Man Man Japanese Unagi Restaurant is an Unagi resturant (lol) by chef Teppei Yamashita of Teppei (lol). I'm quite amused by my first sentence lol. Anyway, I set off early and spent at least 10min trying to locate the elusive 1 Keong Saik Road. Finally, I arrived at 5.50pm and was 3rd in the queue.
I knew the queue for Man Man can get really long so my plan was to arrive before the resturant opens for dinner (6pm) so that when ML arrives after work, we can go straight in.
Come 6pm, the first tables were seated and I could only peer through the doors because the full group must be present to enter. There must have been mass eel killing going on because there were loud sounds coming out from the restaurant. I was glad to be outside.
When ML and I entered, we were seated at the counter and smoky grilling was going on full strength.
I got the Hitsumabushi ($26.80) and ML the Una Don Medium size ($25.80). I also got the Umaki (eel wrapped with egg) for $12.80.
While waiting for the food, I flipped through the menu which informed that the eels came from Mikawa Isshiki, an area in Japan famous for top quality eels. I also found out that the restaurant's Unagi supervisor has 20 years of direct relevant experience (lol). These messages tell me that the food will taste as good as if I was in Japan, and I was looking forward to it. The food arrived really fast!
This egg with unagi Umaki was just alright and not really worth $12 in my opinion. When our dons arrived, I couldn't stop taking pictures.
 |
| Una Don (M) |
 |
| Hitsumabushi |
Zooooom up.
Looks so nice!!!! The unagi was reallly reeeeaaaalllyyy good. So soft, totally no fishy taste. Very fresh, which is kind of stating the obvious. The charcoal-grilled taste was superb and unagi sauce wonderfully savory..
I ordered the hitsumabushi which is like an enhanced Unagi Don. The unagi is served on rice in a bowl and other toppings and condiments are provided, in this case, spring onions, dried seaweed and wasabi bg (before grating) Lololol. A little pot of dashi, soup, pickled veggies and a small rice bowl completes the setting.
Hitsumabushi is my kind of thing because it offers variety. It's like yong tau fu, where you can eat it in different ways: dry, soup, fried etc, but I digress.
Basically, you first scoop out a portion of unagi and rice into the rice bowl and eat it on its own. (Yum!) Then for the second helping, mix in half of the condiments and try it like that. I thoroughly enjoyed this version with freshly grated wasabi, seaweed and spring onions, loved the slight tanginess of the wasabi!
For the third helping, add condiments and the dashi to create an ochazuke, rice porridge.
The combination of the rice, condiments and dashi was superb!! The unagi sauce and the dashi, i tell youuu... Last warning lobhhh!
I will definitely look forward to Unagi at Man Man whenever, minus the queue.
Man Man Japanese Unagi Restaurant
1 Kong Siak Road
#01-01 (S) 089109
Hours:
Mon to Sat: 11.30am to 3pm, 6pm to 10.30pm
Sun and PH: Closed
