Kacyo 花蝶 @ 46 Bukit Pasoh Road | Restaurant Week March 2016

Kacyo serves Washoku (和食) which quintessentially means Japanese cuisine with Japanese ingredients. Kacyo was found in 1927, Ginza Kabuki-cho. Since February 2016, it has a branch in Singapore at 46 Bukit Pasoh, where its neighbours include Restaurant Andre and Majestic. Chose Kacyo as one of the restaurants to try for Singapore Restaurant Week 2016, March edition. If you are driving, you may want to consider utilizing the valet services around this area. Nearest MRT would be Outram.

The restaurant exudes elegance, with private dining room, and the inner sections catering to larger groups of diners.

beautiful chopstick holder

My dining companion was ultra late for our dinner, so I was just sitting around inconspicously while the junior waitstaff would come by every so often to refill the tea. There seemed to be some event happening that night at the inner sections. Perhaps, a company function. The private room was also occupied. For counter seats, most of the dining parties would order a bottle or two of sake, or a glass of wine to have with their dinner.

The Japanese chef brought out the appetisers to our table. "Egg pudding, pumpkin soup and tofu with sesame sauce." He said. Then, he repeated, "In Japanese, this is chawanmushi, kabocha and goma tofu." Such a cute chef, he was.

かぼちゃスップ、ちゃわんむし、ごま豆腐

Ah, forgot to ask which one to start with. Never mind, I would go with the cold items first. The pumpkin soup. Tasted natural and mild. Pleasant. The tofu was the most interesting. Its texture was more 'sticky' or 'Q' than all the tofu's that I had eaten thus far. That bit of ikura and wasabi on it, completed the tofu and the sesame sauce was really appetising. Chawanmushi was smooth and tasty and had lots of sprout-like ingredients in it that added some healthy crunch to the smooth egg custard.

interesting texture, overall good taste - おもしろいですね！

Next, was the fried items; tempura. Chef did not make his appearance here. This plate was brought out by the other service staff. Mostly vegetable items for the tempura consisting of eggplant, pumpkin and shishito pepper. Liked the prawn and shishito pepper (獅子唐辛子) the most. The style here is without sauce and instead, one could eat it with a bit of the seaweed salt. It was unfortunate that the pumpkin tempura tasted a tad undercooked.

天ぷら

At this point in time, our hot sake arrived. Ordered a warm sake and chose the recommended Shochikubai (Hanjozo). The hot sake tasted pleasant and deceptively mild, as the alcohol would not hit you till you are almost at the end of the bottle.

Shochikubai (Hanjozo) sake (warm) @$24++ per 300ml bottle

For mains, we ordered one of each; Japanese beef steak and grilled Japanese eel. Only when Chef brought out the dishes, did we know that the beef and eel were from the Kagoshima prefecture. 

Was dissappointed that the eel portion was so tiny. Kagoshima is said to be the biggest producers of farmed eel in Japan, and if this plate is of the farmed version, then the beef steak would offer a better value for money.

Grilled Kagoshima Eel

Kagoshima Beef Steak - medium rare

As expected, the Kagoshima beef steak was good, though I only had a slice. The accompanying greens included asparagus, broccolini, carrot and mushroom that was quite tasty as well.

Then, we were served the next course, of 5-piece assorted sushi served with a bowl of miso soup. The sushi was ordinary but it did its job to fill us up. After copious cups of sake, there was still a bit left. It had, by then, turned cold. The sake had a flowery fragrance that became very apparent, the moment its temperature went down. Interesting.

salmon ikura, hotate, prawn, hamachi and white fish

For desserts, we were served the Kacyo Original Ice-cream which was matcha flavoured. Found it to be creamy and quite milky. Nice.

Kacyo Original Ice-cream

The last surprise came, when the last cup of our green tea was exchanged with a hot one, and it turned out to be savoury! Wooo! Tasted like clear soup, but visually still looked like green tea. Magic.

Lovely place, and service was great. Expect to spend between $80 - $100 per pax for dinner.