Chirashi-Ai Cafe, by Mentai-Ya Group, is located on the ground floor of Beauty World Centre. It serves affordable and healthy Japanese food — a great option for lunch or afternoon coffee or tea, especially after a hike in nearby Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. However, there is no price hike at Chirashi-Ai.
Ordering and collection of food at the cafe is entirely self-service. Simply collect a buzzer from the counter in the cafe, find a table, scan the QR code on the buzzer to view the online menu, place order and pay, then wait for the food to be ready. The buzzer will buzz once the food are ready for self-collection.
Chirashi means “scattered” in Japanese, so a bowl of chirashi don has its ingredients, like raw fresh salmon, tuna, swordfish, tamagoyaki (Japanese rolled omelette) and cucumber, cut into cubes and scattered on a bowl of sushi rice with slices of pickled ginger. The mentaiko-version will have mentaiko sauce added on the scattered ingredients and torched with flame.
The salmon sashimi don is similar to the chirashi don except that only salmon is used as the raw-fish ingredient instead of three types of fish. Both sashimi don emphasised on the freshness of its ingredients without using heavy-taste sauces.
Note: Chirashi don and sashimi don used to be on Chirashi-Ai's menu but were removed in January 2024 in order to keep their prices affordable — and adhering to their promise of "no price hike".
Chirashi-Ai's hot House Black coffee is a nice coffee using 100% Arabica beans. It is not bitter and has a nice aroma.
The Beef Curry Don is served with thin boiled beef slices on sushi rice with non-oily, mildly-spicy and sweet Japanese curry. It is hard not to eat healthily at Chirashi-Ai.
The Chicken Katsu Don is served with pan-fried chicken cutlet with raw egg, onions and unami sauce and then laid on the rice. The cutlet is not deep-fried but prepared using the Japanese's way of "fry and soak". The chicken is tender with outer crust that soaked in the still-raw egg white and savoury sauce and the sweet onions added extra flavours.
The Salmon Mentai Don is served with grilled salmon topped with mentaiko sauce and torched with flame, tamago egg, cherry tomato and cucumber slices on short-fat rice grains with dark sauce. A nice and tasty dish to go for, especially when craving for salmon.
Apart from traditional donburi, there are mentaiko-mayo donburi and udon too. Other than meals, there are assorted selections of cakes, waffles, ice-creams, etc, for dessert. By the way, do return the tray and utensils before leaving the cafe — it will help the cafe to keep costs low and for us to enjoy cheaper Japanese food.
Address:
144 Upper Bukit Timah Rd, #01-17 Beauty World Centre, Singapore 588177
Opening Hours:
11:30am to 8:30pm (Sat & Sun opens at 9am) | Daily
Comments