Originally Posted by
mosburger
To sort of answer my own question, lunched with a friend who also lived in Japan before at
Irodori Japanese Restaurant at Huahai Zhong Lu recently.
Very nicely executed Japanese "homely dishes": my grilled mackerel set was fresh and tasty and my friends katsudon the best he has had in China. Most other lunch customers were actually Japanese officer workers from the area.
Seems to be a Singaporean operation:
http://www.irodorijapaneserestaurant.com.sg/Index.aspx
Had dinner at Irodori tonight and the food didn't taste Japanese. The rice in my unagidon was grainy and hard to pick up using chopsticks, and not moist like Japanese rice should be. The other components of the set: the yasai tempura didn't come with dip sauce, the chawanmushi seemed to have been steamed for too long and the tempura bits in the udon dip were hard instead of light and crisp.
This place even serves a buffet dinner and I don't think self respecting Japanese restaurants do such things.