meal and detracted from the array of fish served. Very sad.

As you can see, we were treated to beautiful Toro, Otoro and Chu Toro (?) AND very nice uni. Perhaps my palate has gotten used to Tatsuya's but the seared sushi did not even come close to Ronnie's version. It could be a case of the student surpassing the master here or I could have become brainwashed by Tatsuya's. I had stopped going for a while as they had become incredibly expensive after winning the award from the World Gourmet Summit, but after paying about $200 per person at Nogawa, I may just be dining at Tatsuya's more often now.

Nogawa has another restaurant at the Sentosa Golf & Country Club. Perhaps I should go there for comparison. It's hard to believe that I was so disappointed with the master chef. One must note that Mr. Nogawa was not there and we were served by Chef Kevin. Unfortunately, Kevin did introduce each sushi as most chefs usually do when serving pieces individually but maybe he thought we were sushi connoisseurs or we were too deep in conversation.