Ikoi Japanese Restaurant

Ikoi is my favourite japanese buffet restaurant and it has never disappointed me over the years. The lunch and dinner buffet are both priced similarly at $35++ unlike other buffet restaurants which tend to have higher prices for the dinner buffets. Remember to make your reservations in advance especially if you intend to have your buffet over the weekends. My initial plan was to have the dinner buffet on a saturday but when I called 2 weeks in advance, there were only counter seats left! So I opted to feast on the recent Hari Raya public holiday instead when I was allocated a table seat for two.

The dinner buffet is separated into two seating, one starting from 6pm to 745pm and the other from 8pm to 11pm. I chose the 6pm one and we were ushered in promptly at 6pm. The appetizer of salmon sashimi in sweet sauce and edamame were already placed on the table when we entered.

The thing that impresses me time and again is the quality of Ikoi's sashimi. For a buffet at such a reasonable price, they definitely have one of the best sashimi around. We ordered three orders of salmon sashimi and one order of ika sashimi. The sashimi were very fresh, very sweet and the cuts were good.

Throughout the buffet, we ordered our usual chawanmushi, salmon shioyaki, ebi and yasai tempura, bacon and tomato roll (which was really good! I enjoyed the crisp bacon and the juicy tomato within), agedashi tofu and many others. They were all good, some better than the others but generally still good.

Ikoi buffet has this quirky tradition of serving complimentary dishes through the meal too and I am especially fond of their complimentary dishes. The dobinmushi (teapot soup) is clear and refreshing, just the right soup to indulge in halfway through a heavy meal. The salmon head steam boat was very sweet and full of flavour with some golden mushrooms and tofu inside.

My only rant for that night was the sushi rice. The sushi chef probably mixed a little too much vinegar when preparing the sushi rice so the rice grains were slightly mushy and sour. 

The other awesome dishes made up for the lack-lustre sushi though so this was still a very hearty meal for me! I will definitely come back to Ikoi Japanese Restaurant to fix my craving for japanese buffet.

As it was a special day, we drove over and parked at the hotel's car park. The hotel's car park is pretty old school and you have to wind your window down, stretch your arm out and tap your cash card on the reader.  When we exit the car park to get to the restaurant, we found ourselves at the back end of the hotel, near the staff area. Took a while to find our way eventually to the main lobby. 

#01-01 Hotel Miramar