Tamago-EN Plaza Singapura Review

I knew about Tamago-EN opening in Singapore during Phrase 1, just after the end of Circuit Breaker that Singapore imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the community. The branch at Plaza Singapura was still in renovation then and had a big enticing picture of their Ultimate Egg Rice. In Japan, it is known as TKG for Tamago kake gohan – raw egg over rice. I was looking forward to Tamago-EN’s opening.

Fast forward a few months, I almost forgot about Tamago-EN until a friend posted his family Tamago-EN’s dinner. I decided to bring my niece and nephew together with my Mum to Tamago-EN as we all liked Japanese eggs and my nephew is a big fan of eggs.

 

Tamago-EN’s Decor

Everything was eggy. What do you expect from a restaurant that’s promoting Okinawan Eggs?! There’s egg tables and egg yolk chairs, egg lights and egg mirror.

I normally don’t edit my photos in any way except for cropping and resizing. However, I had to adjust and filter the Tamago-EN food photos as the Egg lights were making everything orangy. Otherwise no one could tell how the food actually look like and how orange in colour the egg yolks were.

 

Tamago-EN Menu

As we went for lunch, we were given Tamago-EN’s Special Lunch Deals Menu, the Dessert of the Month menu as well as Tamago-EN full menu.

From the Special Lunch Deals Menu, we chose:

1. Chicken Stewed Omelette Rice with free Soup of the Day
2. Mentaiko Salmon Cream Rice with Omelette with free Soup of the Day
3. Oyakodon with free Miso Soup

From Tamago-EN’s full menu, we chose:

1. Ultimate Egg Rice with additional Negitoro (minced raw tuna) topping
2. 5-kind Japanese Omelette Skewer
3. Hashimaki with Cheese & Mentaiko x 2
4. Chicken Nanban with Homemade Egg Mayonnaise
5. Japanese Egg Potato Salad
6. Chocolate Pearl Milk Tea

We also chose the Crème Brûlée Soufflé Pancake from the Dessert of the Month menu. A total of 11 items for the 4 of us.

For Special Daily Lunch Menu, customers could add on S$3.50 for salad, ice lemon tea and dessert of the day.  Quite a good deal especially if you’re dining alone or in twos.

 

Our Lunch listed in the order of appearance

Ultimate Egg Rice (S$5.80) with additional Negitoro Topping (S$3.00)

Tamago-EN served their Ultimate Egg Rice in the latest trend of whipping the egg white into a fluffy foam. As I had ordered the Negitoro (minced raw tuna) topping, it was placed on top of the egg white foam and the orangy Okinawa egg yolk placed right in middle.

The Ultimate Egg Rice came with the special soya sauce and Furukake (Japanese rice seasoning/sprinkles). I drizzled some of the special soya sauce and furukake over the Ultimate Egg Rice. Don’t put all in as it would be too salty. I gave the other half of the furukake to my nephew for his Oyako Don.

The foamy egg white gave the rice a bit of a fluff, making it quite light while the creamy egg yolk gave the rice a rich taste. The Negitoro, special soya sauce and furukake added on flavours to make it a tasty dish. I suggest that you don’t mix everything up when you eat Tamago-EN’s Ultimate Egg Rice but to scoop a bit of everything in 1 spoon. That way you would be able to taste and enjoy the individual ingredient together and separately too.

 

Japanese Egg Potato Salad (S$6.80) and Chicken Nanban with Homemade Egg Mayonnaise (S$8.80)

Both my nephew and niece liked the Japanese Egg Potato Salad and the soft centre boiled eggs. The Egg Potato Salad was quite creamy and the potato chips added a crunch to it.

The Chicken Nanban was crunchy outside and moist inside, but it had too little Balsamic sauce. If you compared my photo with the photo on Tamago-EN’s menu, you would wonder why mine didn’t have any Balsamic sauce. If you look carefully at my photo, you might spot a thin streak of Balsamic sauce, definitely not enough to add much flavour to the Chicken Nanban. We had to use the lemon slice to add on the missing sourness that the Balsamic sauce and a good Japanese style Tartare sauce would have added. Tamago-EN’s Egg Mayonnaise was a little too eggy and missing the tanginess.

The salads that came with both dishes were tasty and refreshing. The dressing tasted a little like Ranch or Cesar dressing. My niece, Mum and I quite enjoyed it.

I’m not trying to brag, but I think I make a better Japanese Potato Salad and the Japanese style Tartare sauce (Egg Mayonnaise). My nephew asked me to make him my Japanese style Tartare sauce after tasting Tamago-EN’s Egg Mayonnaise.

 

Tamago-EN Oyako Don (Chicken & Egg) Lunch Set with free Miso Soup (S$12.80)

My nephew ordered Tamago-EN Oyako Don and he said it tasted like normal Oyako Don but the eggs added a richness to it. For the first time, my nephew wished that the portion was smaller! Nevertheless, he finished up everything including the daikon pickles. I guess it must be quite delicious, I might try this dish on my next visit.

 

Chocolate Milk Pearl Tea (S$5.80)

My nephew also ordered the Chocolate Milk Pearl Tea. I had a sip of it and didn’t think it was anything special, but I guess anything with chocolate milk and pearls would appeal to kids.

This was the only drink we’d ordered. I was contemplating ordering the Original Tamago-EN Milk Shake but decided against it as we had ordered so many egg dishes already.

 

Hashimaki with Cheese & Mentaiko (S$4.80/piece)

The Hashimaki with Cheese & Mentaiko was like a pancake with cheese and mentaiko on the inside, topped with bonito flakes, mayonnaise and Okonomiyaki sauce and a sunny side up egg. Best to eat it hot as the cheese would still be melty. My niece liked the Okonomikyaki sauce as it was sweet and savoury. I had the sunny side up and tried to dip some of the Hashimaki into the rich and creamy yolk. We didn’t try to hold the Hashimaki up with the chopstick that it was served on. If we did, we would likely have falling egg and dripping yolk all over the place.

 

5-kind Japanese Omelette Skewer (S$8.80)

The 5-kind of Japanese Omelette Skewer came topped with the following: Tomato and Tomato sauce / Seaweed paste / Salmon flake & Ikura / Cod roe & mayo / Crab meat.

Mum, being the nice mother and grandmother that she is, chose the Seaweed paste as she knew her grandchildren would like to have the others. Mum thought the Seaweed paste was delicious and went very well with the Omelette (Tamagoyaki – Japanese Egg Roll). She could taste the dashi in the Tamagoyaki.

My nephew chose the Cod roe & mayo and ate it up quickly as he really loves Tamagoyaki. I knew he was eyeing another one but he didn’t like tomato, so I ate up the tomato and he happily ate up the Tamagoyaki with the tomato sauce. My niece went for her fav – Salmon flake & Ikura (Salmon eggs). I’m quite sure she enjoyed it very much too. I chose the Crab meat topping. The Tamagoyaki was quite juicy with the dashi and I quite enjoyed it too.

 

Chicken Stewed Omelette Rice with free Soup of the Day (S$13.80)

Mum’s order came next and she was surprised by the size of the plate (about 12inches/30cm wide) and portion. Mum said it was one of the few times when the actual dish was bigger than the photo. According to the menu, it’s also known as Demi-glaced chicken stew on tornado omelette rice. If you look at the photo, the tornado omelette is referring to the whirling pattern that’s created on the omelette.

There were 5 big pieces of chicken and 3 pieces of broccoli. Mum enjoyed the chicken stew and omelette rice. The portion was too much for her, my nephew and I helped to eat some.

 

Mentaiko Salmon Cream Rice with Omelette with free Soup of the Day (S$15.80)

My niece’s order took the longest to be served. Luckily we had the other appetisers to fill up the time waiting for her lunch. The Mentaiko Salmon Cream Rice also came with tornado Omelette. I understood from my Mum and niece that it was plain rice underneath the tornado omelette.

From the clean plate that was left behind, I knew my niece and my nephew really enjoyed this dish. Yes, my nephew was pinching off his sister’s lunch too! I tried a bit of the cream sauce, it was delicious and seasoned just right.

 

The Free Soups with Lunch Set

Sorry, forgot to take photos of the soups as they didn’t serve them at the same time with the mains. We had to remind them twice to serve the soups.

My nephew liked the Miso Soup as he had asked my Mum for some of her rice to mix with the Miso Soup and finished it all. For the Omelette rice dishes, Tamago-EN served a red Borsh-like soup with a strong tomato base, very appetising and but some might find it a bit too sour. I thought the sourness was good to cut through the richness of the Okinawa egg dishes.

 

Crème Brûlée Soufflé Pancake (Offer price S$9.80, usual price S$12.80)

The Crème Brûlée Soufflé Pancake was very light and fluffy and melted in our mouth. The egg yolk flavour was quite strong and the strawberry sauce helped to cut down the richness a little. My nephew had a bite and didn’t seem to like it, while my niece relished it till the last bite.

I had initially wanted to order another dessert but I was glad I didn’t as it would have been an overkill and ended the lunch on a low instead of a high. By then, I felt overwhelmed with all the eggs in different forms and the thought of eating more eggs wasn’t enticing at all.

 

Service

I think service and attention could be improved. I had ordered 2 portions of Hashimaki with Cheese & Mentaiko and had specifically highlighted to the staff when he took the order. When they placed the order slip on our table, I realised they had missed out and indicated only 1 order of Hashimaki. I had to remind them and when only 1 Hashimaki was served, I had to check with them again and we got the 2nd order much later. Same with the soups. The lunch sets were to be served with soups, but we had to keep reminding them to serve the soups. We only received the soups when my Mum, niece and nephew were almost finishing up their mains.

 

Price

I paid a total of S$126.88 for 4 mains, 5 appetisers, 1 drink and 1 dessert. Actually, I considered my order of Ultimate Egg Rice and Negitoro as half main as it really wasn’t that filling on its own. It might seem rather expensive as a number of the appetisers were just eggs or not very expensive ingredients like potatoes. Guess we need to take into account the premium Japanese eggs carried in Singapore. Mum thought it was an expensive lunch especially after our value for money meals at Basil Thai Kitchen and Le Shrimp Ramen.

 

Final Verdict

I was kinda egged out by the end of our lunch. It was a bit too much eggs especially when the Okinawa egg yolks were quite rich. I didn’t eat eggs for the rest of the week after that lunch. Thinking about eggs made me jelak (nausea and overwhelmed by the rich yolks).  I am unlikely to have the Ultimate Egg Rice again as I didn’t think it’s worth paying S$6.83 (including tax and GST). It could easily be made at home or I’d just have it when I holiday in Japan.

I would eat at Tamago-EN again though won’t be a frequent visitor as there’s only that much eggs one could stomach. For my next visit, I would get the set lunch and add on the salad, drink and dessert or just a main and a full dessert.

I think Tamago-EN is worth a try but go easy on the egg dishes unless you’re a big egg fan or you have a big group to share them with.

 

Check Ling’s other Singapore Food Reviews.