• Normally, degustation or tasting meals would turn me away because they tend to cost a lot while offering only petite-sized portions rather than a hearty meal. Yeah, yeah, I know that’s the idea, but still… Anyway, Dozo is one restaurant that offers degustation meals at friendly prices.
Lunch (6-course): S$38.80++
Dinner (7-course): S$58.80++
The conventional degustation meal consists of multiple courses, with each course fixed by the chef. But in Dozo’s case, with the exception of the chef’s platter for starters, diners can select from a few dishes for each course. The menu is chiefly Japanese with a deep infusion of French and European influences, similar to the design of the restaurant.
The restaurant is elegantly designed with a luxurious ambience and soft lighting. In some ways, it’s almost like a club, complete with a bar area! Upon entering, you would be led through a dark corridor to the communal dining area, or the private rooms if you have a bigger party (no additional charges!).
One of the segregated private rooms is a ladies’ room with floral motifs on the walls and chairs in plum and purple.
Once you’re ready to start your six or seven-course meal, waiters would take your order for all the courses. No worries if you’re feeling lost as to which dish to pick. The waitstaff who are well-acquainted with the menu would be most eager to help.
Course: Starter
Rating:
The meal kicks off with the chef’s seasonal assorted platter. It serves three canapés on a long dish. The canapés change from time to time and in this case, it was foie gras with bread, scallop with cream sauce and greens, and smoked salmon wrapped in avocado.
The waiters informed us that there’s a specific order to eat the three which, if I remember correctly, would be the scallop first, foie gras second and salmon finally. My favourites are the scallop, which is plump and fresh and goes well with the light miso cream sauce, and the salmon, which comes with a little tuft of cream with a sweetness that complements the fish nicely.
Side dishes follow next, for which I had the tempura soft shell crab and my partner had the steamed egg custard.
Course: Side dish
Rating:
The soft shell crab was deep-fried to a light, perfect crispness. Eat it alone or dip it into the delicious dark sauce of a sweet, sour and spicy combination. I didn’t exactly care for the accompanying mash and other tempura and only focused on enjoying the crispy crab bit by bit.
Course: Side dish
Rating:
The egg custard with scallop and foie gras was really nothing to shout about. The plating was excellent though, a testament of the importance that the restaurant pays to aesthetics and presentation of food. I always appreciate such attention to detail, and thought the little yellow chrysanthemum flower too pretty to be thrown away.
Course: Soup
Rating:
For soup, the seafood bisque is clearly a winner, and easily the best seafood bisque I’ve ever had. It has the most robust flavours of the ocean, with bits of seafood in it such as crab meat and scallop. I finished every last bit of it.
Notice the little chrysanthemum flower and real crab claw by the side? Whether it’s the taste or the presentation, this dish is just perfect. I simply can’t find any fault with it. With each slurp, I just want more!
Course: Soup
Rating:
While enjoying the wholesome seafood bisque, I felt guilty that my partner had to go for the cepes mushroom cream soup. A little slice of truffle is served on a spoon by the side with a brilliant purple orchid. The layout looked beautiful, but the soup itself was pretty much forgettable.
Course: Main
Rating:
The restaurant is particularly proud of its beef tenderloin main course. I can see why. It certainly has that wow factor. Slabs of raw beef are served over a sizzling hot granite stone. The idea is that you can decide how well-done you want your meat.
Notice that the meat is laid out on a “pu ye” leaf to prevent overcooking. The aroma of the leaf also seeps into the meat. It comes with a tasty dark sauce dip and pebbles by the side as decor. The whole shebang.
This leaf-shaped thingy in light yellow comes with each main course. I missed out the part where the waiter explained what it was as I was busy digging into my food. Does anyone have an idea?
Course: Main
Rating:
Yet another winner is the king prawn with risotto. The prawn is baked in au gratin style with browned breadcrumbs and butter, giving it a nice crunch.
I really loved the fragrant and fresh prawn, with its loads of precious sweet flesh.
Even though the food portions are designed to be small and go easy on the stomach, I was surprised to find that at this point, I was already feeling full. It was just as well anyway; there’s only a drink and a dessert to go!
Course: Drink
Rating:
Iced fruity drinks are served in cute glass teapots and dainty cups. The grapefruit drink is a strong citrus drink that’s great for digestion, despite tasting a little weird. Then we looked into the pot and saw these:
Pretty little flowers! I’m not a tea drinker. Are those tea flowers or something? It was a little unexpected to see them floating around in a fruity drink.
Course: Drink
Rating:
The iced fruity refresher fares much better. It’s an assorted blend of honey and various fruits such as lime, peach and apple. In fact, chunks of fruit can still be seen in the drink. It was refreshing all right.
Course: Dessert
Rating:
Desserts are served last. The red bean mochi ice cream is wonderfully arranged and practically art on a plate. It has a wonderful texture and tastes good and delightful with a slice of strawberry on top. Certainly something that girls would enjoy.
Course: Dessert
Rating:
But my all-time favourite dessert has to be the warm chocolate cake with the gooey molten chocolate centre. It’s been god-knows-how-long since I last had this dessert (I’ve been keeping myself from all the calories). But once it’s presented to me on the menu, I just can’t resist!
The cake is freshly baked and warm throughout. It warms my heart just to eat it! This particular one even comes with white chocolate melted and hardened onto the plate. So you can scrape it off with a spoon and eat it with the vanilla ice cream and chocolate. Marvelous combo!
Well, I was almost sad to see the meal come to an end. It had been extremely satisfying and I felt as though I had tasted and loved every flavour of the dishes. Plus, the ambience and service were both excellent. If the menu changes frequently enough, I wouldn’t rule out returning for another degustation meal!
Valley Point Shopping Centre
491 River Valley Road #02-02/03
Singapore 248371
Tel: +65 6838 6966 | Website
Service:
Bus services: 14, 32, 65, 139, 970
Nearest MRT: Tiong Bahru
Jul 22, 2008
13
Wha, you ordered so much food!
Jul 22, 2008
3472
It’s a 7-course degustation menu so ordering so much food is kinda mandatory. Besides, all the food are in petite portions!
Jul 22, 2008
182
Thank you for this post. I didn’t know such a place exist, and the prices are fairly alright considering the kind of food that is served. The Warm Chocolate Cake looks awfully tempting.
Jul 22, 2008
3472
I know of a number of restaurants that offer degustation menus in the region of 50-60 dollars, but offer just 4 courses. Over here, you get 7 courses that are each beautifully presented and tastes great! So yeah, the prices are very reasonable, especially the lunch menu!
Jul 23, 2008
10
i didn’t know of dozo previously also, the 6 course at 38++ do seem quite reasonable, will try it soon : )
Jul 24, 2008
15
hmm.. can I pay $38 for 6 courses and bring 1 friend to join me?
Anyway, I always love hot chocolate cake top with vanilla ice cream….. yum!
Jul 24, 2008
3472
I’m not sure if they would allow two people to share a degustation menu. You should call them up and find out! Anyway, each food portion is already pretty small. Do you really wanna split that with someone? :P
Jul 25, 2008
13
@Veron: I see, Thank you, I shall give it a try!
Jul 26, 2008
50
Good Morning Veron !!
Another good piece, good pics…but somehow the pics make the portion seems huge, are you sure the servings is small ??
Were you able to finish the food and still able to walk straight ?? :P
Another thing, the tasting sequence for “…scallop first, foie gras second and salmon…”
This seems like a weird sequence, usually you start with a lighter taste to a “heavier” taste in food tasting….unless the salmon is those “heavy” “smoked” type ???? If not, its hard to imagine salmon being a later choice than foie gras…..
I read this blog at the right time as its time for my lunch !!
Hungry !
:)
Jul 26, 2008
3472
Morning!
Haha yeah, except for the main courses, the portions are small. Let’s just say that they are designed to make you finish all of them easily, though they aren’t exactly minuscule either.
My partner and I shared the food on our plates. So if you bring a few people along, with each one ordering different dishes for all the courses, you can practically taste their entire menu at one sitting! I’m pretty sure that’s not the idea though. lol!
I may have mixed up the order of the salmon and scallop. But the foie gras was definitely second. Because I remember my “like”, “don’t like”, “like” verdict when trying out the three canapés. Haha!
Jan 20, 2009
2
Hi Veron! I chanced upon your website on google while looking for food reviews. The “leaf-shaped thingy in light yellow” are actually something like noodles! They’re quite yummy and it’s a waste that you didn’t try it. Didn’t they give you some strands right at the beginning to taste? They look kind of like spaghetti. :)
Jan 21, 2009
3472
Oh I did try to eat some but it didn’t seem to have much of a taste. I thought it was just garnish!