I’m sure this had been a familiar name to many of you. The “SHIOK MAKI”, currently only available in Koh Grill & Sushi Bar had got many people raving about it recently. And I knew I had to join in the crowd and check out what’s the whole hype about!

Located at Wisma Atria’s Food Republic, this restaurant had never caught my eye until many local food bloggers blogged about it and my friends started posting photos of “shiok maki” on Instagram.

Koh Grill & Sushi Bar allows reservation so I made mine 2 weeks in advance. However, the reservation system they implemented was utterly disappointing. I pushed my reservation from 7 to 715 and I expected myself to be seated down straight after I reached the restaurant since my friends were there early. But that wasn’t the case because when I reached Koh’s, my friends were still waiting for an empty table! So I thought well, the head chef did sms-ed me in advance and told me to give them some time to clear the table, so I was quite cool about it. However, I did not expected the wait to be that long….

40 minutes to be exact.

And I was told to be punctual as they would only hold my table for 10 minutes.

Seriously? I think they should totally scrap the reservation system since it does not value add to the customer service and besides, the crowd was just too much to handle.

-1 point for that.

Reservation problem aside. Once we got seated, we immediately ordered Four Shiok Maki (we ordered Gen One because it’s said to be nicer!), One Fried Udon, One Garlic Fried Rice and One Chicken Katsu Curry to share. However, the staff disappointed us again by asking us to “wait” for about 3-4 times before taking our order. But well, at least they asked us to “wait” in a friendlier tone so it wasn’t thaaaaat bad.

The Fried Udon, Garlic Fried Rice and Chicken Katsu Curry came first. Just typical Japanese food so nothing much to shout about but I thought the garlic fried rice smelled really nice! But it’s just a small bowl of fried rice so don’t expect too much out of it.

Like what they always said, save the best for the last. Indeed, the shiok maki came after 40 minutes of waiting. And we were like “THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT!”

I know. My food photography skills are still pretty amateur so bear with me okay? 😦

And the next five seconds was silence…

The fact that it was so shiok kept our mouth shut for a fair bit and we all we wanted to do was to stuff more maki in our tummy and enjoy the shiokness.

This shiok maki was packed with grilled eel and avocado, wrapped in rice and slightly roasted salmon. As if all those goodness wasn’t enough, a mixture of cheese, mayo and a generous serving of fish roe was then drizzled on the maki.

And the next thing you want to do is to put it in your mouth and just let it explode. SO YUMMY!

The cost of shiokness? $16.80 for 8 pieces. A tad pricey but it’s definitely worth a visit if you had not tried it before! I would also advice you to visit during the off-peak hours (2-5 pm) to avoid the crazy queue.

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Koh Grill & Sushi Bar (Inside Food Republic)
435 Orchard Road
#04-21
Wisma Atria Shopping Centre
Contact No: 9180 3805