Kinki Restaurant + Bar at Customs House puts Oita Wagyu, Himeshima tiger prawns and yellowtail on a six-dish limited menu from 15 to 31 October, with plates from S$12 to S$68 before service charge and GST. The A Taste of Oita menu is ordered a la carte, not as a set, so a table can add one dish to a regular dinner or order the lot.
Oita sits on the north-east coast of Kyushu, the prefecture behind Beppu’s hot springs and the kabosu, a sharp green citrus it grows more of than anywhere else in Japan. Both turn up in the dish names.
The six dishes and what they cost
- Jigoku Ribeye, S$68: seared Oita Wagyu with seasonal local vegetables, smoked Japanese burrata and a spicy hot sauce butter
- Kabosu Coast, S$24: yellowtail ceviche with leche de tigre, papadum chips and Secai Marche Japanese burrata
- Tiger Nashi, S$18: gyoza filled with Himeshima tiger prawns and Hita pears, with a pineapple chipotle sauce
- Shiitake Claypot, S$32: braised sweet Oita shiitake with assorted mushrooms over butter rice
- Himeshima “Hae” Mee, S$18: tiger prawns in Japanese udon, done Singapore-style
- Sweet Potato O’ Mine, S$12: a tart made with Oita sweet potato, topped with cheese mousse
Where the menu leans
Jigoku means hell, the name Beppu gives its boiling hot spring pools, and the ribeye is the one dish built to match it with a spicy butter. It is also the only one over S$35, so most of the menu sits at small-plate prices.
The two prawn dishes are the most Singaporean ideas on the card. Hae mee is a prawn noodle dish most readers will know from a hawker centre; here it swaps yellow noodles for udon and uses prawns from Himeshima, a small island off Oita’s coast. The gyoza pairs the same prawns with pears from Hita, an inland Oita city.
Burrata appears twice, in the ribeye and the ceviche, both times a Japanese-made cheese.
How it compares with the regular menu
The Oita dishes are priced close to Kinki’s everyday dinner card. The Shiitake Claypot is S$2 more than the restaurant’s Magic Mushroom Claypot at S$30, and the Kabosu Coast ceviche is S$2 less than the Hamachi Crudo, another yellowtail starter, at S$26.
The regular Ohmi Wagyu Hoba-yaki, an A4 striploin with mushrooms, is S$90 for one person, against S$68 for the Oita cut. The prawn gyoza is S$18, against S$32 for the Wagyu Foie Gras Gyoza on the main menu.
The claypot is the one meat-free-looking main, though the menu carries no vegetarian, halal or allergen labels.
Booking and getting there
Kinki takes reservations on its website. The restaurant is in Customs House on Collyer Quay, a short walk from Raffles Place MRT, with the Kinki rooftop bar upstairs. The Oita dishes are served at the restaurant from Thursday 15 October until Saturday 31 October.
