Benihana Singapore : New Teppanyaki Restaurant at Millenia Walk

Benihana Singapore is the American restaurant chain’s latest outlet. This new teppanyaki restaurant is drawing in the crowds with reasonable priced teppanyaki and spectacular fireworks at Millenia Walk shopping mall.

New Teppanyaki Restaurant at Millenia Walk

The new Benihana outlet is located on the ground floor of Millenia Walk. It is in the part of the mall near Meidi-ya and Harvey Norman.

The new teppanyaki restaurant has a stylish decor with a dark atmosphere. But there are sufficient spot lights to allow us to read the menu and see the food. We thought that it was nicely executed. Some dark restaurants can be moody and make you sleepy. Not this one. The beaty lounge music (usually not our favourite genre) in the background was surprisingly pleasing.

Benihana Singapore Menu

Here are pictures of the Benihana Singapore menu. The menu can be broadly considered in two parts – the Kaiseki Courses and the Others. The teppanyaki counter only serves the Kaiseki courses. Those wishing to get the personal service of the teppanyaki chef and to enjoy the display of juggling spatulas and flaming pans will have to select one of these three courses, starting from $68++.

The rest of the menu contains the executive lunch courses and a la carte selections. These can be enjoyed at the regular dining tables. They are mostly prepared by the chefs in attendance in the back kitchen. The teppanyaki executive lunch comes with salad, miso soup and garlic fried rice. Costing around $25++, they seem like good value for money.

Kaiseki Course at Benihana Singapore, Millenia Walk

Since we were keen to watch the theatrics of the teppanyaki chefs, we opted for the kaiseki courses. We chose the $68 Aka course and the $88 Kiiro course. The Aka course has one meat option – chicken or salmon (we chose salmon) while the Kiiro course offers two choices of meat – prawn or scallop and beef or lamb. We selected scallop and beef.

Starters

Each kaiseki course comes with 3 starters. The first was a tomato which seems to be infused with a sourish liquid. It reminded us of a local sour snack – ‘sng buay’. It certainly wakes you up but is not our favourite way to start a meal.

Next was a warm starter. A good sized piece of tofu topped with some dried fish and slivers of asparagus. This was quite good.

The third starter was the Beni egg roll. This egg roll was expertly made fresh on the teppanyaki grill. Essentially crab sticks rolled in egg. But for us, anything with freshly fried egg is good.

Salmon, Scallops and AUS M6 Tenderloin Steak

The fresh produce that was to be prepared for our meal were shown on display before the chef started work on them. Our chef was friendly and chatty. He asked how we liked our meat done, whether we are sharing etc. We were made to feel at ease quite quickly.

I am afraid I don’t have nice pictures of the cooked food to show you. The seafood and meat were cut and served on the plates in front of us. The scallops were big and juicy. They were nicely seared outside and still moist inside.

For the salmon, there was a choice of simply salt and pepper or teriyaki sauce. We asked to try both and so it was done that way – half and half. The teriyaki style was better.

The piece of beef was not very big and by the time it was cooked, even smaller. Since we were sharing, this is a picture of my portion. Taste and texture of the beef was good. Garlic chips made the beef taste even better.

Vegetable Volcano

A pile of onion rings was set on fire, creating a vegetable volcano. This signalled the start of the vegetable course.

Those into healthy eating will be pleased with the quantity of vegetables that were served at Benihana Singapore.

The assortment of vegetables (mostly cabbage) was crunchy and nicely seasoned. They also go well with the fried rice.

Benihana Singapore Onion Soup

Normally the soup is just another item to accompany the rice at the end of a teppanyaki meal. At Benihana Singapore, the Beni onion soup was an elaborate affair. A flaming show was done to heat up the iron kettle containing the soup.

An onion was earlier cooked and cut to fit into the bowl into which the soup was poured into. The soup was light but complex. Not quite as nice as the teapot soup at Japanese restaurants, but close.

Garlic Fried Rice

We always look forward to the garlic fried rice at the end of teppanyaki meals. Somehow they seem to taste different from rice fried in a wok. This one was not very garlicky, but adequate.

Dessert and The End

Dessert at Benihana Singapore was a pudding with a ‘biscuit’ on top. A lot of effort was put into preparing the ‘biscuit’ which was made by pressing a slice of bread into a thin slab. Syrup and sugar was then added before grilling it into a golden brown biscuit. Made with milk from Hokkaido, the pudding was our final dish for lunch.

Ratings:
Food: 3
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

Benihana Restaurant
#01-41 Millenia Walk
9 Raffles Boulevard
Singapore 039596

Tel: +65 6263-9154

Opening Hours: 11.30 am to 3 pm, 6 pm to 10 pm

Nearby MRT Station: Promenade

Benihana SG Instagram

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The Ordinary Patrons | Real Dining Experience of Ordinary People
an independent Singapore food blog