Snippets: Japan Food Town Singapore | 16 dining concepts under one roof in Wisma Atria

Posted on July 16, 2016 by theRantingPanda in Snippets

What’s the hype? With 16 vastly different dining concepts under one roof, Japan Food Town is finally opening its doors today at level 4 of Wisma Atria. Do not mistake it for a food court concept as each restaurant operates individually in its own space, but the greatest convenience to consumers is that we do not need to scout around every corner of a mall to hunt down every Japanese restaurant with Japan Food Town. You can expect to find almost every type of Japanese cuisine here – sushi, ramen, udon, shabu-shabu, okonomiyaki, tendon, and even a sake tasting bar.

theRantingPandas’ favourites While there are currently three concepts which have yet to be opened, we toured and sampled highlights from the rest of the 13 concepts. The notable ones for me are Machida Shoten and Osaka Kitchen, which dishes out tonkotsu ramen and Osaka style okonomiyaki.

We really love how rich the tonkotsu broth was from Machida Shoten. This is a must try if you love your ramen soup rich, not to mention the springy noodles. The best part is that you get to customise the richness of the broth and the noodle texture.

For Osaka Kitchen, grab a seat around the counter to watch the chefs in action. Other than the okonomiyaki, we particularly enjoyed the succulent Ohmi wagyu beef, it was almost melt-in-the-mouth.

The other concepts Some other dishes we tried were good, but didn’t particularly leave a deep impression on us. We definitely need to plan a return visit to try more of their dishes for a firmer conclusion.

If fried chicken is your calling, try the ones from Rang Mang Shokudo which hails from Tokyo, serving artisanal fried chicken marinated in buttermilk for six hours. The interesting flavour was the ones drizzled with yuzu sauce.

For beef connoisseurs, there is Shabu Shabu Tajimaya, a sahbu-shabu and sukiyaki concept, using wagyu grade beef from Kyushu prefecture.

What’s a Japan Food Town without sushi? Here is Sushi Takewaka from Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, which has more than 28 years of history.

For Japanese Nabe style, Nabe Seizan belongs to the same Seizan restaurant in Tokyo, a two-Michelin starred kaiseki restaurant.

Dassai Bar is a six months pop-up concept where you can sample Dassai 23 or Dassai 50 sake from the Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan.

Overall verdict: It was impossible to try all dining concepts in one visit to give a detailed review, which calls for a return visit with a bigger food gang the next round. While we have aplenty Japanese restaurants in Singapore, Japan Food Town is no doubt a good one-stop dining option if you are in Orchard Road, and who knows, this may well be the new pulse of Wisma Atria.