Now that the Chinese New Year is over, I started to crave seafood — raw, grilled or both. I just wanted sushi and sashimi. And honestly, I crave sushi all the time regardless of whatever reason.
Initially I was supposed to take them to one of my favorite traditional sushi restaurants: Tomi Sushi in San Jose, CA. “Traditional” means straight-up, fuss-free, no-fancy-dragon-roll and other jazzed up maki, and pretty much a scant menu offering fresh chunks of sashimi, sushi, a small selection of tempura and grilled fish. In Japan, restaurants are concentrated, and typically serve only one classification of dish i.e. ramen only, sushi only, etc.
So I found something new, one with an expansive menu, nothing too fancy but not too shabby either: Rakuzen. They serve thick, succulent slabs of sashimi and have both the traditional sushi offerings along with the more Westernized interpretations. Not to mention, their website said that they fly in their fish live into Singapore AND they mill their own rice grains. I wonder how many places can make that claim? 
The agreed menu for the three of us is just to order a lot of rolls, several helping of fresh cuts of fish and a grilled squid. To honor last night’s dinner and the discovery of good food, I posted a photo, this thing of beauty: dreamy rolls of negitoro maki — minced fatty tuna belly rolled with scallions.
Yum yum.
Cherie Altea Bitanga finds herself constantly making food, talking about food and around people who know food. Her daily adventures go beyond her own kitchen in Singapore, spanning from the nondescript holes-in-the-wall to sumptuous dining adventures. She believes in the art of slow food and scours places in hopes of bringing home unique spices, salts and oils. She is also the occasional artist and food writer who learned how to cook early in life by inheriting culinary family traditions from her motherland: the Philippines.
For over a decade, this blogger’s career as an ESL instructor provided a multicultural atmosphere working with diplomats, celebrities, nuns, priests, politicians as well as high school and college students from all over the world. When she grows up, she hopes to cook for a living to celebrate her family’s culinary legacy.
