Japanese Food Review: Izakaya Sazangaku at 3 Craig Road, Singapore 089663

I was craving good ol' izakaya food and I heard good things about Izakaya Sazangaku, sister restaurant to Izakaya Niningashi next door.  The restaurant is located on 3 Craig Road, Singapore just down from the Golden Cafe and has a cosy, intimate ambiance with sake labels stuck on pillars. The restaurant was busy but had space for the three of us because I've made a reservation online. Otherwise you might need to wait!

The menu is QUITE extensive, featuring a good selection of Japanese dishes that is popular amongst Singaporeans and some more exotic dishes like Hokke (fish?) and grilled medai head.

Here's a few screenshots from the video of the menu I took because it's so extensive.

Here's the sake menu, also rather extensive but quite helpful with the descriptions, including tasting notes! The prices also seem pretty fair.

We paired our meal with some light and easy-drinking sake after having a highball to start as it was such a warm evening. This sake was such a good complement to our meal because it was super light and easy to drink with just the right amount of acidity.

To start off, we ordered the Bang Bang Chicken (S$14.90), which was a perfect mix of spicy and tangy flavours. It had a good crunch to it and was definitely a great appetiser to start off the meal.

Next, we had the Potato Salad with ikura and no kani miso. The potato salad was creamy and had a good balance of savoury and sweet flavours. The ikura gave a nice pop of saltiness to the dish and complemented the creaminess of the potato salad well.

We also tried the yakitori, in the form of quail eggs wrapped with pork belly mentaiko and the tsukune which are chicken meatball skewers. The quail egg with pork belly mentaiko was so damn shiok with the creamy savoury mentaiko sauce and crispy thin pork belly around the silky smooth tiny eggs. The tsukune chicken meatball skewers were also juicy and flavourful. Both dishes were quite small and easy to just pop into your mouths to go with the sake! We also ordered two sets of the plain fried onigiri (comes in 2), which was all the carbs we needed. Actually 1 set of onigiri is good for two pax. So good, though!

For the mains, we ordered the 5-type assorted sashimi for 3 (S$50.70), and they did not disappoint. The sashimi slices were thicc, absolutely fresh and showcased a good variety of classic sashimi fish like tuna and salmon. This was definitely a highlight of the meal. By this time we were already quite full.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Izakaya Sazangaku for anyone who is looking for a cosy and intimate dining experience with delicious Japanese food. The Onigiri, Potato Salad, 5-type assorted sashimi, yakitori and the tsukune chicken are all dishes that I would highly recommend trying.

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Izakaya Sazangaku
3 Craig Road, Singapore 089663
Tuesdays to Saturdays 6-10.30pm
Closed on Sundays and Mondays
Reserve with Facebook Messenger on their FB Page