Chef Teppei made quite a splash when he opened Teppei back in 2015. If memory serves me well, he was offering a 15-course omakase meal for just $50! The queues started forming quickly and soon there was a 4-month waiting list to get in! Over time, the omakase increased to $90 as they started introducing higher-end ingredients.
However, Chef Teppei still wanted to give his customers great value, so he opened Hana Hana next door, bringing the omakase prices back down to the $50-$60 range. He went on to introduce Man Man Unagi Restaurant, which was Singapore’s first unagi restaurant to import live eels from Japan, but still sold it at an attractive price. Predictably, the queues started forming quickly outside the restaurant!
Chef Yamashita Teppei clearly understands our Singaporean penchant for “Ai Pee You Ai Chngee” (want it cheap and fresh in Teochew) very well. Now he has embarked on his latest restaurant, Kai Kai Sushi & Grill which has taken over the space at Wisma Atria’s Food Republic vacated by Koh Grill and Sushi Bar. Employing his tried and tested “This Price, This Quality?!” sic strategy, he hopes to delight potential new customers with reasonable quality Izakaya food at attractive prices.
Menu Review
The restaurant is situated on level 4 of Wisma Atria. While it is part of Food Republic, it has its own dedicated dining space with a full view of bustling Orchard Road below.
There is a sushi counter as well as a charcoal grill. As with any Izakaya-style eatery, you can expect to be able to order most of your favourite Japanese dishes from their expansive menu. Do note that there is no service charge and only GST will be applied.
Kai Kai Castle Bento – $18.90+
The Kai Kai Castle Bento is, without a doubt, their most eye catching dish. It features chopped tuna belly, crispy tempura, and ikura on rice at the base, followed by fresh sashimi on the next tier and then tamagoyaki and grilled unagi on the top of a bento designed to look like the Osaka Castle. But that’s not all, the set also comes with chawanmushi and soup! 4/5 While the castle bento concept is not new, you certainly get great value with this fun, all-in-one set meal.
Appetizers, Sushi and Rolls
For starters, we had the pitan (century egg) tofu which is a localised Japanese dish. Chef was very generous with the chopped pitan and tobiko but we felt the sauce didn’t quite reach the point of being addictive. 3.5/5
The sushi and sashimi at Kai Kai are reasonably good at this price point. The rice is molded by machine and doesn’t quite have the warmth and mouthfeel as those you find at high-end sushi places, but the seafood is fresh. I appreciate that they use nicely grated wasabi instead of the powdered green stuff. It’s also worth noting that the bottles of shoyu on the tables have a solid piece of katsuobushi inside, giving it an extra depth of flavor.
The Special Sushi, priced at $48, gives you 6 pieces of fresh and slightly aburi sushi. Overall, it’s a good place for quality mid-range sushi and sashimi that doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket, and they are quite generous with toppings of Ikura and tobiko (fish roe). 4/5
Their signature Kai Kai Hanabi roll is a great example of Chef Teppei’s ‘This Price! This Quality?!’ strategy. You get all your favourite things in one sushi roll: unagi, aburi salmon, and an avalanche of tobiko and lumpfish caviar. The dish would have been perfect if not for the yuzu miso sauce, which was a tad tangy for our taste. 4/5
From the Grill
They also offer a good range of skewers which are grilled over charcoal. You can expect to find the usual selection of meat and seafood items but of special note are their abalone, squid, and cod which are specially imported from Ishikawa and a tasty beef tendon skewer where the tendons have been stewed till meltingly soft and then grilled. 4/5
Chef Teppei imports Hitachiwagyu direct from Ibaraki prefecture and he features this beef in many of the dishes. The Wagyu fried rice is topped with thin slices of marinated wagyu which is the kind of thing that I really enjoy. The marinade was a tad salty the day I tasted it but I am sure it is easily remedied with a change in the sauce. 4/5
If you love A5 Wagyu, then this is one of the more affordable places that you can enjoy it in Singapore! A5 Wagyu usually costs more than $30 per 100g at the supermarket, so you are almost getting it at cost. Our striploin was just a tad overcooked. 4.25/5
Extensive Menu
With over 170 items on their menu, you can expect a comprehensive selection of dishes ranging from appetizers, sushi and sashimi to grilled skewers, deep-fried (agemono), stewed, and grilled (yakitori) dishes. It’s an extensive array of standard Japanese fare.
Lisa particularly enjoyed the Chicken Nanban, where the tangy tartar sauce complemented the tasty fried chicken well. Pairing it with the very easy-to-drink House Sake made the experience even more enjoyable for her!
Conclusion
Overall, Kai Kai Sushi & Grill is where you can get Japanese food at attractive prices along Orchard Road. Chef Teppei tries to keep to his mantra of “This Price! This Quality?!” by sourcing key ingredients directly from suppliers in Japan.
He named the restaurant Kai Kai as a playful nod to the colloquial way of saying “going out” (Gai Gai in Cantonese) and embedded in the name is the Japanese kanji character ‘海’ which symbolises the sea. He aims to provide fresh seafood and ingredients from Japan to satisfy the hunger of patrons who are out “Gai Gai”ing along Orchard Road.
This post was written in partnership with Food Republic. Opinions expressed are that of our own.
