Don & Tori is a modern Japanese restaurant that sets the bar pretty high for dons, makis, and yakimono (grilled or pan-fried) items as long as you’re not a purist. It’s a serene enclave in the Central Business District that joins the heavyweights on Tras Street.
A quiet lunch crowd trickled in when they opened soon after noon into the comfortable fusion vibes of old meets new, East meets West.
Their live sushi bar will entertain you as you watch your orders being assembled and made. There’s almost something for everyone, vegetarians and non. It’s hard to say which dishes make up the highlights of this place because every one we tried were show stoppers in terms of both presentation and taste.
Start with a light bite of seafood with Scallop Butter Yaki (S$25++). Watch the chef build it up first with a mound of salt for the shell to sit on before chunks of scallop are flame seared and doused in yellow butter sake.
Its flavour is hugely decadent for something so small and you’ll want to slurp up all the sauce.
Something new on the menu is the Foie Gras Toast (S$18++) which is assembled with a small slice of bread crust slathered with foie gras spread that’s torched then topped with uni, caviar, and finished with an edible gold leaf.
Though the flavour of the bread base was overwhelming, every other component was rich with a balance of concentrated umami from the foie gras and brininess from the seafood. The buttery smooth texture with the pop of caviar was highly pleasurable to say the least.
For a filling rice bowl, the Hokkaido Don (S$26++) is a briny union of tuna mince, salmon roe, plump scallops, and caviar toppings on appetisingly marinated rice. As a whole, the overall textures of the chilled dish were almost too uniformly soft but not quite with the individual grains that were still discernible.
A must-try maki is their Unagi Foie Gras Maki (S$25++) that has a crab meat core with some crunch from cucumbers. It is topped with torched foie gras and caviar. Shoving a piece into your mouth fills you with a mix of crab meat and foie gras flavour while chewing into it combines the usual maki texture with creaminess.
74 Tras Street
Singapore 079013
Tel: +65 9811 7888
Mon to Sat: 12pm – 3pm, 6pm – 10:30pm
(Closed on Sundays)
Nearest Station: Tanjong Pagar