Akari Saturday Japanese Buffet with Champagne

UPDATE: The buffet has been changed to Saturday, as the restaurant now closes on Sundays.

It's the weekend! And what's the best way to enjoy your Sunday? If you love Japanese food and champagne, here's where you can indulge in both to your heart's content.

Akari Japanese Dining & Bar has over 50 Japanese dishes in its newly launched Sunday a la carte buffet. It's available for lunch and dinner with either free-flow Charles LaFitte champagne, wine, beer and sake, or simply green tea and soft drinks.

It's a nice spread with familiar favourites as well as a few interesting unusual dishes. The tempura moriawase is one of the prettiest I have ever seen.



The sashimi moriawase gives you a mixed platter of staples - tuna, salmon, mekajiki, hamachi and shiromi (a daily white meat fish) - all of which you can order separately as well. There is also tako and ika sashimi. There's nigiri and rolled sushi (California maki, ebi tempura maki, spicy tekka maki, unagi maki, etc) as well.



Maguro Syouga Tataki - lightly grilled tuna coated with ginger. One of the dishes from the appetiser section. Other appetisers include momo taro jelly, lobster salad, tamago tofu (egg tofu), goma tofu (sesame tofu), tako wasabi iwanori (fresh octopus with simmered seaweed), dashimaki tamago (Japanese omelette), edamame and maguro natto.



The appetisers, salads and soup are all laid out in one section. Help yourself while you wait for your cooked orders. Desserts are also found here, so you can start with that too, if you like.



Saikoro Steak - diced cube steak with Japanese sweet soya sauce, stir-fried with mushrooms.



From the simmered dishes, there's Buta Kakuni - stewed pork belly with sweet soya sauce.



Gindara Saikyou Yaki - miso-marinated cod fish. I could just eat lots of this!



Nasu Agedashi - deep-fried eggplant. Very delicate in taste and texture.



Everyone's favourite, Tori Karaage, done very well here. Crisp and not greasy at all.




Soki Tatsuga Age - deep-fried stewed pork soft bone. They actually deep-fry this? The Japanese must love cartilage as much as I do!




Renkon Hasami Age - deep-fried lotus root with minced prawn. Crunchy texture with savory minced prawn.



Kaisen Yakisoba (seafood pan-fried noodles), soup of the day and an Aigamo Tofu Tsumeni (simmered stuff duck with beancurd and vegetables).



Hiyajiru Gohan - Kyushu region special cold soup with rice. Cold soup? Quite unusual in Asian cuisine, where most soups are usually served warm. This is a fish and seafood based broth. The combination was surprisingly pleasant, but at this stage, I was really too full to finish it.




The desserts are delightful! There's only a small selection, but they are all quite nice. We liked the Budou wine jelly (red grapes jelly), Kanten Maccha Pudding (green tea pudding), black sesame pudding and tofu cheese cake.



The ambiance is also pleasant. Very contemporary with Japanese accents. The high ceilings provide a nice spacious feel.

The buffet is only on Sundays Saturdays, when the financial district is not so crowded. I like that portions here are just right for tasting purposes. It lets you try more things from the menu. Service staff here are also polite and cheerful.

Lunch Buffet (Saturdays, 12pm -3pm)
$68++ per person (with free flow of green tea or soft drinks )
$98++ per person (with free flow Charles LaFitte champagne, wine, beer and sake)

Dinner Buffet (Saturdays, 5pm - 9pm)
$78++ per person (with free flow of green tea or soft drinks )
$128++ per person (with free flow Charles LaFitte champagne, wine, beer and sake)

Kid aged 12 and below eat for free. Terms and conditions apply.
The spread for lunch and dinner is the same, but you do get an extra hour of feasting for dinner.


AKARI JAPANESE DINING & BAR
8A Marina Boulevard,
Ground Plaza #01-02 Marina Bay Link Mall
Singapore 018984
Tel : +65 6634 0100

Many thanks to Sera Kuek, and Akari for the invitation. It was really nice to see Mr Ibuki Horie again. Akari is part of the Tomo Izakaya group.