Ikoi at Hotel Miramar

Jimmy's birthday, incidentally coincided with YAY-YAY PAYDAY so we decided to splurge on the meal. With countless retaurants grounds yet to be forayed into, it was a tough tough call. The decision-making was a long drawn-out processed that went along the lines of this..

Me: "Hey Jimmy, have you thought about which restaurant you would wanna visit on your birthday?"

J: "No... what do you have in mind?"

Me: "C'mon Jimmy, it's your day! YOU CHOOSE.."

J: "Ok.. how about [insert resaurant name here]?"

Me: "Oh for dinner? That's pretty heavy...."

J: "How about [insert resaurant name here]?"

Me: "Hmm...Good idea... BUT I heard/read it's only so-so.."

Arh, the power of freedom of choice.

Finally over breakfast, it was a toss-up between Ikoi and Iggy’s. Nobody gves up a chance to dine at Iggy's without a valid reason but the unthinkable happened. After breakfast, I visited Meidi-ya japanese supermarket and left the place with an unsatiable craving for something japanese... As such, we cancelled our Iggy reservations and opted for Ikoi instead.


Kids watching Doraemon cartoon in the middle of Meidi-ya supermarket. How terribly cute...

It feels almost like choosing the wrong guy.

You know, when you pick the Born-Loafer Do-No-Gooder over Mr Ivy-League-Graduate-Captain of-this-&-that-club.

"Your Honour, I plead temporary insanity"



In terms of atmosphere, Ikoi 'za'-ed on the other end of the spectrum. Unlike comtemporary Zen Japanese restaurants (I'm thinking Shimbashi Soba here), Ikoi possessed what Jimmy would describe as "a sarariman atmosphere" and I found the cramp settings, smallish tables and chair rather charming. Service was so-so: Though you get what you want eventually, you are better of practising your Mandarin here since most of the waitresses were PRC Chinese. Not kidding.



Mixed Sashimi Platter: Tuna, Salmon, Swordfish, Forgettable White Fish and Octopus. Undoubtly fresh and appropiately-sized, I have no complains about the sashimi. We even ordered a second helping of the mekajiki (swordfish) and to our surprise, received a generous portion of about a dozen cuts.




Sake Shioyaki

The grilled items (Sake shioyaki, Saba shioyaki and shishamo) were pretty much a hit with the birthday boy and me. With each bite, the skin cackled and yielded against the juicy flesh.



There more than a dozen different types of tempura offerings but we choose the default mixed tempura: prawns, eggplant, lady’s finger, pumpkin and mushroom. Tempura batter lacked the brittle crystline structure but we are talking about “deep-fried in huge pot of oil” and “utterly bad for the waistline”, thus it had to be considerably tasty. There were breaded types too but we gave it a miss.




Oyako Don

“It’s ok to miss” items include salmon kaninabe: unfortunately weak in the taste department and noodle/don items: so disappointing, they could work together to revive the Atkins diet. These items undeserved a spot of our dining table as they were, at best, “fit for human consumption”. You know deserve better.


Salmon Kaninabe

Ikoi’s menu is extensive and as you can see, we only scrapped the tip of the iceberg.. No sushi was ordered, no second helpings of the tempura. Ikoi isn’t a complete right-off.. I’m still thinking about the mekajiki...