Rakuichi, Dempsey

Headed to Rakuichi for a birthday lunch celebration of sorts for mum (belated) and sis (advanced). I have actually never heard of this place, tucked away in Dempsey, until sis suggested we should check it out.

We were all of consensus that lunch should be "light and simple", after having sat through what felt like a 60-course dinner at the Fullerton the night before for another family do. Later it was revealed that our lunch would be anything BUT light and simple with the avalanche of food that descended upon us!

All 6 of us chose to order from the set menu, which included this salad to start:

{ Salad with fried salmon skin in ponzu sauce }

Nice and bright, made interesting by the crunchy and savoury pieces of fried salmon skin.

You can opt to top up about $6 (or was it $8?) for a serving of sashimi, if this is not included in your set menu. The 4 of us decided a Japanese lunch is not complete without some fresh raw fish, so the 4 additional servings of sashimi was consolidated into a pretty platter.

{ ... Sashimi platter }

This was an assortment of fish and quite generous pieces of shiso leaves and konbu served atop a bed of shaved ice. Very fresh and refreshing - my only gripe would be the sashimi was cut a bit too thick.

While the sashimi was indeed a little thick (and thus not for optimum chewability) the sashimi was no doubt very fresh and yum! Think I recall there being salmon, hamachi and maguro - can't go wrong with the standard selection.

I had the August Special - quite an impressive 6 dish spread for $28.60. After a salad and a very delectable grilled amaebi with chilli-mayo, came the tempura.

{ August special ($28.60) } Seafood and vegie tempura

Tempura batter nice light and flaky, the prawn and the soft shell crab was fresh and yummeh - I was moderately impressed by this point.

Then came my aburi sushi platter ... and whoa.

{ August special ($28.60) } Assorted aburi sushi

5 aburi sushi - if i recall, maguro, hamachi, salmon, ika and something else - and a tamago. Whoa ... each sushi flambéd to perfection as it freaking melts in your mouth with a burst of fatty omega-3 and fish. It's the kind that truly brings happiness to your mouth, and with each sushi came it's own special pairing sauce drizzled generously over it, the maguro aburi was especially spectacular.

While quantity wise but clearly not as overboard as Kikuzawa, I was still incredibly stuffed and tremendously satisfied *weeps*

After being served volleys of aburi sushi at the marvelous Sushi Kikuzawa, I could never go back! I took a bite off what I assume to be tuna - and I swear, tingles were felt when I chewed through this! Excellent stuff.

For the rest of the day, I could only exclaim these 3 words: "SO MUCH SALMON". I chose the salmon set expecting a healthy and modest fill of protein and Omega 3. The friendly waitress later brought to me 3 sizeable separate portions of salmon prepared in different ways. First was the sashimi salad..

{ Shake 鮭 set ($26.60) } Salmon sashimi in special sauce

I enjoyed this very much! The dressing was nice, can't quite put a finger on it. There was a lot of fat slabs of raw salmon here which I devoured, foolish thinking this was the most I'd be getting.

Bright and flavourful, this was like an imba version of the sashimi salad you can get at Sushi Tei. The mystery sauce paired so much better with the generous portions of salmon sashimi.

Then came this quaint grilled salmon fillet in teriyaki sauce.

{ Shake 鮭 set ($26.60) } Grilled Teriyaki Salmon

The salmon skin was charred, the way it should be. It was not overly saucy too - slightly glazed for that sweetness. It wasn't overcooked too, just a tad soft inside. After polishing this I was sure this was the end of my delightful meal, until an entire paper hot pot of salmon complete with vegetables landed in front of me!

{ Shake 鮭 set ($26.60) } Salmon Miso Soup

Oh I have to say this was so yummy. I had to go on eating because the soup was so piping hot and sweet and belly-warming, and I needed my vegies for the day. There must have been another entire salmon in this thing!

I may have wiped out about 4 adult salmons by myself in the course of lunch.

I can attest to the repeated bouts of "SO MUCH SALMON" from my salmon murdering girlfriend. Tsk tsk tsk.

Not shown in pictures above are trays upon trays of sushi (some aburi-ed) that the others ordered, and a sweet ending of black sesame ice cream to finish off. This really just goes to show how value for money the set menus are. Would highly recommend getting the sets! And bring more mouths to share food with ;)

Being a huge fan of value for money and yummy Japanese food I did find the sets to be rather worth the money - even without my additional add-on plate of sashimi, I found my food portion and quality to be pretty fantastic for its price :)

HGW Link : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/rakuichi_japanese_restaurant_dempsey/
Discounts : 10% with OCBC
Rating (out of 4) :