Another Round At Teppei

Another year, another dinner for the birthday boy who's a huge fan of the eatery. Teppei stood empty for 15 minutes as they turned around the eatery for the second seating and awaited all of us to fill up its seats. It's a great venue for meals with a large group, provided you can arm-twist your way into a reservation. I don't frequent Teppei largely due to its insane queues, and partly because of its poor ventilation, not to mention the heat and stale smell of oil that lingers in the clothes and hair. Not a bad thing if I don't have anything pencilled in for the rest of the night. Had two pretty decent dinners earlier in the year.

Teppei's logistics are impressive in turning over two seatings at lunches and dinners. Aside from the food prep, part of its efficiency also lies in how fast Aunty Latha washes the dishes. The eatery's repertoire has varied slightly and kept some of its fish and seafood dishes interesting. As usual and as expected, the sashimi wasn't impressive. Teppei does its cooked dishes way better. The beauty of wagyu is lost on me. Not fond of marbled beef and its soft fats. Another part of the table swooned over it. The winner of the night for me, was the grilled hirame. It came introduced as "flatfish". I was like...what on earth is that. Stared harder and realized it was probably an olive flounder. Grilled, it couldn't be from a shitabirame which should be better as sashimi. Many love Teppei's barachirashi, but you know where my loyalties lie. I passed it over for a delicious inaniwa udon.

Its choices of sake on the menu are pretty all right. I've no idea what the rest of the humans were drinking. But on this side of the table for four of us, there was no way we could share the sake offered because it wasn't enough, and neither should we impose on the kind host for more. We bought our own 1.8-litre bottle that was merrily polished off. Burrrrp.