OTOKO (The Midtown)

@otoko_midtown has been going strong at Midtown for quite a few years now, and it’s been a while since I’ve dined there. While their Pork Yakiniku Don ($11.90 nett) is more expensive than I remember it, it’s as delicious as it was in my memory.⠀
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The thin slices of pork belly shabu shabu are stir fried over a strong flame to render out some of the fat and to get a solid sear on the pork. This important but oft-overlooked step adds more flavour to the pork before it gets simmered together with the sauce & sliced onions, and I’m satisfied that Otoko didn’t forget. The sauce itself is rather ordinary, possessing the usual umami sapidity from dashi & soy sauce, plus some sweetness from the mirin.⠀
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I was pleasantly surprised that they sauced up the plain short grain rice sufficiently. Really made for a better bowl of donburi. Skip the lava egg though, it’s overcooked and is more of a rock egg than a lava egg.

Chicken cutlet was soft and crispy.
Omelette was milky and smooth.
Curry was a little sweet.

Plenty of variety of fried food to choose from to add to your meals. Will be spoilt for choice

Japanese curry rice topped with crispy chicken cutlet and creamy scrambled eggs.
The egg is cooked perfectly with the soft moist texture and the curry is not spicy.

Price : $10 ++
Rating: 7/10

At just $14.90, you could do a lot worse than @otoko_midtown umami unagi don. A sizeable slice of eel is slathered in a sweet, sapid teriyaki sauce and grilled just right before it takes a lie down on a bed of rice garnished by shredded omelette. That’s it, that’s the dish.⠀
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If you’re thinking that it sounds real simple, that’s because you’re right. I understand that at the price point of fifteen bucks you can’t do much, but there could be improvements made to the dish. The rice was a bit hard and lumpy, and the omelette failed to impress. A soft boiled egg would’ve been a much better idea, and an option to jazz up the ricebowl for a little extra outlay with some tempura vegetables would be nice.⠀
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Not gonna lie, I’m being a little harsh for a passably decent unagi ricebowl that’s priced at under twenty bucks. Still, I would like to see some improvement on the dish, as I do think that there’s potential for it.⠀

The only time I’ll ever eat an eggplant is when it’s been tempura’d and deep fried well. The sweet potato tempura ain’t no slouch either.

@otoko_midtown tempura is decent enough as it was moderate on the oil and the batter is pretty well put together. 3.6 outta 5, not great, not terrible. It’s serviceable, but they really need to start giving out tempura sauce with every order of tempura as they forgot to season their fried foods.

What interesting about this place is that you get to customise your curry rice. They have lots of items for you to add in to your plate. For me I got the pork cutlet, cream cheese mushroom and scramble egg. My first disappointment was that it was served cold. But I still want to compliment that the pork cutlet was crispy not so dry. The curry itself was more a sweet type instead of spicy. $15