BIZEN Okayama Wagyu Steakhouse - steak restaurant by Astons at Funan Mall

BIZEN Okayama Wagyu Steakhouse in Funan Mall is one of the many brands and outlets of the Aston Group. Initially serving their good and cheap steaks in Singapore, Astons have since grown beyond that. From the up-market Ranch Steakhouse and the more recent Bizen outlets, they have come a long way since their humble beginnings at a East Coast Road coffeeshop.

BIZEN Okayama Wagyu Steakhouse Funan Mall is located at B2 of the new mall. It is a pleasant open concept place. Orders are taken and payments made at the cashier at the entrance before diners are seated. It is an efficient concept but led to a long queue at the entrance when we were there. One can only hope not to be behind an indecisive group. This is the second outlet of the BIZEN Steakhouse. The other one is in Plaza Singapura.

BIZEN Okayama Wagyu Steakhouse Menu

Bizen apparently imports entire carcasses from their meat supplier in Okayama, Japan. With the whole carcass available to the kitchen, they are able to offer many different cuts of beef in the menu. The most expensive cut being the tenderloin and the cheapest the round cut ($37.90 and $18.90 respectively for a 150g petite serving). Here is a picture of the BIZEN Okayama Wagyu Steakhouse Funan Steak Menu.

For customers who prefer a non beef meal, there are other food options. These tend to be more affordable as well. Here is a picture of the general food menu. We decided to try a ribeye steak and some non-steak items.

Complimentary Ice Cream

The complimentary ice cream sign was a surprise. Diners get to pick their own ice-cream from a freezer. There was no explicit restriction about quantity. We noticed that diners exercised restraint and did not take more than one each. We were similarly well-behaved. The ice-cream were simple ones – good enough for a sweet end to the meal.

The food took some time to arrive and so we started off with a chocolate ice-cream to go with the beer. The Sapporo beer was reasonably priced ($5.50) but was served unchilled. We had to make do with ice cubes.

The Food

We had an assortment of dishes. It is fair to say that they were all generally good and we can see why the place attracted a lot of diners. The prices are reasonable for the non-steak dishes. Each main course comes with a choice of two side dishes.

The wagyu don ($14.90) was a delicious bowl of rice with beef, egg and savoury toppings. It was a substantial dish for the price.

The Kurobuta Pork Katsu ($14.90) was basically just two pieces of fried pork loin. Our choice of sides were onion rings and fries. The pork was very good – tender and non-porky in flavour. Together with the side items, it was the ideal type of food to go with a cold beer.

Our next dish was not so memorable in terms of taste. But is certainly one to consider if you are very hungry. The Wagyu Beef Bolognaise ($14.90) was a huge serving of pasta with a large blob of minced beef bolognaise sauce on top. The taste was average, but we remember it because it was too much for one person. If you have to feed a hungry teenager, this is the dish for him.

The steak dish that we had that day was the ribeye steak ($44.98 for a standard 220g serving). It was a decent steak but the taste was not exceptional. We think that we will just order the non-steak items on future visit, or try the more unusual cuts of beef.