Tamaya Dining

Tamaya Dining

45 Cuppage Road, Cuppage Terrace

Was out on town with a friend the other night and we were wandering about for a new restaurant to try when we happened across this restaurant. It seemed like it had a decent amount of patrons (usually we find it unsettling when restaurants have NOBODY around during dinnertime)so we decided to try it out.


We were ushered upstairs into a room with traditional Japanese seating, where you have to take off your shoes and enter a small hall with tatami mats. There was almost no one else up here, only 2 other tables filled with Japanese businessmen (whom I could hear talking all the way throughout dinner)


Anyway, we ordered our food and after a while my friends portions arrived first. However, the waitress had made a mistake as my friend had wanted the fried breaded filet of pork but she brought him pork skewers. Now, both the names start with Kurobuta (black pig) but my friend pointed at the picture in the menu for her when ordering and the two items weren't even on the same page. And then instead of taking it back, she said "Sorry, is this okay?" referring to the pork skewers. Anyway, my friend decided not to make a fuss although I would have just told her to bring it back.


We had 3 appetizers; being the kurobuta, soft-shelled crab and grilled squid, and 2 mains; yakisoba and whatever the picture is above (some sort of ironpot rice). The soft-shelled crab was decent, supposedly the kurobuta was decent as well, although the grilled squid was a bit too dry and mayo they gave with it just tasted weird. My friend initially thought they mixed wasabi in with the mayo but it didn't really taste like wasabi.

The ironpot rice was okay but it took close to 30 mins to arrive. My friend had gotten his main and finished it before my food arrived -_-. Btw, the portions are really small. That bowl of rice? It cost me 14SGD and it was mostly rice with the only toppings the paltry amount you see in the pic above (which consisted of 4 slices of salmon and some fish roe). 

So in the end, would I go there again? No. While the food was decent and I mean decent in a completely average way, the price really really killed it for me. 14 dollars for this?? I could pay 4 bucks more at Waraku and get 2x the serving size PLUS eel. 


End result: 4/10