Had an incredible three hour dinner at Honjin (Chow House, 140 Robinson Road, #01-00, opposite SIA Building) yesterday night, thanks to the UOB one-for-one Ohtoro Buffet Dinner offer. I am now thoroughly sick of Japanese food. Heh. I'm not a connoisseur or anything, so can't gauge accurately the freshness and quality of the fish, but what I had tasted pretty darn good. All in all, we had:
- Sashimi: Swordfish, salmon (sake), tuna (maguro) and yellowtail
- Handroll: Soft-shell crab (kani)
- Noodles: Zaru saba, udon
- Tempura: Soft-shell crab (kani), prawn (ebi) and vegetables (kakiage)
- Mat roll: Tuna belly (ohtoro)
- Others: Egg custard (chawan mushi) and pregnant fish (shishamo)
- Dessert: Fruits and ice-cream

Our only complaint was that as the place was so packed, the service stuff tended to forget what we ordered. By the time we ordered our dessert of ice-cream, we had only received about 70% of our food. An earlier enquiry as to where the zaru saba has disappeared to received this comment: "The kitchen is very busy because there're so many people. [The zaru saba] may be on its way out now." "May be?" I said. "May be," the waitress confirmed.

After the majority of the dining crowd left, the service improved considerably, with one waiter asking if we had received our fruits yet, which we hadn't ordered and weren't intending to order, but apparently, these came free. The same waiter, in a bid to help us decide between ordering 300 ml of sake and the free flow for S$20+++ each, gave us a free flask of hot sake while another waiter brought us our long-awaited vegetable tempura and another waiter brought our order of ice-cream. An incredibly bizarre combination, I'll have to admit, and I've eaten some strange things in my life.

I had never tried sake before, but knew it was potent, having heard stories from my friends, which explained my reluctance to go for the free flow even though my dining partner seemed rather eager to try that out. And given the nature of the dinner (a buffet), I knew I had a lot to throw up, if the effects of sake really were as strong as I believed them to be. It turned out to be a far more pleasant experience than I expected. I'll definitely try some again, if I'm ever in a Japanese fine dining establishment. And this time, I'll drink it while eating sashimi, as the waiter explained.

Total damage at the end of the night: S$59 for a delicious buffet dinner for two inclusive of two green teas and various taxes (The UOB offer is until end of November. Otherwise, you can take the buffet dinner set for S$32+++. The difference between the Ohtoro set and the normal buffet is that the latter includes paper steamboat (nabe) which I didn't realise until the end of the night.)

Fortunately for me, after-dinner activities ensured that I burned off a substantial portion of the calories consumed during the day. The night didn't end the way I thought it would, and I wound up getting home close to 3 am happy, if rather spent.