Hanabi Japanese Restaurant (Odeon Towers)

Had a craving for Japanese food and sashimi and thus I scooted off with my family to Hanabi Japanese Restaurant at Odeon Towers to fix my gnawing need. When a girl has a craving, she definitely has to curb it or give in to it! Sashimi. Tempura. Chawanmushi. Wasabi. Yummy! Drool drool drool.

We reached there about lunch time on a Sunday and the place was empty. Maybe the crowd has not come in, I thought, as the restaurant only opened at 11.30am. Anyway Hanabi is quite spacious and I like the Japanese-inspired fountain outside the restaurant. It feels good to dine amidst tranquil surroundings. There was even a standee displaying all the food available. It looked super delicious! Can’t wait!

The wait staff were quite helpful and willing to introduce you the food items and get you more food; a trait which I find lacking in many buffet restaurants here. Anyway the first dish we had was of course sashimi! The wasabi is wonderfully fresh and potent (not like those at Sakae Sushi) and the sashimi, especially the salmon and maguro (tuna) pieces were very good and fresh. They literally melted in my mouth. However I must state that there is one ugly act that this restaurant engages in. Only the first three dishes of sashimi were good, the quality of subsequent ones dropped. Either poorer quality sashimi (those that felt mushy when eaten) were mixed with better quality ones or we were served not-so-good sashimi. A big let-down.

The chawanmushi was delicious and hot and extremely light. You could taste the broth used to cook it too. Heavenly. The shisamo, chicken teriyaki, kimchi beef were average. The curry rice tasted like it came out of a packaged box as the curry was too powdery. In addition, the tempura did not have the quality of authentic Japanese places and we could not taste the tempura batter; it was pretty tasteless. We could not taste the sweetness of the tempura prawn or vegetables either. Other than that, the other dishes were just average. There's heresay that the Bukit Timah branch is better.

Well, I couldn’t help but compare it with Ikoi in Miramar. I think the food at Ikoi serves better quality Japanese food and the dishes come in small portions so you can have a variety of food without ill-treating your stomach! Speaking of which I think I may want to go Ikoi again!

Apologise for the lack of photos of food, was kind of concentrating on eating & forgot to take pictures till the last few morsels!!