Botan Japanese Restaurant

Address: 36 Pekin Street #01-01 Far East Square.

Tel No: +65 6536 4404

Email: -

Opening Hours: Mon–Sat: 11.30am–3pm, 6pm–10pm

Type of Place: Restaurant

Recommended Attire: No restrictions

Type of Cuisine: Japanese

Average price spent per pax: Dinner Set - $25-$30 per pax.

Who went with me: Jeff Lim, Doris Yew, Jeff Chong, Claudia Chong.

Rating (out of 5) –

Food quality: 4

Service quality: 4 

Ambience: 4 - Cosy in the midst of pubs and rowdy (sometimes) yuppies.

1  = Poor
2 = Below Average
3 = Average
4 = Good
5 = Excellent

Here's what you'll find outside the restaurant, at the side. Barely noticeable, really, coz you'll be people-watching more than anything else. If I do not remember wrongly, there is a drinking place right beside the restaurant and yuppies were toasting drinks everywhere! Some good lookers too :)

Here's the signboard. Duh.

Here's the counter. Neat, compact, cosy.

PJ looking at the menu. He takes minimal carbo btw.

Here's our table number, alongwith some cuties.

My green tea. No tea bag. It's in powder form (I peered down at the bottom of my cup).

PJ and Jeff ordered Botan Set, and here are their side dishes. I wondered if there was space for the main course. The tables were not very big.

ah ha, here's my sashimi set. I'm posting the set pics first, will zero in later.

Overall, it looks swell. Japanese food always looks good, don't you think?

Doris's Teriyaki Chicken Set.

Clausia's Yakiniku (Beef) Set.

Claudia's beef. Verdict - Too dry and tough. The salad - can't go wrong if you use fresh veggies.

My sashimi - THUMBS UP. Those fatty looking pieces of fish lived up to how they looked - FATTY. Sweet & soft. No fishy smell detected. One word - F R E S H.

Claudia's maki roll. Verdict - Fantastic tasty dish! I personally did not try this, but from the Mmmms  coming from everyone, it was as though the taste far surpassed the normal appearance.

Side salad - I got this in replacement of rice. Appetizing cos it was with vinegarette dressing. I loved those small  pickes and tomatoes too.

This is another side dish that appeared in almost all the dinner sets. They are actually 2 nice pieces of deep fried fish with some gooey sauce. Tasty :) This is the first time I see restaurants serving such a side dish! Very special and value-for-money!

Doris's chicken - Normal, not impressive. Both Claudia's beef and Doris's chicken weren't very OOMPH. Perhaps their strength is raw food?

Ah, here's Jeff's Botan set. They look like toys! Whatever it is, it was really very pleasing to the eye, especially when you are hungry :)

PJ's Botan set. Same, except the rice was replaced with a salad (like the one I had).

Close ups of the sides. Eeks I realised I forgot to take a pic of the chawanmushi side dish. It was great! It has this very eggy taste and the ingredients were very impressive, with minced meat!

Before we started!

Got the server to help us take. :)

After dinner, Doris got a surprise bday 'mochi' haha. It's actually ice cream mochi! Cool huh!

And here's the birthday girl :)

~

After the buffet at Zhou's Kitchen, I had this afterthought, that perhaps gorging myself to death isn't exactly the best kind of meal. A swell dinner set would actually leave you nicely full and you leave the place thinking of when you should visit again!

In summary - This is a great place for a nice cosy Japanese experience. The chefs were Japanese (they conversed in Japanese with the servers) and there's every reason for you to imagine yourself in Japan! The servers were nice and quick. They make recommendations too. However we were early and they could attend to us very nicely. I don't know if it will stay the same when it gets crowded.

The food's pretty respectable and very fresh. Nearly nothing to complain about!