SAKEMARU will introduce restaurants offers beautiful foods and sake marriage.
Gyoza bar
Gyoza bar discreetly locates at the back street of lively boat quay area. Stepping up a narrow stairs of a shophouse leads you to dark grey door. Once you open the door, there is a space with good taste lounge music and gentle lighting appears.
Often local loves Japanese culture ask me are there any bar look like the one in Haruki Murakami’s novel. Indeed, there aren’t many bar like that in Singapore. Whereas this bar reminds me of a relaxing hideout in middle of Tokyo. What you hear inside the bar is well cultured. Recommended use for the bar is dating, casual meeting, and gathering with friends as such.
One of the owner, Kenichi Ikebata said, trigger for starting up this bar was occasional tastings of wine and champagne with gyoza at Ramen restaurant “Matsuri” just below the bar. Then they decided opening the bar above the Matsuri with completely different concept.
Even though the bar and the Matsuri share a same kitchen, recipe for the gyoza is different. All the gyoza at the bar is handmade and not frozen. In order to serve them at the best condition, serving time may be long but the atmosphere of the bar let you enjoy the conversation so the duration does not matter so much. The Ingredient made to suit with champagne and wine with pork and celery, Instead of using garlic, leak and cabbage. There is also a secret ingredient miso that suit with sake and make the taste more mild. To enhance its taste, there are lime and salt from Okinawa served on a plate. There is little to choose between salt and lime. Mineral in salt goes well with meat, and lime suits well with celery. Also boiled gyoza goes well with chilli oil.
It is recommended to choose sparkling wine to start your drink with, and the second glass shall be wine, sake or even whiskey. When I made my first visit there, I was doubtful if the gyoza goes well with wine. But the combination of organic south Loire wine selected by sommelier and gyoza made convincing mixture of sourness and gentle taste of the gyoza. There is also selection of sake, mostly from Niigata with dry, sweet and fruity taste as regular bottles. There is a good expectation for the future development of the sake selection as well.
This time I enjoy the most with Manotsuru dry ginjo with gyoza. Taste and aroma of the sake is rather bland, but this fits well with the mild taste of gyoza. Oppositely boiled gyoza goes well with richer taste sake, Kiminoi Junmai For sake only, my favourite selection was Amaneko by Aramasa has unique sweet and sour taste like plum. I also had a good impression from Mt.Fuji shaped handmade Edo kiriko sake cup with smooth lip. Apart from the gyoza there are more food to choose including Taiwanese Mazesoba from “matsuri” below to enjoy other possible pairing with drinks.
GYOZA Bar
7A North Canal Road 2 floor Singapore 048820
8319-0875
Operating Hours
18:00-23:30(LO23:00)