All beefed up at Yakiniquest

NEW RESTAURANT

Yakiniquest #04-08/09 Mandarin Gallery 333A Orchard Road Singapore 238897 Tel: 6223 4129 Open for lunch and dinner Mon to Sat: 12pm to 3pm; 6pm to 10.30pm

IF you've been to a Korean barbecue and risked food poisoning or carcinogen exposure from charred-outside, raw-inside meat - you will know why people shouldn't be allowed to cook their own food in restaurants.

There's more to meat than meeting the grill, and Yakiniquest - a loving tribute to Japanese yakiniku - rightfully doesn't trust you to do any cooking yourself. The owners are a Japanese couple who spent years on their yes, yakiniku quest, so they know what they're doing.

Yakiniquest isn't new to Singapore, but its location is. It started out small in Boat Quay, but the new space in Mandarin Gallery is bigger, and has a few private rooms that are a lot more comfortable if you can make up the minimum spend required to sit in one.

At lunch, you need to spend S$400, which isn't too much if you're in a small group, or if you order the dinner course for two (S$188 per head, to be requested when you make your booking) and top up with drinks. The view of Orchard Road below is a bonus. Otherwise, the tables in the main dining room are fine too, fairly far apart so there's enough room to manoeuvre. The decor is a visual nod to the many eateries the owners have been to - cue dark wood panelling, Japanese-style walls and retro PVC-cushioned chairs.

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The real money would have gone into the fancy ceramic charcoal gas stoves built into each table that gives you the BBQ flavour without the smoke and fumes. It also means you don't get that satisfying charcoal fragrance, but at least you don't walk out in "what I had for lunch" attire.

Yakiniquest only does omakase with add-ons, which can be restrictive if you want to go hard-core grill-only. So go all the way with the most elaborate omakase, or get the most basic set and then add the options you want.

The dinner course is a good sampler of what they can do, with a full spread of appetisers and composed dishes as well as 8 kinds of wagyu cuts (the more you pay the more cuts you get).

The cooking is very decent, but don't expect fireworks. This is an all-beef eatery, so no pigs or chickens, much less fish, can sneak in here; even the opening chawanmushi is made from beef stock rather than dashi.

A little oily but robust and smooth, the steamy custard is studded with melty-soft bits of meat. It's a prelude to a beefy parade including a trio of appetisers comprising a rolled beef omelette, simmered meat in a sweetish sauce and tender slices of cold roast beef.

A bite-sized roll of a wafer-thin slice of beef over shredded cucumber, doused in a creamy sesame sauce, doesn't excite, but it's followed by an intriguing niku 'somen' made of thin "noodles" of raw beef, which are slippery smooth in a cold dashi-soy dip with wasabi. The noodles are strangely neutral in flavour and almost bland, but perk up with the dip. And of course, the fun is in the novelty of eating raw meat.

A chef comes in often to cook and plate, and we get someone who's both experienced and knowledgeable, easily explaining the different cuts as he guides rather than grills the meat on the stove. Each cut has its own cooking style and timing. A5 Chateaubriand is lightly brushed across the grill, cooked lightly and then folded over and topped with uni for some funky umami to contrast with the macho meat.

Medallions of Australian wagyu tongue spend a longer time on the heat and are sliced into chewy, bouncy nuggets that are good on their own or with a touch of yuzu kosho.

You'll widen your meat vocabulary with words like haneshita (zabuton), shin shin (eye of knuckle) and hiremimi (part of the tenderloin), along with the different ways to eat them. The meat is mainly A4 Miyazaki - which is fatty enough and the quality is better than average, if not top of the range. The hiremimi is surprisingly fatty, so it's nicely charred to render the oil and very good dipped in soya sauce with grated sticky yam.

Yakisuki is way too sweet, but a good twist on sukiyaki. Thin broad slices of sirloin are bathed in the sauce and dipped into raw pasteurised egg yolk. We place our bets on tri-tip, dusted with spices including sansho pepper and eaten neat.

The only blip in the meal is the rice dish - either an over-salted premix-like beef curry, or a tongue stew which fares slightly better, but that doesn't say much.

For the price, quality and service, Yakiniquest acquits itself well, so you're assured of a minimum standard here. The quest may not end here, but we don't regret the journey.

Rating: 7

jaime@sph.com.sg

@JaimeEeBT

WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN 10: The ultimate dining experience 9-9.5: Sublime 8-8.5: Excellent 7-7.5: Good to very good 6-6.5: Promising