Setting new standards of Japanese cuisine at Imamura

NEW RESTAURANT

Imamura 14 Gunner Lane Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa Singapore 099566 Tel: 8028 2608 Open for dinner only Tuesdays to Sundays, 6.30pm to 10.30pm. Closed on Mondays

YOU know the saying "If you want to find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs." If you want to get out of The Matrix, you need to locate Neo. And if you want a real Shiba Inu, make sure it isn't half-Akita.

What we're trying to say is: We've been to a lot of Japanese restaurants in town, but we think we've finally found the one - the best kappo in Singapore, Sentosa and, some say, Pulau Ubin.

The attraction to Imamura wasn't instant. It was suspicion at first sight. A Japanese chef who supposedly found fame in New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong and Manila, but not in his motherland says more about the people eating his food than the depth of his skill. Putting him up in a remote, abandoned chapel in an equally deserted resort in Sentosa also begged the question: "Are they expecting tourists or peacocks to come?"

But like the feathered pests who have discovered that Imamura's home-grown shiso leaves are irresistible, we've come to feel the same way about chef Hirofumi Imamura's distinctive style of fine-dining kappo with a kaiseki aesthetic.

As for the abandoned chapel, it's about as Zen as you can expect, just missing a singing bowl to announce your arrival at this discreet hideaway clad in stone and fair-face brick. Inside, it's modern black on grey, with most of the light trained on the stage where Imamura smokes, simmers and steams a full-on omakase with accompanying narrative and occasional drama.

It's our second visit after an original hosted tasting, so the initial novelty isn't there, but true to form, Imamura's wide repertoire ensures you don't eat the same thing twice.

It's not a time for dinner banter among your fellow diners because once it's showtime, it's hard to take your eyes off what he is doing. Not entirely classic but not modern either, it's a showcase of technique, ingredients and execution as he transports you to his own version of Japan, which is sometimes achingly familiar and other times totally new.

Ice-cold, home-made shiso wine sits chilling on a block of ice, decorated with home-grown leaves saved from the beaks of marauding fowl. It is a refreshing pick-me-up which you sip from antique cups from the chef's own collection, and watch as a limp square of squid lounges lazily on a leaf, unaware of the fate that awaits it.

Decorated in an elaborate pattern of criss-cross cuts, the squid lies atop a claypot, and the chef quickly pours a stream of boiling water along the rim and covers it, for an eruption of furious steam. The 10-second hot bath shocks its occupant into a beautiful puffed-up squid flower, still raw in the middle. It's deftly sliced and plated with simple steamed vegetables, a solitary hotaru ika too clever to be tricked into that fatal onsen, and a home-made miso sauce. It's delicate, sweet and elegant.

The same response applies to ankimo, steamed at just the right temperature to give it a melt-in-the-mouth creaminess, paired with crunchy diced vegetables in a tart ponzu sauce that cuts through the richness before the cloying starts.

We believe his boasts about his network of suppliers who send him hard-to-get ingredients when he presents a bowl of dashi with a clarity of flavour we've yet to taste in Singapore. It perfectly elevates a whole leg of sweet, pearlescent zuwaigani or snow crab - the fresh kind with its own ID bracelet, not pulled out from the freezer at a Hokkaido crab promo.

Considering what you pay in town, Imamura's S$480 one-price-only menu is hardly expensive, given the range and quality of what's served.

Sashimi comes in the form of chilled tuna cut from a block in front of you that actually tastes like tuna without added imagination; lightly hay-roasted kinki dipped into home-made kinki soy sauce - you'll hear the word home-made a lot during the meal - and uni paired with, yes, the restaurant's own uni salt.

Plump unagi is also a step up from the usual - not mushy but almost bouncy and oily, without the ever-present fishiness. It's hard to get at this time of year, the chef says. And suffice to say we would probably believe him if he said the eel also does pushups and self-sanitises before coming to Singapore.

The only time we're less than enamoured is during the wagyu and rice courses, partly because we much preferred the way he served them on our first visit. Ask for the wagyu slow-cooked on a heated stone if you can, and end with intensely fragrant truffle rice. This time around, we get cubes of wagyu layered with sheets of home-made yuba in a thickened sweet savoury sauce that's perfectly good anyway. The simple rice cooked interestingly in soda water for extra tenderness is an understated pleasure, and is eaten with lightly seasoned ikura and pickles.

For a sweet ending, a little sliver of cotton candy is followed up by a kumquat-everything dessert - ice cream, jelly, meringue and chocolate cookie crumbs.

That the chef is new to Singapore and hasn't been to eat at other Japanese restaurants in town may well be what separates him from them. He's come in on a fresh slate, and we hope he stays this way, since comparison is a precursor to predictability. Let him set his own standards, and we'll fight the peacocks to get to Sentosa anytime.

Rating: 8

jaime@sph.com.sg

@JaimeEeBT

WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN

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The Business Times pays for all meals at restaurants reviewed on this page. Unless specified, the writer does not accept hosted meals prior to the review's publication.