Oishi 🇯🇵

Green tea flavoured batter with red bean filling in a fish-shaped Taiyaki pancake! Matcha taste is quite strong but could’ve done better with more red bean paste to offset the bitterness. Also felt that the taiyaki is denser than the Obanyaki so it was harder to swallow as it wasn’t as fluffy. Still, I think matcha lovers would appreciate this!

My favourite Obanyaki flavour here!

The amount of filling to pancake is perfect without being overwhelming. Thick creamy peanut butter with chewy mochi to mellow out the saltiness.

The pancake exterior is crispy while the interior is soft and fluffy. Might be even nicer if it’s hot, perhaps can buy some back home to toast up and eat!

Filling is super thick creamy peanut butter, there’s less filling in this than the other pancakes as only
one side has filling while the other is plain but the filling is still extremely generous. Good for the peanut butter purists.

Pancake skin is slightly crisp on the outside and soft and the interior is soft and spongy.

Though all the flavours were available when I visited today, they were cold when we received them :( the previous time they were at least slightly warm.

Anyway, the filling in the pancakes here are very generous (as evident in the Kaya peanut one pictured). The peanut filling is like extremely thick and creamy peanut butter, there’s no crunchy ground peanuts, but I’m sure creamy peanut butter lovers will love this. While the Kaya did serve to balance the saltiness of the peanut butter, I wasn’t such a fan of it as it was too sweet. A less sweet Kaya probably would’ve worked better. For now though, I’d go for the Peanut Mochi Obanyaki over the Kaya Peanut!

We stumbled upon Katanashi An by accident and were very very pleased by this surprise discovery. We were ushered in by a friendly Japanese lady, who also took our orders. Her English wasn’t strong, but she was patient and kept a smile on her face throughout.

You’ll find cute hand drawn pictures of random cartoons, animals or people on your wet tissue packets at your table. I think it’s extremely cute and such a warm touch!

When we left, a staff member was waiting outside to hold the door open for us and even offered us packaged mini madeleines (pictured) or sweets from two baskets! Service was 10/10. Really love this hidden gem!

We ordered the fish on a spur of the moment decision as they were out of the Ichiya Dori chicken. I didn’t really catch what this dish was called, but it’s seasoned with rice wine and smells incredible.

The blistered fish skin carries a nice smokey grilled aroma but remains soft. The Saba fish flesh is just amazingly tender and boasts a myriad of savoury and sweet flavours in every mouthful. We picked the bones clean off this fish as it was so good - must order!!!

This plump omelette has generous chunks of grilled unagi cooked into it, and is topped with mayo and nori. The omelette is oh-so-fluffy and pillowy soft to bite into. It’s definitely not overcooked, and is still just slightly runny inside. The unagi pieces don’t have any sandy gritty texture, thankfully. They add some incredible umami flavour to the egg. The mayo on top added some extra rich and creamy feels, which made this a decadent dish. Loved it!

Not our first choice of soups as we wanted the Negima Konabe but they were out. This was pretty good too anyway!

It’s served in a small pot but that was enough to share among 3 diners. There’s quite a few ingredients inside - thinly sliced pork belly, kimchi, silken tofu, shimeji mushrooms, cabbage and kimchi. The clear soup is pretty light in taste. Not very sour, so even those who don’t like kimchi should be able to enjoy it.

Very affordable for a meal especially around the city area!

Ended up at Katanashi An as most of the other restaurants’ kitchens in the area were already closed at 9.30pm. We were informed that the last order was at 10pm and the restaurant closes at 10.30pm. It was a good choice to eat at this little hole in the wall that we otherwise probably would’ve completely missed!

One of the three cold salads on the dinner menu - the Sashimi Salad is served with salad greens, a handful of slices of sashimi (salmon and another type of fish), wasabi dressing and topped with nori. I was initially cautious as I don’t like wasabi, but the wasabi dressing here wasn’t pungent and didn’t have the ‘explosion in your nostrils’ feeling. It was light and went well with the sashimi and salad vegetables without overpowering our tastebuds. The salad greens were fresh and crunchy, and there were lots of green-coloured tobikko tossed inside (seasoned with wasabi maybe?) which gave super delicious crunchy pops of flavour.

We all really loved this dish! Can’t remember the exact price but I think it was below $10, which was reasonable. Would order again!