Food Review #2 - Shin Kushiya

Last week I went to Shin Kushiya at Jem for dinner. Even on a weekday night, the queue was quite unbelievable. In fact, I'd say that applied to all restaurants in Jem. Fortunately, I waited only about 10 minutes for my table.

B came shortly after and we started ordering. The food did take quite a while to come. B was really excited coz she came the week before and fell in love with the grilled sweet potatoes and grilled corn.

Honestly, perhaps B raised my expectations way too high, but I was expecting the sweet potato to be more flavourful than THAT. It was hopelessly dry and even though B insisted they put sea salt on the skin, I could barely taste it. It was bland and not as fragrant as I had hoped.

The corn on the other hand, was nicely grilled, with a little bit of soy sauce and was juicy and really yums. I would reorder the corn again, but not the sweet potato.

LOL I gave it such a low-class name as beef platter. Actually it's called Gyu Veg Platter, which stands for beef-vegetables-platter. The combination of beef and vegetables was surprisingly delicious, with both complementing one another. However, again, there were some hits and some misses. The beef with asparagus (top skewer) missed because the asparagus was all dried up. I can't remember what the second skewer was (not memorable) but I love love love the third and fifth skewers! Third skewer's tomatoes were juicy and paired with the thin beef, it was a dream! Fifth was a hit too because roasted mushrooms just taste so good. Fourth skewer was just beef cubes but it wasn't too bad, just not outstanding.

The Yakitori (aka chicken) platter was not too bad too. Chicken balls were nice. Quail eggs were normal. Chicken skewer was normal. The fourth skewer however, tasted odd (mentai paired with chicken is quite weird all in all), and the chicken was too chewy. The chicken wings were great! :)

There are so many skewers on the menu that the best way to try most of it is to order the platters. Unfortunately, there are bound to be some hits and misses along the way. All in all, I would say the dinner experience was quite good and enjoyable with good service. However, for the price range, I would make Shin Kushiya a once-in-a-while place to frequent.

We ordered a sushi as we wanted some rice but the sushi honestly...I could do without. They charged $6.80 each for the sweet potato and corn. I find the food slightly overpriced coz I really didn't feel that I ate $18.00 worth of anything on that Gyu Veg Platter but oh well. The Mentai Yaki Onigiri was grilled rice...but it tasted just the way it should..burnt.

Food: 3.5/5
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 3/5
Value for money: 2.5/5

Shin Kushiya @ JEM
Tel; 6339 0322