Sumiya Orchard Central (Closed)

Having had quite a good experience dining at the Sumiya Japanese restaurant in Suntec City, we decided to try the Sumiya Orchard Central outlet recently. Little did we expect that the dining experience would be so different. Comparing our Sumiya Orchard Central dinner experience with Sumiya Suntec City was like comparing night and day.

The Sumiya Orchard Central Japanese restaurant is located at the top 12th level of this Orchard Road shopping mall that has a lot of lifts and escalators. The entrance to Sumiya was promising enough. A large colourful banner and the glass enclosed grilling area greets incoming customers.

This is the first section of the dining area right at the front of the restaurant area. My suggestion, if you decide to dine here, is to take a seat as near the entrance as possible. These seats may not seem very attractive at first, but they do not get any better as you venture deeper into the restaurant.

The two photos below show the middle section of Sumiya Orchard Central. The rugged street dining decor may appeal to some, but we were expecting better. This was where we ended in as the front section was full.

The next two photos show the final section that is situated right at the end of the restaurant. It is alfresco dining on barrels and pails. There were no one dining there that night. It was mainly used as a smoking area.

As you can probably guess, to say that we were disappointed by the set-up of this Sumiya outlet (after experiencing the nice one in Suntec) would be an understatement. The only remaining hope was that the food would make up for the lack of interior decoration. On this front, I regret to say that was not the case. The choices offered were quite limited. Here are pictures of parts of the Sumiya Orchard Central menu.

We tried an assortment of grilled skewers. Minced chicken balls ($5.8), shishamo ($3.8), sweet potato ($4.8) pork and enoki mushroom $5, asparagus and bacon ($6.8). The prices are for one skewer. The skewers were ordinary.