Restaurant Chako @ Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre

Address: 134 West Coast Way

A quaint little family-run restaurant tucked at a corner of Hong Leong Gardens. A little tough to locate for people who are not familiar with West Coast Drive area, but it's certainly worth the effort.

Upon entering Chako, it felt like I was entering a cozy Japanese home.

 

 

I felt so at home in the restaurant. They even had very old Japanese cassette tapes lying around! 

 

Even our president Mr Nathan dined here before too!!

The restaurant is so homely, even their food menu is home printed!

Tea was served promptly to my table. It was their own concoction of Barley Tea.

The Barley Tea didn't look any fantastic initially. But once I had tasted it, I was sold. Very refreshing drink!

My friend and I had to wait for quite a while for our food to arrive. It was known amongst regular foodies there that the food takes quite a while to be served, as they only have one cook. The cook is non other than the friendly old lady who runs the restaurant. She painstakingly cooks each dish one by one on her own, hence the wait. As we were waiting, her daughter would be up and around serving all customers and making sure everyone felt comfortable. It was truly a very warm and homely experience.

Then the first dish was served.

 Shiromi Sakana Hamburg

This delectable dish is made up of minced fish patty served on hotplate with sauteed vegetables and a side of spaghetti, sunny side up egg, cold bean curd, salad, rice and miso soup.

For starters, I really enjoyed salad. It's lettuce, carrot, cabbage tossed with some potato chunks and a splash of salad cream. Light and very refreshing. That says a lot, coming from someone who hardly eats salad!

The fish patty is something really unique to me. It's like eating a soft patty that has the texture of the Chinese 'carrot cake' but with the taste of fish. The splash of mayo on it brings out the taste of the patty well.

It was a little peculiar to have the spaghetti side, but once I tasted it, I had no complaints. I never knew that crispy spaghetti (due to it being on a hotplate) tastes rather good too!

Needless to say, the sunny side up egg and carrot slices were nice and crisp due to the hotplate.

Then here comes the killer part. The miso soup.

 

I have to say, I have never finished an entire bowl of miso soup before, due to it being too salty and very MSG laden-ed. But this time round, I finished ALL of it in no time!

The secret to the flavorful miso soup must be the clams added to it. I have yet to taste any miso soup in Singapore that has clams in it. So this one's a winner!

Next up, Unatamaju

 

The dish consisted of broiled eel with home-made sauce served on a bed of egg-topped rice. It came with pickled radish, cold bean curd and miso soup.

My friend had this. I took a little of it to sample. I'm a fan of Unagi Bento (Eel with rice set) and this one takes the cake. The unagi is tender, succulent and tasty. Must be the special home-made sauce that went with the very fresh eel. The light and fluffy egg and rice complimented the unagi very well.

Can I say that this is the best Unagi bento ever?

A resounding YES!!

To cap off the satisfying dinner, I had to give their desserts a try.

Caramel pudding

Fans of super sweet desserts should avoid this, as it is not all that sweet in taste. I like it though, as I don't have a sweet tooth. The smooth texture of the pudding works for me. The grape, blue berry, strawberry and kiwi fruit slices were very very fresh too!

The service there was ever so friendly and homely. The daughter of the lady boss even suggested that I should call and place my orders before hand so as to avoid the long wait. She got me to write down my email address so that she could send me their restaurant menu. Now, how's that for great service?

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Restaurant Chako @ Hong Leong Gardens: Caramel pudding Fans of super sweet desserts should avoid this, as it is not all that sweet in taste. I like it though, as I don't have a sweet tooth. The smooth texture of the pudding works for me. The grape, blue berry, strawbeery and kiwi fruit slices were very very fresh too! Overall I will have to say, Restaurant Chako is a definite MUST TRY for all fans of Japanese cuisine. Well, even if you're not a fan of Japanese cuisine, you will probably be converted after dining there!

Overall I will have to say, Restaurant Chako is a definite MUST TRY for all fans of Japanese cuisine. Well, even if you're not a fan of Japanese cuisine, you will probably be converted after dining there!