Hashida Private Dining (2020)

Hashida Private Dining is a temporary popup by Chef Kenjiro “Hatch” Hashida, branching from Hashida Sushi. Hashida Private Dining is at OUE Social Kitchen, and is a temporary setup until he opens his relocated restaurant at the end of the year Chef Hatch has an excellent reputation in the real of Japanese cuisine, particularly Omakase.

Liner, Dennis and I wanted to experience this lauded Omakase. We were seated in a central area with an open kitchen (literally, like some rich person’s kitchen with a long dining table).

First course - Tempura

Tempura on a spoon! We were served a spoon each with potato ball topped with mackerel on the spoon head, followed by a tempura stick at the handle end of each spoon. Liner and Dennis had mushroom tempura and yam tempura. Mine was fish tempura and yam tempura - Chef considered mushrooms a vegetable. That’s alright, I didn’t wanna make it more complicated (it’s troublesome enough to consciously avoid putting vegetables, wasabi and garnishes on my food).

The tempura were great - just the right amount of crispiness and proportion of batter to mushroom/fish/yam and it wasn’t too oily. The potato ball with mackerel was a mouthful of soft and yummy goodness.

Second course - Chawanmushi

Dennis and Liner got chestnut chawanmushi. Water chestnut inside and a layer of chestnut sauce on top. Mine was sea bream chawanmushi - sea bream inside. All the chawanmushi were topped with freshly grated truffle!

The chawanmushi was glorious. It was lighter, softer and smoother than typical chawanmushi that’s commonly available.

Third course - Saba sushi

We were served mackerel sushi (not even your typical nigiri style) with mackerel soup, and a sheet of seaweed. They use the entire mackerel this way - the meat for the sushi and all the rest for the soup. The unique part about their saba sushi is that instead of using vinegar for the mackerel, they use their own special soy sauce. Prior to serving, they use actual charcoal to char the surface of the mackerel. They also squeezed some lime over Dennis & Liner’s.

The soup was good like a fish broth. We wrapped the sushi in the seaweed (like a hot dog) to eat. It was incredible. Personally, I felt like I had been transported to a different place in time and space. It was frikkin’ amazing. As someone who’s not a fan of sour flavours, I relished the use of soy instead. I think what really tipped it over was the charcoal. The charcoal provided the fish with a unique and deliciously umami flavour. Liner was not a fan of the smokey charcoalling as he found it tasted ashen and bitter. For me, though, it was truly the best dish I’d had in a while.

Fourth course - Sashimi

Sashimi time! Toro and Hirame (flounder). The difference in appearance between Dennis & Liner’s and mine was hilarious. Anyway, the sashimi was just clearly good product. It was fresh with a perfect mouth feel. The flower on Dennis and Liner’s dishes was a shiso flower, and they scraped the petals into their soy sauce - apparently a great idea.

Fifth course - Beef

Unexpected! For me, at least. This was a bowl of semi-raw beef with ponzu. Their ponzu was a mix of soy sauce ponzu and white soy sauce ponzu. The beef was cooked on some sides and seemingly practically raw on some others, which I felt was an interesting way of doing things (it was very clearly intentional). Mixed it up and tucked in, with pleasure. I loved how the light jellyness and sourness of the ponzu contrasted with the texture and saltiness of the beef. I definitely enjoyed this dish (I’m not even usually a fan of ponzu).

Sixth course - Molluscs

Dennis and mine comprised steamed sea urchin buried under abalone and cuttlefish, with cashew sauce & powder and Russian caviar. Liner’s anti-mollusc agenda got him a nice chunk of otoro with caviar. They’d initially given all of us the same, but they realised and switched Liner’s once they noticed him donating abalone to Dennis.

I’m not a fan of cuttlefish but all of the ingredients just went really well together. We were meant to eat them together which wasn’t the easiest (have you tried slicing cuttlefish with a thick spoon?) but it was good overall. This probably wasn’t one of my favourites but it was well executed and the sauce was nice.

Seventh course - Sushi

Maguro marinated with special soy sauce; botan ebi (probably the largest I’ve seen); yellow jack; golden eye snapper (I swear this was charcoaled), otoro.

The sushi was served without soy sauce because brushed it on before serving. It was quite the perfect balance of rice to fish to soy. Liner and Dennis also commended aspects such as the rice flavour and packing. Each of the nigiri were truly delicious.

Eighth course - Uni ikura rice

I will always be down for this. It was the usual rice + uni + ikura. I did notice that the ikura seemed to have been marinated differently. Like, less salt and sugar. This was probably so as to not overpower the uni flavour. I prefer my ikura salty, though. Other than that, it was pretty standard.

BONUS course - Saba sushi v.2

We were asked if we had eaten enough so far and if there was anything else we might need. Dennis took the chance to ask if he could have one more saba sushi. I immediately jumped on this boat and wanted one, too. They had exactly 2 left! How serendipitous. They handed each to us already wrapped in seaweed. It wasn’t as good as the first round for me cos I think the 2 they had left already had lime. But it was still hella delicious.

Ninth course - Miso soup

Fish miso soup. We were also given a bowl of folded up paper containing a powder. We were supposed to have a first sip of soup and proceed to mix the powder into the soup and finish up. We had speculations as to what this powder was, then it was explained to us that they used the prawn head, tail, shell and pounded it up into a powder. The miso soup was initially a little mild, but the powder added a punch of salt. It was a wild ride, actually. Fun, but wild.

Tenth course - Dessert

A ball of sweetened potato with mochi inside (I swear one side of this ball was charcoaled… no confirmation of this though), Japanese steamed pancake, cheese sauce (the white stuff), and black current jelly.

The sweetened potato with mochi was a bit weird but also very nice. I liked the mochi in the middle and that smokey ‘charcoaled’ taste. The pancake was apparently a usual Japanese sweet pancake but it was new to me. It had a lotus paste type of taste. The cheese sauce was very subtle. The black current was a jelly but not really? Like a stiff jam. For me it was like a punch of sour at first which (very) slowly died down as I chewed on and had subsequent bites. It wasn’t as shocking for Dennis and Liner, though.

The total bill came up to over $1,140 inclusive of 2 bottles of Sake. The Omakase itself was $300 each.

It was a fabulous experience with incredible food. The vibe with the staff was very friendly, as if they’re family and as if they’d known you for years. I would like to revisit as often as is practicable.

Food: 5/5

Ambiance: 4/5

Price: 300 a head without drinks

Service: 5/5

My experience: 4.8/5