Igokochi Dining Bar NEWest Mall, West Coast Drive

Igokochi Dining Bar is an attractive Japanese restaurant in the suburban NEWest Mall in the West Coast of Singapore. The decor is tastefully done and the menu is extensive. The meal options range from a $138 omakase dinner to a $9.90 lunch special. We are ordinary patrons, so you know which end of the spectrum we ended up with on a recent visit!

The NEWest Mall

NEWest Mall is a clever name for the new mall that opened in the West side of Singapore. It is not so new anymore, having opened in 2017. I believe the previous development that stood here was the Hong Leong Gardens Shopping Centre. It got “en-bloc-ed” and the new NEWest Mall is a mixed development with residential condominium units on the upper floors and shops / restaurants on the ground floor. Igokochi Dining Bar enjoys a good location in the mall. It is the first unit we saw as we emerged from the basement carpark lift. With a long glass frontage facing outwards it receives quite a bit of natural light. There appears to be a shuttle service connecting the NEWest Mall with Clementi MRT Station. Here is a picture of the NEWest shuttle bus service schedule.

NEWest Mall Shuttle Bus Schedule — NEWest Mall with Clementi MRT Station Shuttle Bus Timing (Sep 2019)

Igokochi Dining Areas

Igokochi Dining Bar has two personalities. The bar area and the outdoor area exudes an izakaya, Japanese pub atmosphere. The inner dining area has an elegant restaurant atmosphere.

Igokochi Dining Bar Menu

The Igokochi Dining Bar menu is extensive. Here are just some pictures of sample pages from the menu to show the range of items available.

It is the only place we know that greets diners with a personalised wet towel. They even have our reservation name written on it. A cute and nice touch!

The Food

We decided to try two items from the September lunch special menu – Ebi Tempura Soba and Sake Teriyaki Don ($9.90++ each) and a grilled scallops dish from the Chef’s Special menu. A pleasant salad was served at the start of our meal.

The tempura soba was accompanied by a chawan mushi which was creamy and smooth. It was a good bowl of tempura soba with two large prawns.

The teriyaki salmon on rice was accompanied by a bowl of clear soup. The portion of salmon was generous and we liked the teriyaki sauce. The overall taste was very good. Of the two lunch specials, this was a more substantial meal.

We decided to try something else from the Igokochi Dining Bar and selected the grilled scallops with spicy cod roe ($13). The scallops were small in size. The scallops’ natural flavours were overpowered by the spicy cod roe sauce. It was not really spicy but still had a robust taste. We would have preferred a milder sauce to allow the scallops to be tasted.