Nabe Seizan 鍋 @ Japan Food Town Wisma Atria

Nabe Seizan is the offshoot of Seizan, a 2-Michelin star establishment in Tokyo. While Seizan is a kaiseki restaurant, Nabe Seizan 鍋 specializes in Japanese hotpot. Its prices are rather steep and the staff informed that their strength is in the dashi. Other than that, Seizan also offers mabushi during lunch time. What's a mabushi? It's a variant of hitsumabushi which is an eel rice dish enjoyed 3-ways. For mabushi, it is other protein (usually beef) enjoyed two-ways; as it is and with dashi and condiment.

Currently, they are having Agu Pork Mabushi during weekday lunch only. Decided to give it a try since I was around the area. The Ohmi Wagyu beef mabushi is available everyday during lunch hour.

interior

Discovered that the restaurant is pretty smallish but liked that the tables are adequately apart. There was only another table occupied during that day of visit. Service staff (non-Japanese) were earnest and friendly.

complimentary tea

It was only a short wait before the food was served.Was informed that the dashi is refillable.

Agu Pork Mabushi Set @$25++

Agu Pork

Agu Pork is Okinawan pork and is similar to kurobuta. The slivers of meat was deliciously tender and flavourful. Enjoyable as it is.

There was a small dish of curious paste and it tasted like chicken rice chili paste. Asked the staff about it and she mentioned that usually the sauce would be provided during dinner time to enjoy with the hotpot as a dip. Queried on whether the chili paste was requested by local customers but the staff clarified that it was actually concoted by their Japanese chef, Mr Yamamoto. Perhaps Chef Yamamoto was inspired by our chicken rice?

Chef Yamamoto 'chicken rice' chili paste

Next, one could enjoy the rice with the dashi. The soup was clear and lightly flavoured. Pleasantly mild and the chili paste helped to give a different dimension to the taste.

Style 2 - eaten with dashi

Topped up the lunch set with a dessert. It was a pudding dessert called wasanbon. While wasanbon refers to the fine grained sugar, the pudding has milk and fruits in it and topped with chopped white wine jelly.

wasanbon 和三盆 @$5++

The pudding was very likeable. Soft like tofu with reasonable sweetness. The fruits were pear and peach and the white wine jelly was good. The white wine jelly matches with the pudding.

yums

Expect the spend about $30 to $50 per pax during lunch time and double of that during dinner time.