Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Japanese Food in a European-style Cafe: Ma Maison, Parco Millenia Walk.

Ma Maison Restaurant and Cafe sort of advertises itself as French Japanese Fusion. Which in my opinion isn't quite accurate. The layout & deco of the restaurant does have very strong European influences, but the majority of the menu is firmly entrenched in Japanese Cafe territory.


Take, for example, this Omu Rice (SGD14.80), which you can order with a choice of several different sauces. We went with the "regular" brown sauce. The Omelette was nice and fluffy (like scrambled egg), and generously layered over tomato rice with bits of chicken. Nothing fusion about this dish, it was most certainly Japanese.


Same story with the Tonkatsu Set (SGD19.50). For a jack-of-all-trades type of cafe we're pretty impressed with the crispiness of the deep fried pork loin, although it does fall a little short of the dedicated tonkatsu joints like Saboten.


No fresh sesame seeds to grind here, just a straight-up tonkatsu sauce. And a salt crystal grinder for extra taste - which we didn't need as the food's plenty tasty already.


Ginger Ale - SGD4.00. I'll never understand why we all let restaurants get away with charging four times the price of a canned drink just because it's served with a glass full of ice (yes, I'm guilty of this all the time).


Overall at slightly over SGD20 per person, Ma Maison serves up some nice solid Japanese cafe fare in a very nice & pleasing environment - perfect to take a date. Music was soothing and chosen well to suit the decorations, too ... although the standard Japanese-style shouts of "いらっしゃいませ" every time a patron walks in is a little at odds with the ambience.

Ma Maison has three outlets - Bugis Junction, The Central, and Parco @ Millenia Walk. Non-Halal.

1 comment:

  1. It'd be interesting to see what an actual Japanese-French fusion cafe might serve. Maybe ramen with duck confit slices instead of cha siu :D

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