Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre, located just off West Coast Way in a quiet neighbourhood, is an unexpected place for good Japanese food. Shopping Centre is an overstatement for what is really just a small building with an odd mix of mom and pop type shops, as well as a secondhand car dealership whose cars take up most of the tiny open-air carpark.
Despite its outwardly decrepit appearance, there’s a certain quiet charm about the place that makes you feel like you’ve been transported to a tiny town on the outskirts of Japan. Hidden amongst the tiny cluster of shops are four Japanese restaurants, all heavyweights in their own right boasting an impressive line-up of Hungrygowhere reviews – Restaurant Chako, Kyushu Nihon Ryori, Minoru Restaurant and Genkai Nada Japanese Restuarant.
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to Restaurant Chako on a Thursday night. We called ahead to place our orders because we knew the food would take awhile to prepare – by awhile I mean it typically takes about an hour or more because all the food is lovingly prepared only when the order is placed.
The exterior of Restaurant Chako
Restaurant Chako is open daily from 12-230pm for lunch, and from 6-1030pm for dinner. On Sundays and Public Holidays, they’re only open for dinner.
An interior shot – it’s a tiny place that sits not more than twenty, and that’s if you’re seated cosily shoulder to shoulder. The restaurant area is just slightly bigger than the kitchen.
The first time we stumbled upon Restaurant Chako a few years back, we were walking around Hong Leong Garden in search of these four famed great Japanese restaurants. It was completely empty when we stepped in, the lighting was dim, and all we saw was an old couple – the okami (proprietress and chef, Hisako Okugawa – only we didn’t know her name then, so we referred to her as Auntie Chako) and her husband sitting by the table nearest the door. They both stood to greet us as we entered, and we were a little taken aback. This was a stark departure from the bright lights of contemporary chains like Sushi Tei. We asked for the menu, and an old weathered cloth-bound book was handed to us with both hands.
As we flipped the pages, Auntie Chako told us this menu has been unchanged for 19 years. At first glance, it didn’t seem impressive. They didn’t serve the usual fare of sashimi (this had to be ordered 3 days in advance) or any sort of sushi rolls. We looked up at each other and without saying anything, knew that we wanted out. We handed the menu back to Auntie Chako with an awkward and apologetic smile, and headed out to Genkai Nada where the atmosphere was closer to what we were used to – bustling restaurant, lots of people, menu with sashimi and sushi rolls.
Looking back now, I think we were a lot younger at the time and didn’t have a good appreciation of anything that wasn’t new, shiny or familiar. But I’d like to think we’ve matured along with our taste as we’ve gotten older.
A year after that first encounter, we decided to give Auntie Chako a chance and I’m glad we did. It’s now our go-to place for home-cooked soul-warming meals.
Instead of the usual green tea, they serve roasted barley tea.
The menu has been updated since our first visit. All the food, including the sauces are home-made so don’t expect a quick meal. You go to Chako when you want a reprieve from the world (even the 3G signal here is weak so forget about Facebook and Twitter), and are happy to spend the next couple of hours just enjoying the company of your dining companion(s) the good old fashioned way.
The Chako Set ($19), from L-R – coleslaw and potato salad, juicy grilled saba, perfect crisp skin (Auntie Chako grills this over a tiny charcoal stove – no microwaves involved) served with a side of freshly grated daikon, home-made pickled carrots and daikon, a small chinmi dish of lotus roots and wakame, cold tofu with bonito flakes and spring onion (they give you soy sauce to pour over this), bread crumbed fish and tender chicken served with salad sauce and onions, rice.
Ebi tempura set ($23). The tempura is deliciously crispy and light, and the prawns are huge. Although there were only four pieces, I could barely finish it. But my favourite part of this meal was the miso soup – unassumingly yummy. The sweet and slightly briny flavour of the clams are perfectly infused to complement the salty miso flavour. It made for a belly-warming satisfying end to the meal.
Dashimaki ($5). We had an option to pick either salty (dashimaki) or sweet (tamagoyaki) – we left the decision in the capable hands of Auntie Chako, and it didn’t disappoint. The egg was fluffy and still slightly runny on the insides. Good enough to eat on its own.
Ikabata yaki – squid sauteed in garlic, served with lime. ($11) Fresh, bouncy and very yummy.
Panfried gyoza. $7 for a serving of 5 pieces – there are two servings in the picture above. These were rather skinny as there wasn’t a lot of filling unlike the usual fatter more ingot-shaped gyoza’s that most restaurants serve. But I liked the silky smooth texture of the skin, and thought it was perfectly-sized to pop whole into your mouth.
Tsukimi negi natto ($6). Fermented soybeans served with raw egg and spring onion. You can either have a whole raw egg, or just the yolk. Natto’s an acquired taste, not really my cup of tea. It tastes fermented, and not in a good way like the bottled preserved beancurd you put on porridge.
Oden set ($19). A clear broth stew with fishcake and beancurd cake, daikon, boiled egg and seaweed konnyaku.
Chako steak ($23). Japanese style beef steak served on a hot plate with sauteed vegetables that you can count and a side of spaghetti. It also comes with a slab of garlic butter, that gives the steak a nice garlicky flavour.
Karei nitsuke ($20). Flounder simmered in a semi-sweet soy sauce based sauce.
Unatamaju ($23). Broiled eel in home-made sauce, served on a bed of egg-topped rice. And unlike the eel you typically get from the chain restaurants or supermarkets, this eel really tasted freshly broiled – there was no sticky, chewy hard texture. It was nice, soft and tender. And the slightly runny egg over the rice was deliciously yummy.
Sake teriyaki ($22). Pan-fried salmon with homemade teriyaki sauce. I didn’t even know it was possible to home make teriyaki sauce. I knew she said all sauces were homemade, but I took it with a pinch of salt and assumed that it only applied to gravy-like sauces. But as the sauce cooled and hardened on the plate like candy, I realised it was homemade. Fascinated, I shoved a bit of it in everyone’s face and insisted they try it. There’s something romantic and quaint about the idea of food made from scratch that charms me, especially in today’s day and age of instant and/or mechanised everything.
Gyutamaju ($19). Thinly sliced beef in egg and onion gravy, served on rice. Very nice. I like anything rice-and-runny-egg.
Tofu cheesecake with tofu chocolate ($6.50). A combination of tofu and cheese, topped with tofu chocolate. I didn’t get a chance to try this, so can’t speak for the taste.
Homemade banana ice-cream ($6.50). All the ice-cream served is homemade, and according to Auntie Chako, takes three days to prepare. Her ice-cream is more icy than creamy, but it’s light and refreshing.
Homemade cappucino ice-cream ($6.50).
Homemade black sesame ice-cream ($6.50).
Unfortunately Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre is going en bloc, so all the tenants will be moving by August or September this year. We spoke to her daughter and she said that they haven’t thought about where they would be moving to. It would be a shame if she decided to retire but till that happens, we’ll definitely be back a couple more times.
Restaurant Chako
Hong Leong Garden Shopping Centre
134 West Coast Way
Tel: 6776 3919
will travel for food and love 