After a year long renovation, Keyaki reopened late last year with a new interior.
The exterior of the restaurant is almost same as before. I like to walk along the pavement to the hotel as it makes one believe that they are entering into a different world, away from the hustle and bustle of Singapore.
The interior is now much darker and more private. During our visit there, we saw the owner of Goto there enjoying his lunch too at Keyaki.
Upon arrival, I was served a cup of warm green tea.
We had the Weekend Brunch set (S$60).
3 types of appetizer - Snow crab legs, radish with minced fish, and tuna wrapped with Kombo seaweed. I love the Kombo with tuna the best. A mixture of different texture and taste which were in harmoy with one another.
A small Kobachi (or bowl) of Fried tofu. The tofu was different from the normal tofu, and I suspect they made it themselves. Outside was crispy, while inside was creamy but with some texture, like eating into cheese (but with the taste of light tofu).
Sashimi (3 types). There was a stalk of flower spice which you could remove easily by sliding the stem across 2 chopsticks. Put them into the sashimi soya sauce and dip your sashimi in it. The little flowers tasted a bit like our Chinese 5 spice, but not as strong.
The sashimi were very fresh. Notice the translucent textue of the fish.
California Roll - They have one of the best sushi masters in town. And indeed, their rolls are also one of the best I have tasted. They are generous with the Mayo, and the rice is just perfect. Next time, I will order more of it from the ala carte menu.
Steamed egg custard - Good but not as good as we hope it will be. Some orange peels on top of the egg, and bits of chicken meat at the bottom.
We were given a prawn tempura, 2 vegetable tempura and a white fish tempura. All of them were wonderfully crisp and tasty.
Another gem from the set was the Cod Fish with Teriyaki sauce. Even though my cod fish had some bones, but really I cannot find any fault with the fish.
The waitress brought us sauces for our last main course, which were the teppanyaki items. There were the thick garlic sauce, spring onion sauce and soya sauce.
Oh yes, the sushi counter is hidden behind some planks, and the teppanyaki counter is now located at the other end of the restaurant with a mini bar.
My pork set, which is quite dry. A pity that they could not retain the juice in the pork.
The US beef were slightly better, but still we were not impressed with their teppanyaki items.
The fried rice was average too.
Our rice came with pickled vegetables. I like the baby carrots the most as they were marinated in a sweet vinegar sauce.
Miso soup was good too.
Ended our brunch with the Matcha ice-cream. Creamy and not overly sweet. The kind waitress was nice enough to add some plum wine jelly to our ice-cream free of charge as we mentioned to her whether the jelly was made of Japanese plum wine. Very thoughtful and kind of her.
Overall, a very enjoyable Japanese lunch with great serving staffs. But hope they can improve on their teppanyaki skills.
BTW, I was told to lookout for how the Conrad Hotel looks from above. Specially took the bubble lift and was surprised to notice that it was in the number "13". Apparently, 13 sounds like going up in Cantonse. So Conrad must have hoped their business will keep going up and up. Very different from the westerns whom avoided 13 like plague.
Keyaki
7 Raffles Boulevard
Pan Pacific Singapore (Level 4)