Hi there
Ever use chopsticks for your pasta?one might try that at home but at a restaurant? Yup that’s right, yomenya goemon is just the right place to go if you are tired of the regular cream or tomato base pasta.
Located at 313 @ somerset, on level one, the small outlet is just at the corner, actually it is rather difficult to spot, not until I saw the poster along the escalator, that’s where I decided to give it a try.
Yomenya Goemon is the 2nd largest food & beverage players in Japan, boosting 2500 outlets there. They serve Japanese pasta. Of course, the usual suspect like tomato and cream style pasta are still in the menu. But they specialize in some unique pasta flavor that is usually only a common sight in japan.
They married both Japanese ideas and Italian ingredients to come up with different flavors. So you will find the basic ingredients of Itailian spaghetti, olive oil and cheese coming from Italian origin while all the pasta flavours are worked around Japanese palates. That’s how they have come up with slurping spaghetti with chosticks.
So here we are with my family to try out something different.
One of my favourite ingredients for spaghetti is mentaiko which is spicy Japanese fish roe, so my order of the day must come with that, I am kind of looking forward to it as I am pretty confident they will have this in their menu.
We decided to order their set lunches on that day as the price difference between ala carte and set varies not that much.
- 1 regular sets which include 1 drink + 1 spaghetti + 1 soup + 1 salad. ($18.50++)
- 1 dessert set which include 1 drink + 1 spaghetti + 1 soup + 1 salad + 1 desset. ($20++)
- 1 Half & Half set which include 1 drink + 1 soup + 1/2 portion of 2 kinds of spaghetti ($20++)
And we ended up ordering various flavor to cover all the grounds, one crab, shrimp & scallop cream pasta (Creamy!) , and Mentaiko, Pork & Japanese pickles Karashi Takana (Savory!) and Napolitean (Tomato!) & mentaiko spaghetti.
The restaurant space is very narrow, although they boast sufficient seatings, the walkway is so narrow that they could not even fit in a baby chair. Not very kids friendly, although they have booster seats, the gap between the table and the sitting is also a bit too wide, seating was kind of ackward, nevertheless this can be a good Eat & Go kind of place, I will tell you more why it is so 🙂
Depending on which set menu you want to order, you can get a soft drink, a side salad and a soup to go with your pasta.
The side salad is a simple affair of salad greens with thinly sliced onions and topped with some bacon bits. Order if you want your token greens.
The soup was clear bonito flavored soup with tiny little cubes of tofu in it. I am not sure how to explain it but it was rather an amusing or hilarious sight when the soup arrive. The tiny tofu is really way too tiny!!!
Even my son have difficulty scooping it out, i just don’t quite understand why it is this small, to show you what I mean see below photo, we were even joking if we should place near our nose so that you can see it is not even bigger than our nostrils! Haha.. As for the soup, it taste extremely bland, all you can taste was just bonito powder mixed in water, did no justice whatsoever.
Finally our pasta were here! My order of Half & Half Set B, comes with Meat Sauce Spaghetti with Mozzarella & Eggplant + Mentaiko, Shrimp & Japanese Herb Ao Shiso. ($20++) The Meat Sauce spaghetti was really tasty, the sauce was rich with robust flavor. I think among all the spaghetti flavor that we ordered that day, my favourite is ironically the Meat Sauce Spaghetti and not the Japanese flavor.
The Shrimp & Japanese Herb Ao Shiso has shrimp, mushrooms, mentaiko, ao shiso, seaweed slices & marinated kelp. I enjoyed the mixture of the kelp althought I was a bit apprehensive at first that how it could taste with the pasta.
The Ao Shiso which is Japanese Perilla lend a refreshing aromatics to the dish. It goes very well with the mentaiko which comes in generous portions as well. However, the Half & Half set is actually quite heavy, although it is half portion for each flavor, $20++ is not that costly consider the portion they serve.
The creamy shrimp, crab, scallop pasta was velvety and topped with generous amount of seafood. I especially like the shrimp as it is so fresh & succlent. Scallop comes in small fine pieces, kind of like the Chinese dried scallop in loose pieces. The flavor of the seafood infusing every bite & the sauce is quite intoxicating & does not feel too heavy as well.
As they only have in house chilli sauce, that was kind of a letdown. If only they have Tabasco, it will really up the notch on the flavor.
Their chilli sauce was bland even thou it look so fiery, it gave no kick at all, may be it is more incline towards Japanese palate.
Next is the Mentaiko, Pork & Japanese pickles Karashi Takana. It is supposed to be a very fragrant flavored spaghetti, mostly from the charred pork, sesame and pickles, however i feel the dish lacked some oomph in it. The greens in the dish tasted fresh & the pickles provided some crunch, but overall it was little too bland given so much hype about it.
All the spaghetti was done near al dente, slightly on the chewy side but goes well with the toppings.
Service was prompt but I must say a little too attentive, while we were eating, the service staff just kept standing next to us & staring at us, which makes us rather uncomfortable. I think good service should involve attentiveness, but great service should involve service staff understand the boundaries and what customers are comfortable with. 🙂
The set menu does come with 1 dessert, it was warm chocolate cake topped with vanilla ice cream. Don’t be deceived by its plain looking set up. Even though I was pretty stuffed by then, but one bite makes me want to have more!
The chocolate cake was surprisingly rich and tasty, which was totally unexpected, the sweetness of the icy vanilla ice cream compliments so well with the warm chocolate cake that is enriched with chocolate fillings, so the meal did end with a great sweet note.
Yomenya Goemon also have Kid’s Set which comes with Napolitean Spaghetti, Chocolate Cake & Orange Juice at $8++. So you will be free of worries and can order some “not so” kids friendly dishes. 🙂
Below is some of their creations as well and you might want to try out other flavors the next time.
Restaurant Reviews : Yomenya Goemon Japanese Spaghetti House
Locations : 313 Orchard Road, #01-14/15, 313 @ Somerset, Singapore 238895
Tel : 67355725
Happy Dining!
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Cheers,
Dawn