Kitaro Japanese Restaurant

On our Saturday lunch date, we've decided to go for Japanese, and surprise, surprise, we went to the newly improved Kitaro Japanese Restaurant.

This be the signboard and entrance of the restaurant. It is situated behind the Centrepoint Hotel in Gadong on the ground floor. This restaurant used to be called Takara and used to be very popular back then. But because of their crazy-ass prices (I think) or the competition (namely Escapade), that they started losing their customers, or maybe rumour has it that they apparently allowed people to dine in here bringing alcohol under the table that got them into trouble with the law or something, and now there is a new management in the house, thus the name change. I've been here a few times actually when it was still Takara and the food is actually not too bad, just the price was a bit unbearable.

Trigger-happy on outside decors





This be the interior of the restaurant, including the private room at the back with the pebbled pavement. Doesn't look much different than when it was Takara. Looks like a change of management doesn't mean a change of scenery. The customary "Irashaimasen~!" (Welcome) greeting called out, but it wasn't as impressive as it should be. Even Escapade was more energetic than they were. The last time I went to an authentic Japanese restaurant back in Taiwan, the waiters and waitresses will shout very energetically "Irashaimasen~!" and the open-air cooks will chorus "MASEN!!" behind, showing how enthusiastic they were. Now that was what I call a lively service!

Trigger-happy on their new soya-sauce case


New teacups. Looks like with a change of management, instead of a change of scenery, it's a change of equipment. LOL! They've got this very nice quaint little design on the cups which is simple but cute, but the teapot for the tea is one of those dripping kind, although the tea actually tastes much better than any other green tea I've tasted by far

Le proper way of drinking tea by the old-school Japanese: Using your index finger and thumb to support the top side and the bottom, then use only your hand at the bottom to push and tilt the tea to drink. LOL! I'm a sucker for aesthetics. Sue me

I took this picture because I like the design of the glass, which is so...angular! XD



This is what I ordered: Hiyoshi soba (or I THINK that's how you spell it ^^;; ). I had a craving for soba but I was bored of cha soba (green tea soba) so decided to try this one instead. It's thinner and a little clumpier because of the lack of moisture, but tastes great more or less. I always find soba intriguing that eating it alone as it is has no taste, but dip it in the cold sweet sauce (that you have to crack an almost solidified cold quail raw egg and mix it together), and it tastes great


This is what my friend ordered: Salmon teriyaki don (I think). Too bad the waitress took away the bowl cover, because it had a very beautiful interesting sakura flower design on it. The salmon itself looked rather appetizing, but I'd prefer to eat my own


My vegan friend ordered this salad, which, dunno why, kinda reminded me of the Chinese New Year lau seng that we often eat before our meals XD. But I gotta hand it to them, it's actually quite yummy, and you can literally taste the freshness in it

Pouring of le salad sauce~!


This is another one of my vegan friend's orders, which is the hiyoshi special (I think, again). Basically a little bit of every noodle that exist in the soba genre, including the ones that are udon soba. Had never really expected it to be such a large serving. The last time I ate that (minus the udon), they served it in a plate similar to mine. It was new, and also in very huge portion more or less. She couldn't finish it and I had to help her eat some

This is another one of my friend's order, though I forgot what is it, actually, but it looks almost like the ones you eat for butter milk chicken, just without the butter milk, lol! She gave all the cucumbers coz she's not exactly a fan of veggie. Meh~! Losing weight is so hard~!


Close-up of her dish

Here be our sushi order as side-dishes. The only beef we have about this place is that they do it rather slow, even for the sushi. Sushi-s are supposed to arrive first before the main course, not the other way round, but anyway, at least it's here. Apparently they don't serve them in the usual colour-coded plates, but in bulk. So we had salmon shake, tamago shake, roe in tofu skin (or something like that), butter tuna shake and nato sushi.

One thing I've learnt from eating nato: NEVER AGAIN!!! I can't understand why could the Japanese eat only nato with rice and all that jazz, but nato is probably the worst thing I've ever tasted. It's gooey and slimy, and you can literally taste the bitterness of fermented beans, and whatever they use to make the nato gooey is also stringy in nature, like melted cheese, only it's not cheese. So, I will definitely NOT eat nato ever again~! XP


My friend also ordered another side dish of cucumber sushi that was not included in the big dish, but served separately. I tried one. Not too bad. It's just weird to eat veggie sushi though when it supposed to be meant to have seafood in it


This be our dessert. Everyone ordered green tea ice cream instead of me. I ordered the red bean ice cream instead. We actually wanted to order tempura ice cream, but apparently they don't serve it during the Ramadhan month, which is...kinda weird. But at least we had ice cream anyways

So, those who are in Gadong area and are craving for sushi but don't want to wait a bloody long line in Escapade, go ahead and try Kitaro instead. It isn't too bad, considering. Despite the slightly slow service (maybe due to the workers fasting and trying to hold back eating temptation), the food is actually pretty nice.