Soul-searching needed at mod-Japanese eatery Wagatomo

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Wagatomo #01-12 Guoco Tower 5 Wallich Street Singapore 078883 Tel: 8313-6622 Open for lunch and dinner Mon to Sat: 11:30am to 2:30pm; 5:30pm to 10:30pm. Closed on Sun.

IF there was ever a book called How To Open A Restaurant Without Knowing What It Really Means, Wagatomo would be in it.

It’s not like its heart isn’t in the right place. Think of it more as ambition and reality colliding in this loosely conceptualised newbie that could have used a few more practice runs before opening itself up to the big bad world of public scrutiny.

Ambition? To be the big brother of Gyusan, just across from it in the open-space F&B playground on the street level of Guoco Tower. Chef Tomoyuki Kiga would riff off its casual, butchery-sando premise and create a personality-driven, upscale yet accessible menu of Japanese-inspired cuisine reflecting his access to great meat and seafood. A wide range of sake, shochu, cocktails and beer would be the honey attracting thirsty CBD-ites to drop by for a lesson in the wonders of pairing - or just something to drink if they don’t care. But it would open up a new experience for them, guided by a fresh dining perspective and people with the knowledge and enthusiasm to share.

The reality? Well, “This is a really great idea” is starting to sound a bit more like “Uh-oh”.

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Inexperience, scant attention to detail and some pretty basic Restaurant 101 lapses are what dog Wagatomo more than the actual cooking. The latter at least benefits from decent to good quality ingredients – just that what they do with it could be a topic for debate.

For one thing, nothing quite dampens your buzz like a hastily drawn black curtain with the very things you’re trying to hide peeking out from one corner. Like seeing a newsreader’s shorts below his jacket and tie when he goes off-camera, there are some things you don’t want to know. Awkward lighting that casts the dark furniture in a cheap glow doesn’t help either, nor an everything-on-it one-sheet menu that might be happier in a fast food joint.

They’re all niggly little things but niggles do grow up to be big ones. It’s just hard to get a handle on what Wagatomo’s trying to be, and we wonder if it really knows either.

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At best now, it offers a lot of variety from which you can cobble a fairly decent meal. The long, open kitchen concept and wall-length booze display look good, which makes you think counter seating and interactive dining could have future potential. 

The menu itself swings from fast rice bowls for lunch to more leisurely big-plate steaks which they’re naturally good at.

In between, it’s a lucky draw. Wagyu pizza (S$32) is the most accomplished, but then Kiga had plenty of practice with a tuna version in his Akira Back days. The wafer-thin raw beef slices take on a similar look and taste – which is clean and fresh, given the meat quality. A skinny thin cracker crust holds it together with a smear of mayo, dabs of yuzu kosho and a whiff of truffle oil.

Hokkaido scallop (S$27) puts up a sophisticated front with fleshy sashimi slices bathed in citrus and topped with a chilli and belacan-spiked mango relish for a pleasant addition of heat.

You can’t bite the chicken for the batter in the buttermilk karaage (S$17) – otherwise there are plump morsels to be found underneath the thick, mottled but crunchy crust. If you prefer rice to crust, there’s tebasaki (S$7 a piece) where a deboned chicken wing hugs a fat bolster of truffle-infused rice as it’s broiled and glazed with teriyaki sauce. You want to start from the wing tip where it’s juicier, before it starts to dry out on the other end.

If not for the reticence of its minced beef filling, the A5 wagyu gyoza (S$18) might stand out more against the perfectly browned pan crust that holds them all together like Siamese-twin dumplings. They are thin as paper with a satisfying crunch, and you can snap and crackle your way to the tender dumplings filled with juicy but bland stuffing. A good dunk in the vinegar dip helps to remedy it.

The clunky waffling from casual bites to high Japanese aspirations shows in the scampi ochazuke (S$35), with the dramatic unveiling of rice and sashimi crustacean in a cloud of apple wood smoke. A not-hot-enough, strangely perfumed broth is poured over, and you scoop up rice, nicely sticky scampi and caviar that tries but loses its kaiseki feeling.

Less ambitious but more reliable is the grilled tuna collar or hamachi kama (S$28) – which is fresh, fleshy and still moist beneath a beurre blanc sauce spiked with sake and studded with tobiko. 

Good old wagyu steaks are still its mainstay, and the A5 tri-tip (S$98) lives up to marbled expectations, its grilled richness tempered with a zesty herby shiso leaf salsa, onion puree and roasted vegetables.

Finally, monaka (S$9) is an upside down anmitsu – a flower-shaped wafer covering a medley of red beans, ice cream and chewy mochi bits that ends things on a sweet note.

A little soul-searching – and maybe some housekeeping – lies ahead for Wagatomo. There’s more to a restaurant than just four walls and food in it. What it needs is a good story, and a better way to tell it.

Rating: 6