Treat. The word, has such great strength to unite and equally great strength to divide. Think about it. When someone offers to treat you to a meal, we flock like pigeons on fresh grain. Ask for a treat, and those same pigeons scatter faster than ever. But I’ve been blessed in that regard. I’ve had a friend, chase me, to offer me a treat. Yes, you read that right. For almost a year, he offered to catch up over a meal on him. When we finally reached Teppan for the meal, it was a real anandha kanneer moment for me. But anandha kanneer became ratha kanneer when the bill arrived.
The restaurant is no doubt extremely classy, with a great ambience. The staff are very courteous and take care of your requests with great care. They have a limited amount of space for parking, but thankfully they have valet service which takes care of things. Sharing space with Benjarong helps.
This meal being the first time I’m trying Japanese cuisine, my friend and I decided to order 2 combos from the menu, so we could taste a variety of dishes. The combination menu is a full 4 course meal. The meal began with a pact that the entire meal must be eaten with chopsticks. I was up for it, even though I was up againstan expert, as my friend had lived in China for a while .
We were first served with a salad, which I loved. It was very fresh, chicken chunks cooked well with a nice Asian flavored assortment of vegetables along with it. Some of the vegetables were batter fried, so it added a nice crunchy texture to the salad. Some flavored mayo added to the salad made it great, and a real good start to the meal. Our soups arrived next. Miso with chicken, and miso with tofu. The transluscent soup was weirdly spiced, and I was a little tepid towards finishing it but my friend seemed to enjoy it, so I gladly offered him my portion as well.
The 2 starters we picked were the Origami Maki roll and the Prawn tempura. The prawns were amazing, probably the softest prawns I’ve had in a long time. Showed the freshness of the meat. The sushi roll arrived with it’s usual condiments of vinegar dipped ginger and wasabi. The wasabi was shaped like a flower, very reminiscent of those designer kaju katlis, so I didn’t know it was wasabi, as I’ve always thought wasabi was like a paste,like a thick chutney of sorts. I took little of it and casually threw it in my mouth and woosh. Tears in my eyes, laughter from my friend, and pity from the Chef who had arrived just on time to witness my stupidity. Lol. It’s true when they say, success happens in private, but failure always has an audience.
Speaking of the chef, Chef Jed is from phillipines and he put on a real show. Though he prefers to be addressed as Jackie chan when he is behind the counter. I immediately began quizzing him about Hibachi cooking and where he learned it. The Dinnertainment began with his arrival. And he began his trickery with his instruments. There was some egg tossing, machine gun with an omlette and even some basketball. He expertly tossed 2 pieces of the omlette into our mouths from a distance. Real great experience. Chef Jed prepared for us our main course, which consisted of 2 fried rices, chicken and sea food, and 2 meat courses, prawn and beef. The fried rice tasted great and it was this point in time that I had given up eating with chopsticks. Mudila. Rice and all, local sambar sadham style la you should eat, and slurp the rasam from your palm (Lol) or resort to using plebeian cutlery like knives and fork, to avoid looking like a south indian savage. The prawns were flavored well, I had asked for them to be tangy and were made accordingly. We requested our beef to be made with 2 different sauces, a hoisin sauce and a teriyaki sauce, both on the recommendation of the chef. Even though the teriyaki was a bit sweet, both of us preferred it to the hoisin sauce, which seemed like an acquired taste, right off the bat.
For dessert, we were asked to pick any 5 of the 8/9 desserts on offer. Since there were 2 of us, we managed to taste everything available. I started with their coconut fudge/cake. Not really sure what it was, but it was great, and the best dessert on offer. It was all downhill from there, with their apple cake taking away all the residual moisture in my mouth, and every other dessert being whipped cream with a different essence on top. Caramel, strawberry, black currant. I mean. Lethargic cooking. Definitely not something I expected from a place like this.
Climax la twist vechu medical miracle aagum nu i was expecting, but the bill arrived, and it looked like miracles weren't on the menu today. We were expecting it to be around 2000 but it was 3300 for 2 people, which was a ginormous amount for relatively small portions of food, but we convinced ourselves that it was the experience that demanded the price. We ended up splitting the bill causes it seemed unfair to ask him to bear the whole brunt of the bill. The best part of the restaurant starts and ends with Chef Jed. His personality, skill and cooking are all fantastic and he is the backbone of the establishment. I hope they retain his services for a long time. As for their dessert chef, well, he/she has to buck up to match the level of the restaurant. The sooner, the better.
Cheers. : )
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