We’ve known about Tanuki Raw for many years now, and have walked past their various outlets on numerous occasions. I’ve always associated them with raw oysters, and since we only have oysters once in a long while, we’ve never really felt the need to visit.
That changed about a month ago, when I saw a post on Reddit by Howard, the owner of Tanuki Raw. He was crowdsourcing for ideas on how to improve their happy hour offering, and came across as sincere and open-minded.
The post, as well as follow-on comments and discussions, opened my eyes to the wide range of food offered at Tanuki Raw and I started following @tanukiraw on IG.
It was filled with photos of their food, obviously, but almost half of the remaining posts looked like they were generated by DALL-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion. Looks like whoever’s in-charge of their social media accounts is having a bit too much fun with generative AI tools.
A week ago, something interesting popped up on their IG account. They were launching a new product, a Salmon Katsu Curry Donburi, and were giving it out free as part of a one day, one outlet only one-for-one promotion on 1st May at their Cross Street Exchange branch.
We were going to be in the vicinity that day for a friend’s 85th birthday party (yes, you read that correctly, 85th) and could swing by for an early dinner. The timing would also allow us to enjoy their happy hour promotion, making the offer even more compelling.
When we got there, we were the only customers. Which wasn’t that surprising, since the location mainly caters to the office crowd and it was a public holiday. Plus, it was before the start of dinner service.
It was quite a hot day, perfect for a S$10 pint of ice-cold Sapporo. Each glass also unlocks the ability to order six freshly-shucked oysters at happy hour prices of S$3 per piece. Which is great value-for-money, but, to be honest, it did make me slightly apprehensive.
Because, when it comes to raw oysters, the objective is not only to find a good price. More importantly, you also need to make it safely through to the next day.
Like most things in life, you get what you pay for, and at S$3 each, I felt that they were, frankly, bordering right on the danger zone.
But then again, Tanuki Raw is famous for its oysters and has been around for a long time, so it should be safe. Even then, we decided to hedge our bets, and instead of the full allotment of half-a-dozen oysters, we ordered only four.
It turned out that our fears were totally unfounded.
The oysters smelled as fresh as a sea breeze and tasted like how good ones should taste — clean, slightly briny and bursting with umami. There was a pleasant milkiness as I took a couple of bites before letting it slide down my throat.
I was surprised to find that they were properly shucked, allowing me to slide each one straight from the shell and into my mouth. There have been many occasions where I’ve had to wrestle with the adductor muscle in order to fully detach the flesh.
When I asked our waitress where the oysters were from, she told us that this particular batch came from Japan, specifically Sakoshi Bay, and had just arrived in the morning. From the way she answered my question, I could tell that she was very proud of what they served.
From now on, Tanuki Raw is where we’ll go for raw oysters.
The other item on the happy hour menu that caught our eye was the uni, 11 grams for S$10. They arrived on a small plate, nestled on top of a shiso leaf, which itself was on top of some shredded daikon.
While it was not the best uni we’ve had, it was fresh, creamy, and overall quite yummy. It offered great cost-performance, especially since uni of similar quality would easily go for twice the price at other restaurants.
For our donburi, there was quite a good selection to choose from, including beef, chicken, pork, seafood, vegetarian and even Impossible “meat”. I wanted to try the Foie Gras Truffle Yakiniku, but was told that they were out of foie gras. So we got the next best thing, the Truffle Yakiniku Don.
Slices of US black Angus short rib were fanned out prettily on their special furikake/chopped pickles/seasoned vinegar rice and topped with an onsen egg, with three pieces of takuan on the side.
The beef was firm but yielded easily upon chewing, releasing its beefy goodness. Even though the bowl looked kind of petite, we realised that it was quite deep and contained quite a lot of the flavourful rice.
Too bad the foie gras wasn’t available. It would have added an extra burst of fat and flavour to the bowl, making it that much more oishii.
Our complimentary Salmon Katsu Curry Donburi came with three large pieces of deep-fried fish, a heaping mound of vegetable curry and some pickled ginger on the side.
The salmon was moist and flaky on the inside, and paired quite nicely with the curry. A more traditional pairing would have been pork cutlets, but I thought that salmon worked well here. We particularly enjoyed the pickled ginger, which helped cleanse our palates in between bites.
There could have been more curry sauce though, especially since it was served on white rice. But I suppose they would have struggled fitting everything into the bowl. Overall, it was quite a good dish.
Their drinks menu is on the flip side of the food menu, and they had a good selection of beer, sake, wine, spirits, cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages. Some of the notable drinks that I’d be keen to try include:
- Kin No Tea (Gin)
- Plantation Dark (Rum)
- Kozaemon Daiginjo (Sake)
- Mizubasho (Sake)
- Pandan Negroni (Cocktail)
It’s surprising that it’s taken us this long to try out Tanuki Raw, but I’m glad that we finally did.
The outlet at Cross Street Exchange would be a great place to spend a leisurely Saturday afternoon, seated at their open and breezy sheltered outdoor terrace. Especially since happy hours run for the entire day.
Might even be interesting to see how many oysters I can consume in a single seating. My current record stands at a dozen, but maybe it’s time to live life dangerously and see if I can breach that limit.
