Mr. Onigiri (Upper Thomson)

Onigiri with fried chicken patty, spam,egg, tartar sauce and cheese.
Portion quite generous with the ingredients, the seaweed can be more crispy, other than that no complaints
💰$5.9.
📍Mr Onigiri.
215P Upper Thomson Road.

#shootoniphone

It seems that Okinawa-style Onigiri has been pretty much the rage recently — whilst the Central Business Districy had recently seen the opening of Hitokuchi Onigiri that is a dine-in concept at CapitaSpring, a new Mr. Onigiri has opened its doors at Upper Thomson Road along the same stretch of shophouses where specialty cafe joints such as Hello Arigato, One Man Coffee and Oak Coffee Co. are located. Occupying just half a unit of a typical shophouse, Mr. Onigiri is established more as a takeaway kiosk — there are no seats within the shophouse, and patrons who wish to have the Onigiri on the spot can sit at the bench located just by the road. Yet another establishment that had first started off as a home-based business that is establishing their presence as a brick-and-mortar space, the menu currently revolves around just Onigiri — there are a total of seven (7) variations of Ongiri available here; this includes the Otakotak Onigiri that comes with a fusion element. Beverages available at Mr Onigiri includes a variety of flower tea, hot green tea, as well as canned drinks.

Being one of the four items that are marked with a star on their menu, the Signature Melted Cheesy Crispy Chicken is described to come with elements such as Japanese seaweed, Japanese rice, tamagoyaki, spam, cheese, chicken patty and tartar sauce. Sinking our teeth into the Onigiri, we felt that the seaweed encasing the other condiments here is slightly on the chewier side; something that does make it a little difficult to eat considering how one would likely need some effort to bite off the piece of seaweed while the Japanese rice clings onto it. We liked how the portion of Japanese rice seems to have been relatively controlled here — the thin layer of rice was actually fairly compacted for a good texture; all that without making the entire Onigiri feel too heavy considering how it does come pretty substantial with all the other elements. The other condiments such as the tamagoyaki, spam and fried chicken were pretty decent; the tamagoyaki here felt more like a thin omelette while the spam provided much of the savouriness and meatiness that the Onigiri seems to need — the fried chicken cutlet felt close to those commercially made ones available in supermarkets, though still sufficiently crisp and tender nonetheless. The only gripe for us was the cheese; whilst the name of the item did suggest something oozy and stretchy, the sliced cheese that they had used for the Onigiri here felt a little far from what was expected. All of the elements does seem to be brought together with the use of mayonnaise for a creamy touch, though we wished that they could be a little more light-handed with that.

Not sure if this is the case, but it does seem that the hype for Onigiri just seemed to have began; it is interesting to see how the wave is slowly catching on ever since Hitokuchi Onigiri had first opened their doors at CapitaSpring. No doubt Mr. Onigiri is not quite that much of a fast grab-and-go spot that Hitokuchi Onigiri was poised to be; this is largely due to the fact that Mr. Onigiri was a one-man show when we made our visit — the same guy behind the counter dealing with patron’s enquiries alongside cashiering / ordering duties is also the same person preparing and packing the orders. As such, do expect some time for orders to be cleared during peak periods. Not sure if we would spend that much time to have Onigiri (we waited for slightly past 30mins considering that we were the second in-line after an order of seven Onigiri, while there were also various groups making orders whilst waiting for them to get our orders prepared), but one thing is definitely for sure — Mr. Onigiri does make for an interesting option especially for those staying around the neighbourhood; also a more convenient spot than the Central Business District for those who are looking to have a taste of how Okinawa-style Onigiri are like.