Ryu's Traditional Japanese Cuisine 柳 @ Capitol Piazza

This year, decided to celebrate Wendy's birthday at Ryu's. We like to try new places, especially for occassions like birthdays. Hmm, however, we have yet to break the tradition of our limited meet-up of twice a year. Once for hers and once for my birthday.

Though Ryu's address is at Capitol Piazza, the restaurant is actually at the theatre side. Lots of dining and drinking places there. Naughty Nuri seemed pretty popular at the moment, judging by the its patrons.

restaurant

Quite liked that Capitol has free wifi for patrons to use. Thumbs up! Ryu's menu is available online, so it was quite easy to pick the food choices.

Arrived at the restaurant at the appointed hour, and while waiting for the birthday girl, I have started with a glass of beer. They serve Kirin here. Hmm, I think the beer head was too much in that glass of beer...
An おしぼり (warm towel) is brought out once you have placed your order.

view from our table

なまビル @$8++ (small)

Unfortunately, the tsukune (minced chicken skewer) took a long time to arrive, so didn't manage to have it as a snack with the beer.

Ordered a tendon as our main course, and supplemented by two ala-carte meats; pork and chicken. Was pleasantly surprised to be served with a bowl of cold soup. Amuse bouche? ありがと!

cold soup - complimentary

The soup was pleasantly smooth, and of mild clean flavours. Think this was the pumpkin soup, judging by its golden colour. The minced chicken skewer (つくね) was quite dense, and quite unlike the versions that I had tried elsewhere.

tsukune (つくね) @$5++ per stick

Tendon Set 天丼 @$25++

The Tendon Set was quite a big bowl and its tempura items had two prawns, sea eels (anago), pumpkin, brinjal and sweet potato. Served with pickles and a tiny teacup bowl of miso soup. We were too engrossed in our conversation, and hence, did not eat the tempura immediately after it was served. No, not because of picture taking, okay.

Grilled Chicken Marinated in Miso Sauce @$12++

Boiled Radish with Miso sauce and stewed Iberian Pork @$17++

Was most impressed by the portion of the stewed Iberian pork. Actually, I had mistakenly thought that the pork would be of slices instead of two huge chunks of pork ribs. The pork was well stewed and could be easily tore off by the chopsticks. The radish was so good as it had soaked in all the sauces. Liked the greens in the dish. Overall, a good dish to have with rice.

Wendy thinks that the miso was missing from the chicken. Might be true as there wasn't any apparent taste of it, and also unlike the pork dish where we could see a dollop of miso sitting atop of the radish.

Time flies when you are with friends, and before we knew it. It was time for desserts.

desserts

On the overall, it was a nice experience at Ryu's. One need not spend a fortune (if you don't want to) here as there are ala-carte dishes and sets that are of reasonable prices.

Happy Birthday, Wendy! May all your wishes, come true (soon!).