December is here, which means ‘tis the season for wintertime menus. All the fancy restaurants are announcing new dishes, and this is especially true at the Japanese ones. Famous for its four seasons and high-quality produce, Japan takes seasonal fish, fruit and vegetable very seriously. Here is where you can experience the season’s bounty here in Singapore.

Buri

What is it: Also known as hamachi, yellowtail and Japanese amberjack, this Pacific Ocean fish grows especially fatty and tasty during the winter months—making it a fixture on many winter menus.

Where to get it: No doubt the city’s many sushi restaurants will be full of raw buri sushi and sashimi, but for something different, try the buri shabu shabu at Robertson Quay’s Dashi Master Marusaya, where it is lightly blanched in the restaurant’s umami-packed dashi stock, meticulously prepared with bonito flakes.

Tarabagani

Photo credit Flickr user Artizone
 

What is it: You’re probably seeing it on the Instagram feeds of your foodie friends. We are in prime tarabagani, or king crab, season, which runs from November to March. Caught in the notoriously frigid waters of northern Hokkaido, the Sea of Okhotsk and Alaska, king crab is especially famous for its long legs, which is where the bulk of meat comes from.

Get it at: Les Amis Group’s first foray into Japanese cuisine, Sushi Jin sources its seafood thrice weekly from Tsukiji market and is serving king crab grilled or in shabu shabu format this winter.

Plenty more where that came from. The Bite! Japan Facebook page is full of the latest Japanese restaurants and izakaya in Singapore, new promotions and bits of information to impressive your friends with. Follow us here.

Tara Shirako

What is it: Ok, we won’t mince words: shirako, literally meaning “white children”, refers the sperm sacs of a male fish. Tara is the name of the fish—meaning cod. If that sounds hard to swallow, know that it is a once-a-year, wintertime delicacy, mushy though it may be in texture, and is often even served raw.

Get it at: Sexy Tiong Bahru restaurant IKYU has not one but several dishes involving this seasonal specialty. You can have it charcoal grilled with soy sauce and chili powder; deep-fried with tempura sauce; steamED with sake, or sakamushi; or raw with spicy red radish and ponzu.

Yuzu

What is it: Every Japanese menu and lots of cocktails menus seem to be peppered with this little, grapefruit-like citrus fruit. Part of the citron family, it’s less about the juice with yuzu and more about the thick rind, which is extremely aromatic.

Where to get it: Kallang Riverside Park’s eternally beloved Kilo Kitchen serves a truffled tai yuzu roll, where the fruit lifts star ingredients like fresh crab meat, fresh snapper and tempura flakes.  

Kinmedai

What is it: Similar in taste to sea bream, this deep-water, white-flesh fish is also known as golden eye snapper. It’s famous for its slightly sweet flavor and is easy to find in Japan during the winter months—though it’s only recently become a thing in the West.

Where to get it: The achingly cool Bincho in Tiong Bahru is famous for its seasonal menus and omakase. They’ve just rolled out a bunch of winter dishes, including the kabura mushi, involving a flavor-packed clear broth with steamed turnip (kabura), pieces of kinmedai and gingko nut.

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