There're only a couple of places that I will go whenever I want a treat in the form of a Japanese buffet style.
One's this restaurant high up on one of the tallest skyscrapers in the CBD.
The other's here- at the street level of what is (also) one of the tallest buildings here on Shenton Way.
A friend had recommended this place to me couple of months ago, said it was good, said I would like it, that I ought to go try.
So I did- one Monday evening- and may I just say that I haven't looked elsewhere for a good Japanese buffet, and it looks like I won't be looking anywhere else either?
En Dining is not the kind of place to have skilfully crafted dishes made out of ingredients freshest of the fresh.
It is, however, the kind of place that you should go for when you want variety in your meal, and when you want to try dishes that you've always been curious about but never been sure.
This evening I was here for the variety.
Because where else am I going to find a prawn dish done tempura style together with a separate dish of agedashi tofu that I can order at the same time and have as much of as I so desire?
And where else am I going to order as many pieces of grilled salmon belly as I wish to because I have a special love for them?
Not gonna lie.
I came here to have as many of my favorites as I wanted to.
Tonight we decided that we would have for our meal a mix of grilled and fried, so amongst some of the very first things we ordered were the soft shell crab, and the tempura prawns.
It's easy to say that there wasn't anything very fantastic about the food, but then one must consider the flavors, and the portion.
They don't stinge with the sizes here.
Not with the prawns, not also with the crab, which by the way, was chopped into huge chunks and fried to such a delicious crisp that eating it was one of the nicest experiences ever.
It's not always that I get to have a soft shell crab that's crisp and crunchy on the legs and on the batter whilst staying soft and mushy with the meat.
It's also not always that I get to have a plate of tuna and salmon sashimi, a plate of grilled beef and a plate of ham all with one order all at the same time.
Some people might wonder just what it is we're eating, like how does a person eat such different foods at the same time, but here's the charm of it: You get to have different textures and different temperatures of all your favorite foods.
I'm not the sort to mix a slice of tuna sashimi with a slice of beef one right after the other.
But I did have the ham (that came with some sort of creamy sauce) with the salmon sashimi and tuna sashimi and I think it tasted pretty good with nothing ruining the other.
One thing I liked about the sashimi was the thickness, and the freshness.
In particular the tuna, especially since for someone who doesn't usually go for tuna (it's got that raw, raw taste like I'm chomping off a chunk of fish raw on a boat out at sea) I really didn't mind this at all.
We were a little more calculated with what we ordered after that.
Not because we were full, but because we wanted to try as much as we could from whatever their selection offered.
I can't remember what else there was in the menu that we wanted to have.
Maybe the fried rice.
And the ramen.
Both of which I do love, but then fill you up so fast that I had to eschew it all and go for other dishes that I wanted to try.
One of the things we went for was the shabu shabu.
Don't ask me what part of beef this is- I don't know- but the meat's beautifully sliced, there's a lot of marbling, and when prepared with the soup, made for a wonderful warm addition to our meal.
Besides the beef, we went too for the chicken kaarage.
I won't say that it's super unique or that it has a special sauce but one doesn't get a very oily taste to it, and their pieces are big and chunky enough to go well with their carefully drizzled sauce.
Despite being very filling, there was, however, still the grilled fatty salmon that we were saving space for.
Yes, the picture doesn't look much- like how attractive can it be- and maybe it might even look a little astounding- but grilled fatty salmon is one of our favorite dishes at just about anywhere, so why not have more of it here where they do it good, and we can relish it as much as we like?
There's the texture where the fish melts away in your mouth.
There's also the delicious oil that comes out like a little blast when you bite into the meat.
It's a warm dish that mixes well with the thin crisp of the salmon skin.
And I love it.
I really do.
I'm glad we had all that grilled fatty salmon.
Not just that, I'm also glad for the snack-like dishes that I particularly wanted to order.
Like the corn, which, although doesn't look like a very big deal, was something that I wanted to have the last time we were here.
And the daikon chips, which are so good that you don't care whether or not you feel full.
Your mouth doesn't stop nibbling.
And you keep on taking and taking and taking.