Shima Restaurant- the most expensive fruit juice ever drank!

I was busy preparing for my essay 3 weeks ago when my sister L asked me whether I wanted to join her, R and Y for a meal at Shima. She ooed and arrrr-ed over it and told me how it was one of the best teppanyaki restaurants around (not that she had eaten there before but she was already bought over by the strong convictions of R and Y!). Apparently both of them had eaten there on separate occassions but they found the food to be so good that they wanted to go back again.

I declined to join them initially as I was over my head in my work. But the idea of spending a Sunday afternoon working away daunted me. Also, the idea of missing out on a gastronomic feast upsetted me. So I agreed after a while. SH joined us too on a very last minute note, as I had initially decided against going.

Shima restaurant is located within the compounds of the Goodwood Park Hotel, at the new wing.

Goodwood Park Hotel
To get to Shima resturant, walk to the left of Goodwood Park hotel. After passing the newly renovated wing (you will see a building with a modern glass exterior), you will see the restaurant a few steps away.

The Grand Entrance to this old regal hotel

The entrance to the restaurant

The interior of the restaurant
The interior of Shima Restaurant is very authentically Japanese. Seats are arranged around the teppanyaki counter where the chef works on. There is another sitting area in the restaurant, but we didn't head there as we had chosen the teppanyaki lunch buffet.

Our Teppanyaki Area
Our chairs and plates are arranged around the counter where the chef works on. You get to see how the chef cooks.
A very nice thoughtful touch was that as we sat down at our places, the waitresses came over and helped us wear on these plastic-aprons. We all looked so cute eating our meals! The aprons helped prevent clumsy L from spilling things onto herself!

Tempura Prawn

A Closeup of the Tempura Prawns
The Prawns were very crisply fried. Just nice. Not over-fried. The batter is light and crisp, and it wasn't soggy (unlike other prawn tempuras I've eaten). Prawns were fresh, very nice. The sauce accompanying the dish was good too, though I felt it could have been less salty. I still feel that the prawn tempura at Tonkichi @ Suntec was still superior in taste, freshness and size! 3.25/5.

Salmon Sashimi
With each platter you get about 4-5 pieces of sashimi. I can't remember how many pieces there are actually because we attacked the sashimi the moment it came! It was very fresh. The meat is firm, yet very tender at the same time. You bite into each piece and as you chew on it the flavour just immerses. It's just hard to describe. Oh, how about the adjective 'tantalising'? It was indeed very refreshing! Good sashimi has a very distinctive fresh taste to it. Still, it couldn't beat Sushi garden's sashimi. :( (Sushi garden is located in Vancouver, Canada. Shall do a review on it another time) 4/5
(I shall give Sushi garden 5/5 for the sashimi next time I review it!)

The California Roll
The rice was done just nice. Not too sour, complemented the mayonnaise used in the roll (well I'm not sure if it's really mayonnaise. But it tasted like mayonnaise to me). Cucumber was fresh, seaweed was crisp and tasty (not too msg-tasting like some seaweed you eat). Salmon eggs was good. Can't really remember the other ingredients because the food came so fast I was trying to keep pace. Everything blended well to give a crunchy texture. The roll on the whole was good. 3.5/5

Teppanyaki in progress- Prawns, Salmon and Chicken being cooked

The Teppanyaki Prawns
The prawns were very fresh, succulent and big. A pity the seasoning was too salty. I would also have preferred my prawn to be a little undercook. Then you can taste the tenderness of the meat. 3/5

The Teppanyaki Chicken
I apologise for the poor shot. It was rather embarrassing trying to take shots of my food.
The chicken meat is tender. Again a tad too salty. 3/5

Fresh salmon simmered in brown sauce
I think this is the salmon belly. Not too sure though but this is my favourite dish of all! It was just so OOMPH-good! The sauce was just nice, not salty at all! Nice balance between sweet and salty. The salmon belly was so fresh, soft, tender and succulent!! (I keep using the word succulent, but no other adjectives seem to be able to describe the meats I eat better! Not "moist", not "luscious", not "scrumptious"...
We kept asking for seconds! The sad truth was that by the time we reach the end of our teppanyaki course, we were so full with all the dishes that I couldn't gobble down the resturant's supply of salmon belly and salmon sashimi!
This dish is a sure-winner! 4.75/5!!
It really deserves the marks because when you bite into it, it's sooo soft, tender AND juicy all at the same time. It seems to melt in your mouth!

Another closeup of the salmon
So good! I like my meat to have fats! Plus salmon fats are healthy!

Sizzling Oysters
Bad shot again. The lighting in the restaurant was so dim! The oysters were really good too. So yummylicious!
In this restaurant, it was the first time I heard of oysters being cooked "medium, medium-rare or rare"!
I asked mine to be done medium-rare and I love it! I actually like eating oysters fresh, raw, uncooked. But this dish was good in a sense that it's cooked on the outside but when you bite into the oyster, the juice oozes out from the centre! A great dish! 3.75/5

A closeup of the delicious oyster
Pure gastronomic heaven.

Garlic Fried Rice
I didn't quite like this dish because I felt that the garlic taste overpowered the whole dish. The rest of the ingredients tasted bland. It was just not tasty and moist enough for me. It could be me though because the rest seemed to like it. I just prefer it the Ding Tai Feng way for fried rice. 2.75/5

The tender beef- cooked medium rare the way I like it!
Can you see just how good this beef is? It's cooked soooo medium-rare! The perfect balance! You can see the pinkish centre of the beef. The beef was very tasty, chewy and savoury. Tender too. But I would have prefered it to have consisted of some fats within it! I love my beef the keg-way (Alas, Keg is in Canada)! Tender, juicy and with a healthy combination of fats! Such that when you eat it, the whole bite seems to literally melt away in your mouth! This beef was tender, just that it could have been even more tender!! 3.5/5

Our chef for the day!
He was a very friendly guy who cracked up at our jokes and inquiries. We kept asking him things like where he learnt cooking from, how he cooked the dishes... etc etc... unfortunately, I've since forgotten what he told me! haha. We complemented him for a job well done! Deliciously nice!

An interesting thing happened during our meal. Y had gone to the toilet and she overheard a chef being scolded for his cooking techniques. Apparently the older chef had observed his table of customers and realised that they were not very satisfied. He noted this from observing how the customer was poking his chopsticks at his meal, as if the dish was very unappetising. The older chef chided the cook for failing to note his customers' expression and for not performing up to standard. Woah... this restaurant really prides itself on its high quality!

Verdict:

The bill for 5 came up to $317 which totally blew us away. I was too shocked to say anything so I just paid for the group with my card (Woah... first time my account actually has that much money!) They must think that we are some bunch of rich kids that can afford to walk into any restaurant on a sunday afternoon for brunch.
The teppanyaki buffet lunch was $199.50 for 5 of us. But the Fresh Orange Juice cost a whopping $42.50 for 5 cups, and the mango juice cost $30 for 4 cups!

There was 10% service charge, 5%GST as well as 1%cess! As if they had not conned us enough!

After my expert calculations,
The orange juice per cup= $8.50x1.16=$9.86!!!
We actually paid $10 for a cup of orange juice I could have squeezed myself! They labelled it "fresh" orange juice. Machiam they really squeezed by hand. (Machiam= singlish for 'As if') Then how come I never see any pulp in the drink (oh right!! They even bothered to filter the drink! I bet that's why it's so expensive. We are paying for their heavy labour!)
The mango juice per cup= $7.50x1.16= $8.70

We spent a grand total of $84.10 on juice. Could have bought 28 cartons of Freshtree Fresh at NTUC.

*Fuming mad*

I would go back to the restaurant another day only for the fish meat- the sashimi and the salmon. Both are served exceedingly fresh.
AND I would avoid the juices at all cost. They DO serve plain water by the way. Plain free water.

Ambiance: 2.75/5 (A nice cosy restaurant for a nice family brunch. Definitely not your typical romantic date for 2. You might end up sharing a teppanyaki counter with another couple. I wouldn't go there for a group gathering also because the sitting around the chef's teppanyaki area makes it difficult to hold a conversation with your friends on the other end of the counter.)
Service: 4/5 (Very very prompt and very very efficient. My clumsy sister L accidentally spilled the miso soup onto the counter and the chef immediately handed her his counter towel which he was using for the teppanyaki stove. When the waitresses didn't notice the spill, he clapped his hand to demand their attention. Upon realising the spill, they hurriedly rush over to help L clean up every single drop of the spill and to change her plates. Very attentive to detail. Plus where else do you get staff helping you tie the apron on?)
Food: 3.5/5

As for whether this place really serves the best teppanyaki, I would say not. Food is generally good and delicious, but I found the dishes to be a tad too salty (agreed upon by SH). Sometimes the seasoning used tends to overpower the taste. Also, I would have preferred my meats to be more tender and succulent. As it is a teppanyaki buffet, there isn't much varieties as compared to other buffets, but the focus here is on quality and service. All in all a good place to go for lunch. But where prices are concerned, it's definitely not an average cheap lunch.

Location:

Shima Restaurant
Goodwood Park Hotel
22 Scotts Road
Tel. no: +65 67346281

They have another branch at Esplanade
Shima Aji Japanese Restaurant
Esplanade Mall
8 Raffles Avenue
#01-13A c/o Colours by the Bay
Tel. no: +65 63419985

Check out their website for more information.

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Despite my threats to write in a complaint letter, which I always never get around to doing, I didn't.
Things I would have complained of:
A lack of transparency in their prices- their staff acted as if the juice was part of the buffet by asking us "Do you want any refills?"
From what I know from the dictionary, refill= second, subsquent filling. We were there on a buffet.
Your menu didn't indicate the price of the juices (or it was not clear enough). So by asking whether we wanted a refill, it meant that the orange juice/mango juice were part of the buffet. It's like asking us "Do you want some more salmon?"
Which buffet actually separates the drinks from the main buffet? In all the resturants/hotels I've been to, drinks have always been a part of the buffet! We thought the freaking orange juice was part of the buffet! Tsk tsk, the misleading english used is an indication of poor english.

How dare they con us!!

We poor students.

P.S. Maybe I shouldn't complain about the prices. I'm afterall aspiring to be a rich tai tai next time. I should get used to being charged exorbitant prices for cheap useless worthless things. Woaaahhh... so cheap ar? *Note sarcasm.*

Now who's the one being cheap?

Now that's a thought for you.

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