Midas Food n Travel Blog: Dinner at Hamanoya Robata & Dessert from St. Marc Cafe

This was my 2nd visit to Hamanoya, they have since added many new items to their menu and I am here to suss them out.

They have added many new sushi and sashimi items which are lacking in their previous menu. However, being the first Robata restaurant in SG, their strength is their slow grilled items so I'm still sticking to ordering ala carte charcoal grilled items for my dinner tonight.

The food portion looks seemingly small in the pictures so I picked out about 5 savory items and an Onigiri as the carbo dish. The drink and a small complimentary appetizer was served right after placing order.

The spinach cold dish was nice and refreshing. However, I was kinda disappointed that they have stopped serving complimentary skewered seafood as complimentary starter dish which I had on my first visit.

Grilled Onigiri w/ miso paste $3.99++, this was lightly grilled over charcoal fire to bring out the smokey aroma of the miso paste. It was very tasty and the chef did a good job of making sure the rice is still soft and moist despite having gone through the grilling process.

Grilled Asparagus wrapped w/ Bacon $4.99++, this is a no brainer pick on my part as it is a guaranteed yummy dish. Who could resist anything made with crispy bacon?

Grilled Chicken meatball w/ half boiled egg $4.99++, I had this before and I'm having it again, as this is way too delicious to not order again. The marinated minced chicken meat slow cooked on a large wooden spoon was extremely juicy and flavorful, and dipping it into the creamy half boiled egg just takes it to a whole new level. Must try!

This is something new, Grilled Miso paste w/ fresh vegetables $4.99++. The Miso paste is the main focus here even though it was supposed to be the dipping sauce for the freshly cut veggies. The miso paste has added bits of finely chopped veggies to enhance its flavor and the grilling process gave it a really nice smokey fragrance. It was quite tasty but a tad too salty for my palate.

Grilled Salmon belly $11.99++, another dish that I had previously and don't mind having it again and again. The restaurant has limited servings of these daily and it gets sold out pretty fast. It is not hard to figure out why it is such a popular dish. Being the softest part of the fish, the tender and succulent meat was oozing juicy goodness from within...simply divine!

At this point, I already knew I had over-ordered for tonight. All the dishes served were really larger in portion as compared to what I saw on the pictures. It didn't help that my last dish was also a big portion one. Tonpei Yaki とんぺい焼き $7.99++, a Japanese Izakaya styled omelette with pork belly slices and chopped veggies topped with savory tonkatsu sauce and creamy mayo.

This was a truly mouth-watering dish, there were generous amount of juicy pork belly slices in the omelette. I was pleasantly surprised that they are charging only 8 bucks for this dish! Definitely recommended.

I didn't manage to finish all my food in one seating so I packed them back for dinner next day. The pork omelette and the salmon belly remains very delish even after sitting in the fridge and being reheated after one day!

The service level here definitely scores high points in my good books, very professional and polite like in every authentic Japanese restaurant. Coupled with reasonably priced and fantastic food, this is Hamanoya's recipe for keeping their customers happy, and coming back again and again.

Hamanoya Robata
Marina Square, #02-106
6 Raffles Boulevard
Tel: 6337 4245

Lunch: 11.30am - 3pm
Dinner: 5pm - 10.30pm

Choco Cro from St. Marc Cafe
I received an email notification informing me that the Strawberry Daifuku croissant is back for the month of May 2014. And for St. Marc's members, we can redeem an online voucher to buy a Mixed box (2x strawberry daifuku & 3x choco cro) for only $10 instead of $12.40.

Since I'm already at Marina Sq, I went ahead to purchase a box with my virtual discount voucher on my mobile phone.

The croissants from St. Marc were as good as I expected them to be, super crispy and flaky with yummilicious fillings. Check out my previous post for detail review. Here's a few more shots of them before we devoured them within mins.