What’s a teppanyaki without smoke?

Its hard to find good halal Japanese food in Singapore. Hence when the die-hard foodie in me heard of a new establishment by a Muslim owner, I jumped at the chance to venture there. Yureka Teppanyaki is located at Springleaf Gardens, along Upper Thompson Road. Having no idea how to get there, I decided to cab down with a friend to have dinner there. We nearly missed the restaurant because the signboard wasn’t that prominent compared to the other shops facing the road. We were really relieved when we spotted it!

The branding and design colours are so pychedelic!

Naturally, the choice was to sit at the teppanyaki area and watch the chef in action. I was drawn to the aroma of the cooking meat and the sizzling grill. Note that the sitting area here is cramped and the food smell really really sticks to your clothes afterwards.

Sat directly across the chef

The menu offerings included the usual Japanese fare – sushi, sashimi, noodles, teppanyaki (off course), plus a few other non-Japanese food which I presume is targeted at the older generation – like my mother whose palate can’t take Japanese.  The prices are affordable, think less than 20 bucks and without service charge! I ordered the chicken rendang teppanyaki, a fusion of Malay-Japanese tastes. The chicken was tender and the rendang flavour came out strongly. The chicken came in bite-sized portions together with beansprouts, rice and miso. I normally hate beansprouts with a passion, but I liked how crunchy this was done and didn’t have that awful bitter taste. It reminded me of stir-fried vegetables. 🙂

Chicken rendang teppanyaki with beansprouts

At this point I must also make special mention of the sauces. The chilli/sambal was reminiscent more of a Malay restaurant than a Japanese one hehe.

With the sauce!

My friend had the salmon teppanyaki and she absolutely loved it! Tried some and I must agree with her. The texture was soft and the teriyaki sauce was light.

Salmon teppanyaki

I also took away some sushi rolls, but didn’t think it was anything special. I would recommend having the teppanyaki here, since its what the place is known for.  Yureka Teppanyaki is not a purely authentic Japanese restaurant, as obviously the food has been adapted to local Malay tastes but its still a good effort by the owner to give the Muslim population here a taste of Japan. 🙂

xoxo,

miss 241