Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Revisiting Nirai Kanai

Nirai Kanai

The last time we were here (#B1-01 Liang Court, 177 River Valley Road, tel : +65 6339 4811) was quite a long while back. I remember being unimpressed then and compared them to the defunct Mimigar. Fast forward to today, Nirai Kanai remains the only Okinawan restaurant left in our sunny little island.

Nirai Kanai, chicken liver

We had marinated chicken liver. This was super marinated. The sweet soy permeated every bit of the offal. It was unexpectedly chilled though. And also because it was thoroughly cooked through, it was a little hard, a little chewy and powdery. Probably good for slow eating with drinks.

Nirai Kanai, onigiri

Their onigiri was quite nice. Made with rice cooked in some broth that tasted like it might have mushrooms and other vegetables. There were small chunks of meat (I actually failed at this point to identify if those were pork or chicken) and bits of hijiki in them. And some pickles for zest. A viable substitute I say, for a bowl rice.

Nirai Kanai, pork beef katsu

Minced pork and beef katsu. Not bad. It's the hearty sort of fried panko-ed meat patty that's meant to be filling, tasty and not impress your pants off.

Nirai Kanai, hiyashi soba

There was hiyashi soba. Chilled noodles with sesame dressing.

Nirai Kanai, hiyashi soba

The sesame dressing was outstanding paired with the chewy noodles. Perky and nutty if you know what I mean. Came loaded with vegetables and sliced pork belly. This bowl is awesome for our weather. Only gripe? The pork's kinda tough.

Nirai Kanai, tori momo shioyaki

And finally some tori momo shioyaki. Grilled chicken thigh with salt on skewers. Flavoured with little blobs of yuzu pepper. Tasty but too much yuzu pepper which made the chicken really salty.

Nirai Kanai, calamansi grapefruit beer

To wash down the food, we had calamansi and pink grapefruit beer!

This was a much better round of eating than the last time. Would consider coming back.

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