Soba fans might have heard that LILYAN, Tokyo’s renowned soba restaurant, recently opened its first Singapore outlet. With its range of hot and cold noodle dishes now available in Boat Quay, you don’t have to travel all the way to Japan to enjoy their famous soba.
We were keen to try their freshly made, 100% buckwheat soba noodles, so we dropped by on a weekday afternoon, only to find its relatively small premises packed with diners. That only raised our expectations for the food, which we’ll discuss in the review below.
The most affordable soba dish on the menu is either the Kake ($12++), a hot soba dish with dashi soup, or the Mori ($12++), a cold soba dish with traditional tsuyu dipping. However, we decided to go with what our waiter recommended, starting with the hot Kamonan ($25+).
The Kamonan was served in a rich broth based on dashi and duck. You don’t often see duck used in Japanese cuisine, so this was an intriguing prospect, to say the least.
Before we get into how this dish tasted, let’s have a look at LILYAN’s claim to fame: their noodles. And sure enough, they were chewy yet delicate, with a subtle grittiness thanks to the buckwheat flour. Texturally speaking, LILYAN’s soba noodles really hit the spot.
The soup, however, was where the cracks began to show. It was simply much too salty for our liking, and we found ourselves needing to wash down a sip of it with some green tea. We did, however, like the hint of duck flavour in the broth which, again, is quite atypical for a Japanese dish. There’s also a zestiness that helped alleviate that saltiness, presumably from yuzu.
The slices of duck, while not plenty, were tender, succulent, and complementary to the noodles.
We moved on to a cold soba dish, the Toriten ($22+). This dish saw cold buckwheat noodles served with a side of grated daikon, tsuyu (a soy-based dipping sauce), and chicken tempura.
After dipping the noodles into the combined grated daikon and tsuyu dip, we found them to be pleasingly rich and umami—without the overt saltiness that detracted from the previous dish. We also liked how the daikon added a refreshing quality to the noodles, which were themselves wonderfully silky.
Meanwhile, the pieces of chicken tempura were crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. We only wished there were more pieces of them—a mere three slices were given for this dish.
LILYAN gives you the option to add a small rice dish to each soba order, and so we asked for the one featuring Beef Miso and Bonito Flakes ($4+). This was a pleasant surprise, as the highly umami combination of miso and bonito flakes elevated both the minced beef and the fluffy rice. And at just four bucks, we’d say this dish was quite the steal.
As mentioned earlier, LILYAN’s premises are relatively small and even a little squeezy. If you come during lunchtime, you may have to queue for a bit, so we’d say you should try beating the peak hours as much as you can.
LILYAN is a seven-minute walk from Raffles Place MRT Station.
While there were a few things we took issue with, LILYAN nevertheless serves some legit soba dishes and other Japanese eats. Soba fans should give it a shot at the very least.
For affordable soba and udon in CBD with nett prices, read our Tokyo Soba review. For an under-HDB restaurant with soba in Bedok, read our Reiwa Soba Honten coverage.
Address: 38 Circular Road, Singapore 049394
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 11:30am to 2:30pm, 5:30pm to 11pm
Tel: 9088 3117
Website
LILYAN is not a halal-certified eatery.
Photos taken by Paula Formantes.
This was an independent visit by Eatbook.sg.
Summary
Pros
– Silky buckwheat soba noodles
– Affordable and delicious rice bowl add-ons
Cons
– Kamonan was too salty
– Space is squeezy
Recommended dishes: Toriten ($22+), Beef Miso and Bonito Flakes ($4+)
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 11:30am to 2:30pm, 5:30pm to 11pm
Address: 38 Circular Road, Singapore 049394