Kyodai – Unique Japanese Butter Rice Bowls Near SMU!

Sean Ng
Sean Ng
January 29, 2018

stall front 1

A new hole-in-the-wall eatery selling Japanese rice bowls and unique gyoza sushi has sprung up on Bencoolen street. “Kyodai was inspired by our trip to Japan, where my friends and I noticed a few roadside stalls selling food,” shared co-owner Keith.

stall 3

Barely 3 months old, Kyodai has already become popular with the younger crowd. We were drawn here by the Japanese Butter bowls which diners can customise. Unfortunately, during our visit, some of the ingredients on the DIY menu such as the house-made flavoured compound butters were already sold out by 1pm. Instead of building our own bowls, we opted for their signature rice bowls which were equally tasty.

pork belly 1

The Starboy ($13) is made up of Japanese rice, a generous amount of pork belly, as well as Japanese pickles, poached eggs and shallots.

pork belly collage

Although a tad too fatty, the torched pork belly which is coated with a thin layer of sweet teriyaki sauce was pretty decent. The bowl failed to impress, which made us wish that we could have given the Japanese butter bowls a try as they seem to be the real stars of Kyodai. 

tunaboy

Sashimi lovers will love the Tuna Sashimi Bowl ($13) which comes with fresh salmon and tuna cubes covered with mentaiko sauce, and a soy sauce that is infused with yuzu. 

tunaboy 2

Unlike the heavier mentaiko sauce in other Japanese rice bowls, the mentaiko sauce here is light and refreshing. You’ll definitely be full as the portion of the sashimi is generous. 

gyocos

The specialty of the stall is Gyocos — a taco with Japanese elements. Instead of regular corn tortilla, fried Gyoza skin is folded around rice, Japanese pickles, seaweed and a meat of your choice. For $8.90, we got two palm-sized serving of gyocos filled with pork collar.

gyocos 2

The pork collar is slathered with a cloying marinade, which is fortunately balanced out by the sour notes from the pickles, as well as the neutral tasting cabbage and rice.

stall front 2

We had to wait for close to an hour before our food arrived, even though the queue was short. Seats are also pretty limited. I’ll urge students to dine in because there’s an ongoing student discount of 20%!

The rice bowls that we had were not bad, but insufficient to warrant a second visit. However, I’ll make a trip here specially for the Gyocos and  a taste of their unique Japanese butter bowls.

Kyodai

Address: 47 Bencoolen Street, Singapore 189626

Opening Hours: 11.30am to 10pm daily.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kyodaisg/

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.

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