Hai! An all-Japanese food hall
Dining in a food hall works best when you are doing it with a big group and everyone has different cravings and preferences. There is a wide variety of offerings to choose from. The only downside is the inconvenience of lining up at every stall to order, then going back to pick up the food. In my case, I usually dine out with my mom and uncle who are both senior citizens, so I end up ordering for everyone. That leaves me exhausted even before I take in my first bite.
Visiting Kiwami for the first time, I realized that it has totally changed the food hall dining experience for me. Kiwami is a food hall featuring food concepts, and it’s mastered the different styles of Japanese cuisine, thus catering to everyone. They call themselves a full-service, casual dining restaurant. That means you can sit down at a table and order from a waiter, just like you would at any restaurant, and they will do the rest. It is not self-service, yet has remained very casual. I enjoyed the food and experience so much, I decided to bring back Mom, uncle Gerry, and aunt Rose Pettersson who was visiting from New York.
Each food stall brings its own specialty, technique, and flavor to the main Kiwami menu so we decided to order from each of them. For appetizers, I would recommend to try out Koyo, a hand roll bar, which is the newest food concept at Kiwami.
A traditional hand roll consists of a vinegared rice and sashimi on hand-rolled nori. Koyo’s version is more contemporary and is shaped like a taco instead of the traditional hand roll called temaki, which is cone-shaped.
My three favorites were the Spicy Tuna, Salmon Aburi, and Ebi Kastu Creamy Crab. The Spicy Tuna was layered with chili aioli, avocado mousse, asparagus, and tenkasu (those crunchy tempura flakes). Salmon Aburi was served with goma ponzu mayo, salmon skin, and spinach. As for Ebi Katsu Creamy Crab, it has ebi furai or breaded and deep-fried prawn, with creamy crab, garlic aioli, cured quail egg yolk, and tobiko. You can order per piece or in sets of four hand rolls.
Hibachi sharing plates are new on the menu. They are grilled dishes that are good for two to three persons. My favorite hibachi sharing plate was the char-grilled kampachi or yellow tail collars, with tare and lime. Other plates were the charcoal chicken with ume kosho dressing, grilled blue marlin with chimichurri and wasabi and a pork chop in yuzu garlic sauce and tare.
Hachibei is the yakitori concept grilled over binchotan charcoal. It serves Hakata-style yakitori, which uses binchotan charcoal made from oak trees. There is a wide range of yakitori skewers to pick from—beef, pork, chicken, seafood, and even vegetable options as well as bento boxes with rice and miso soup. We ordered the Maebaru Bento with tabasaki shio, tori momo, and tsukene on rice.
Hannosuke features crisp, golden tempura in rice bowls, or what is called tendon, topped with a light soy dressing. There are different types of tempura such as ebi, kisu or white dish, scallop, onsen tamago and mixed vegetables. Tempura meshi sets come with rice, pickled vegetables and miso soup, while tempura tendon sets are glazed with the sauce and served on rice bowls. Also available are tempura soba sets, tempura paired with soba or buckwheat noodles with either hot or cold soba dashi. We ordered the à la carte platter of six pieces, ebi tempura and a deluxe meshi tempura set with two ebi tempura, kisu, squid, scallop, onsen tamago, mushrooms, eggplant and nori for everyone to share at the center.
Favorites from The Standard Hospitality Group restaurants such as Ippudo, offering Hakata-style noodles, in a 15-hour pork bone broth and, of course, Yabu, for all your authentic katsu favorites made with house-made panko were also available at the food hall.
From Ippudo, we ordered the Kizami Tantanmen made with pork and chicken broth, tantan spicy miso and topped with ground pork, beansprouts and chili oil. From the Yabu stall, I ordered the tornado omelette pork curry katsu.
For dessert, Kiwami offers Hokkaido soft serve ice cream. It comes in three flavors—maple honeycomb sundae, chocolate crumble sundae, and Kuromitsu boba soft cream. We ordered the maple honeycomb sundae and chocolate crumble sundae. Both come with freshly made, melt-in-your-mouth, crumbly barquillos. You may also order plain ice cream in cones. Pro tips: 1) The tip of the cone is filled with chocolate. I tricked my mom into giving me the rest of her cone; 2) You may access Hokkaido soft cream through a take-out counter from the outside so you can just drop by the window for a quick purchase.
It is a great way to have all your Japanese favorites under one roof plus, of course, new and modern takes to shake up the dining experience.
Kiwami is located at C3 29th St., Bonifacio Global City. I had difficulty locating it on my first visit and found that the most convenient way to get there is to get off at Central Square, walk through and exit at the Shake Shack entrance, and make a left. It’s at the next building. It’s also the most accessible way to get there for those with wheelchairs or strollers.
