japanese dining sun

Had dinner with Wendy at Japanese Dining Sun (Chijmes). Wanted to go to Sun with Moon at Wheelock but decided to try the original one at Chijmes (nearer to my workplace but then I was still late... -_-''') Well, I could've been there like 10 minutes earlier but somehow, I kind of forgotten where Chijmes was... went one big round before finding it. To tell the truth, haven't been there since... since 3-4 years ago?

I was quite apprehensive about dining there as its a fine-dining restaurant. Never dine at any fine-dining restaurants before. Hmm.. that one at Prego does it count? Probably not... What they reviewed in 2005 was right... kind of hard to find the entrance to the restaurant! However, along the way, noticed that there's this cafe/pub that has the pretty waitresses dressed in Japanese maid outfit. Hmm.. but that's nothing to do with this story.

Ok, anyway, the pictures in the menu were interesting. They have lots of stuffs on the menu. Prices range from $3 (dessert) to $120 (something like a grand set for one person). So we ordered chicken wings and caesar salad for starters, and unagi and clams kamameshi (japanese rice pot dish). The place was kind of deserted on weekdays. We were the only few there at around 7+ and probably about 5-8 tables were taken by 830pm.

So, they served us the salad and wings pretty fast. The salad was interesting, as the bowl, was made out of fried cheese (and some fish perhaps? Not sure but that was what we thought it tasted like... some fishy cheese or... cheesy fish? Hmmm...) And I thought the vege looked alot like 'dou miao'... Wings were ok, as you can't go wrong with fried stuffs.. and since its chicken wings(my favourite chicken part), I have no compaints! But they gave us the wrong rice pot, so it was confisticated back after one minute. Then after some time, they gave us the right one.

The kamameshi was nice. It had chunks of unagi, bits of chestnut, clams, some beans and soya flavoured rice. It may looked small, but it was enough to feed two of us. For desserts, we ordered the tofu cheesecake and sesame ice-cream. Was kind of hard to pretend that we're doing something japanese when the waitress repeated our order and said, "Oh, taufooo cheesecake ah?" Pengz!

Anyway, the tofu cheesecake was really, really small for $5. Same for the ice-cream as 1 scoop is already $4. But ok la, fine-dining mah... so need to charge accordingly. But it was nice. I liked both. Then Wendy ordered something exotic. Grape vinegar with soda. Drinking vinegar is suppose to be good for health. Luckily, it tasted alright. More soda than vinegar.

Total bill was less than $55 for 2 person, which was pretty good as one reviewer once said, "A budget of $50 per person can get you a decent meal even if you order a la carte. " We ordered ala-carte, and ate until we pengz.. and all within budget. Woohoo!

Good experience (and i thought i saw june chua.. but then maybe not...) and shows that fine-dining restaurants as Japanese Dining Sun should not be that intimidating. There are somethings in the menu that are still within budget. But of course, a very big THANK YOU to Wendy for sponsoring tonights dinner! *muaks*