October 26, 2008
Tags: asia, food, izakaya, japan, Photos, restaurant, sashimi, singapore.
Categories: Culture, Reviews.
In an effort to get to know Singapore’s blogosphere, I went to a ping.sg (singaporean blogger community) dinner at a ritzy izakaya-style Japanese restaurant called En (えん). Met some pretty cool people like Brainy Bimbo, Claudia, Leonard and HisFoodBlog; and had some pretty fresh sashimi! For those unfamiliar with Japanese food, go eat some now! sashimi (刺身) is specially prepared raw seafood - and less commonly raw red meat. The seafood sashimi is traditionally eaten with wasabi, a bacteria-killing agent. Meat sashimi is usually marinated.
On a side note, it’s a shame I didn’t bring my camera since my clutch was too small. I had to rely on my 5MP LG phone instead. Sorry if it doesn’t look as appetizing as it was.
Beef Sashimi
This is beef sashimi marinated in soy sauce. I’m not a fan of red meat (yes, I actually don’t like steak), but this was just exquisite. It tastes a lot like seafood sashimi, but has more bite to it.
Sake Sashimi Salad
The salmon was fresh, and complemented well with the salad. It was very unfortunate that it was simply too salty for my taste.
Sashimi Platter
Here we have salmon (鮭; sake), tuna (まぐろ; maguro), yellowtail (魬, hamachi), amongst others. My favorite is, was and always be salmon - probably because it was the very type of sashimi I tasted as a kid.
Yakitori 焼き鳥
This is yakitori. It literally means ‘grilled bird’. With the exception of the grilled shiitake mushroom, everything was made from chicken. What I found most interesting is the grilled chicken cartilage (軟骨; nankotsu). For those who fell asleep in middle school science, cartilage is the crunchy, white-ish soft bone of which your ear is comprised. I’ve always loved cartilage; I just never thought of grilling it.
Whilst in Canada, I met many people who have never tasted (never wanted to taste, perhaps?) sushi - let alone sashimi. I can understand the fear in eating raw foods. I was pretty hesitant when I first saw my dad eating some reddish raw fish. And it didn’t help that I hate fish. But after a lot of persuasion, I had my first bite.
And I haven’t stopped ever since.
Even though I still hate fish.
I love sashimi, especially tuna. But raw meet? Eewwwww!
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I LOVE sushi, and sashimi, though I’ve never had raw beef. Love to try it thought. I’m like you… I hate fish! I can’t eat fish if it’s cooked it’s nasty!
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Beef sashimi—?! It sounds delicious (I am crazy about beef)! I am not sure if it exists in North America, but I’d have to check around.
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I’ve never had sushi or sashimi. I guess I’m a bit scared to try those foods. I’m quite fussy with what I eat. Probably some time in the near future I will give it a try. I hate fish as well. My Mom cooks it at least 3 times per week though because it’s healthy.
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Heheh… I’ve never heard of sashimi before… Hehe…
I’ve eaten sushi before, though, and I like that. But as for eating raw meat, umm, I think I may pass on that… LOL.
Hehe, wow, yeah, I don’t know how I can eat sashimi, but sushi… Bring it on! Hehe!
Hehe, my sister’s friend HATES seafood, and she HATED cooked sushi too, when she tried it! LOL. Fish is ok for me, not a big fan, though, but I’d eat it sushi.
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Hi there, nice meeting up with you. The food was good isn’t it..especially the beef and sashimi… yum yum…
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This is first time i think raw beef can look so GOOD! The pics are makeing me hungry!
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I can’t say that I’ve ever tried that, nor do I intend to. I like fish, but it must be COOKED. lol.
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Glad you made it that night. It was great fun! We should do it more often!
The pics looks “Dreamy”. Are they right out of the camera? Or ps?
Hope to catch up again soon!
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I love sushi and sashimi. I never knew wasabi was bacteria killing though! (although it feels like it’s brain-cell killing if you eat too much)
I’m not sure about the cartilage though.
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Heyo! Glad that you enjoyed yourself and the food!!!
Let’s meet up again soon~
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hey thanks for popping by at my blog the other time:)
i didn’t like the taste of raw fish when i was small. but as i grew older, i somehow got hooked onto the taste and i never get tired of it since.. i guess it’s a transformation of our taste buds as we grow older.
i never tried beef sashimi before, but i heard that the koreans do eat raw beef.
oh, for someone who’s a sashimi snob like me (i usually eat sashimi when i’m back in jp), i recommend the chu-toro or better still, o-toro which are more pricey but higher ranked tuna. The basic rank of tuna you get in kaiten-zushi outlets here is just the normal tuna.
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I like raw fish, but raw meat? I don’t think I would trust any raw meat served in this country anyway. Probably why I haven’t seen it here
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@Claudia: I didn’t photoshop it. Not sure why the picture turned out this way? Magic of phone cameras I guess. Hahahaha! For sure! We should meet up soon!
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Horse meat is often used for sashimi, and it’s not marinated. Just eat like any other sushi. Have you tried it?
Pickled ginger in sliced shape always comes with sushi, which is because just as well as Wasabi, Gari (this is how it’s called in Japanese) kills bacteria.
Too bad there are even many people who never try Sushi or Sashimi due to prejudice or fear. I think that once they taste them, they’ll know what you mean. BTW, I love salmon. (Is Chinese 鮭 same as Japanese?)
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Oh my gawd, sashimi! Nothing beats a page full of photos of my favourite food, heh! Thanks for sharing the photos Ivy! I love sashimi because of their texture and taste, and believe me, they don’t have that repulsive raw taste of the seafood you find in wet markets.
I think sashimi is best served with nothing but lemon, cucumber shreds and a little bit of sauce and wasabi. Mmmph!
A lot of people have a this wrong perception that sashimi means eating the fish/meat raw, from the animal. They are actually carefully processed and prepared by the chefs and are sterilized properly to ensure that there is little bacterial contamination.
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Raw anything doesn’t equate good in my opinion, haha! I’ll stick with cooked food.
While people tell me it’s good, I tried some, and I just wanted to gag since the slimy texture doesn’t agree with my mouth. X_X;
Oh well. We’re all different! Glad you enjoyed those, though!
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Oh dear, my delicate vegetarian sensibilities cannot handle so much meat. But I will forgive you if next time you post about a really great vegetarian recipe! Preferably with instructions so that I can do it at home, since my boyfriend is a total japanophile and will love me for it
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@kirin: I think horse sashimi is very rare outside of Japan. I’ve not seen it on any menu so far.
I don’t like gari. It’s strange. Hahahaha.
I love salmon too!! Oishii!!! Yes, it’s the same character used in Chinese.
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Great pics! I dun like sashimi too much though…but I am a lover of other types of Japanese food =D
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Omg you got me craving for beef sashimi!! It’s the best shizz ever!!! Mmmmm.
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Hey Ivy.. did you ever have any associations from Dang’s site (roo.nu) a lonnggg time ago?
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Well… Those all certainly look… Interesting, lol.
I would probably at least taste them
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nope, I’ve never tried sashimi or sushies before. I always hear about how delicious they are, but I just can’t make myself eat raw meat
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Love sashimi but I gotta say I love the rolls more but this entry totally made me salivate!
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I can’t afford sashimi here >_< i can’t wait till xmas when I get home i can have all the japanese that i want.
p.s. ivy you’re so efficient i <3 ya
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[...] first time at Canele and it was with great company! There’s petrina, leonard, ivy, rayner and abang. Hope to do it again [...]
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