Fab $6.80 Salmon Miso Soup With Sashimi-Grade Fish At New Hawker Stall In Golden Mile
Golden Mile Food Centre is home to a number of popular stalls like Cat In The Hat and Braise, as well as underrated finds like Oyster Boy, Oatla, and more. Tucked among them is new kid on the block Salmon by Hinoyama, which specialises in Japanese-inflected salmon dishes like salmon miso soup and rice bowls. With its bright orange signboard, it sticks out among its monochromatic neighbours.
The stall is helmed by young hawkers Damien Chang (left), 27, a former cook at elegant Japanese restaurant Suju and Lim Fu Hao (right), 28, previously in retail sales. Damien is a culinary grad from At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy and worked at the Mandarin Gallery restaurant (an outpost of the original eatery in Karuizawa, from Japan’s Nagano prefecture) for three years before leaving in May to start Salmon by Hinoyama, which opened on July 1.
If you’re wondering what’s in the name, there’s no significance behind it. “We just Googled and saw the name Hinoyama, a mountain in Japan, and found it quite exotic, so we decided to use it,” Fu Hao says with a laugh.
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Co-owned by former Syun sushi chef
The pals, who’ve known each other since National Service, have been toying with the idea of starting their own F&B biz for a couple of years but were unsure what to offer. When the opportunity arose to run Salmon by Hinoyama, they leapt at the chance.
“My other close friends saw that I was quite lost as I had been job-hopping, so they asked if I was interested to start this hawker business with them. I roped Damien in as he has experience in Japanese cuisine,” Fu Hao tells 8days.sg.
Their four silent partners invested around $30K to open the stall and guided the duo on how to run the business.
One of them is sushi chef Kevin Wee (in white in first pic), 47, who has built an impressive resume at Japanese restaurants like Syun at Resorts World Sentosa, the now-defunct Nadaman at Shangri-La Hotel, as well as his own establishments House of Chirashi and Chirashi Sora which which have since closed down. He has an upcoming new restaurant Kaisen Bar, slated to open at Fortune Centre in August.
Wanted to offer cheaper Japanese restaurant-quality salmon dishes
He started Salmon by Hinoyama, his first hawker venture, so that “more people can enjoy restaurant-quality food at affordable prices”. “A salmon miso pot at a restaurant will set you back more than $20, but here, you can enjoy the salmon fish head soup at $6.80. We specialise in salmon as a lot of people like to eat it. We plan to open more outlets with different concepts,” says Kevin, who conceptualised most of the recipes here.
Sashimi-grade trout
Despite its name, the stall uses farm-raised Norwegian trout, which according to Kevin, is pricier than salmon. Often confused with salmon due to their similarities in taste and appearance, trout has a “more tender texture”, brighter flesh, and is less fishy.
“Most Japanese restaurants use Norwegian salmon, but we use sashimi-grade Norwegian trout ’cos the quality is better. I use this fish at my restaurants and order from the same supplier too,” declares Kevin.
Same recipe as salmon miso soup at co-owner's former restaurants
Made with Kevin’s recipe, the salmon miso soup is the same as the ones he used to serve at House of Chirashi and Chirashi Sora. It features a butter miso soup base, which he learned to make when he was an apprentice at Nadaman.
Kevin takes on more of a “mentorship role” when it comes to operations at the stall. After overseeing the cooking for the first few days, he now leaves the young hawkers to run the shop on their own. They handle everything from chopping and descaling fish, to cooking and washing. While Damien took to the tasks like fish to water, the same can’t be said for Fu Hao, who is a complete noob in the kitchen.
“It’s very painful. I feel like I am suffering ‘cos at the start I could not adjust to the long hours. I have to wake up very early at 6am to come in to prepare the food. It depends on how much we need to prep, but we come in around 8am. I am very slow in a lot of areas, so in a way, I feel I am an obstacle to Damien,” he laments.
This is also why Damien does most of the cooking for now, while Fu Hao takes orders and helps with the food prep.
“He’s improved a lot since our opening day. If you stand and watch him, you’d notice his hands shaking. I think he’s just anxious. He feels stressed when people watch him,” says Damien with a wry smile.
The menu
The menu here is kept simple: three types of salmon miso soup paired with fish head ($6.80), fish fillet slices ($7.80), or fish slices plus belly ($12.80). Koshihikari, a premium short-grain Japanese rice from Niigata Prefecture, and Inaniwa udon, which is flatter, smoother and more elegant compared to the chubbier sanuki udon, are available at an extra $1 and $2 respectively. The stall also offers salmon mentai don ($10), while sides like chicken karaage will be rolled out soon.
Salmon Fish & Belly Miso Soup, $12.80 (8 DAYS Pick!)
Kevin was right about the restaurant-quality salmon miso soup. Made with dashi (Japanese soup stock with kelp and bonito), white miso and fish trimmings, the soup is robust, umami and flavoursome. Butter and a drizzle of egg are added for a rich and creamy finish.
Each order comes with four slices each of lean salmon fillets and belly meat that are briefly blanched in soup. Perfectly cooked, the delicate belly slices melt in the mouth, and the fish tastes very fresh. Besides the usual suspects like napa cabbage and enoki mushrooms, the soup is jazzed up with torched silken tofu and leek chunks, sweet corn, wakame (a chewy seaweed) and fried garlic chips.
The charred tofu and leeks give the soup a slight smokiness and we particularly enjoy the fried garlic chips, which impart a punchy depth.
If you like your food with a bit of heat, the stall offers condiments like shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven-spice mix) and housemade chilli oil. Made with sriracha sauce and la yu (Japanese chilli oil), the spicy condiment perks up the soup and gives your palate a fiery kick.
Salmon Fish Head Miso Soup, $6.80 (8 DAYS Pick!)
If you’re a fan of fish head, we recommend getting this fab value bowl, which comes brimming with six chunks of salmon head and other parts like collar and trimmings, served with the same veggie ingredients and soup. We ordered it with Inaniwa udon (top up $2), which is pleasantly chewy and slurp-worthy. The fish head, with its meaty cheeks and gelatinous, collagen-rich skin around the eyes and mouth, is a delight to eat. We find the fish collagen-fortified soup here richer and more comforting than the salmon belly soup.
Salmon Cheese Mentai Don, $15
On a bed of fluffy Koshihikari rice sit shoyu-seasoned salmon cubes coated in mentaiko sauce (spicy pollock roe with mayo), then torched to a light char. They’re topped with heaps of tobiko and an even bigger mound of parmesan shavings. Yummy with the contrasting textures from the creamy salmon and briny pops from the tobiko, while the cheese adds a subtle layer of flavour. It would be even better if there were more mentaiko sauce to go around.
Salmon Miso Porridge, $8.80
Think of this as Japanese-style pao fan. Cooked rice is rinsed before it is briefly simmered in miso soup with five slices of fish. Perhaps due to the starchier texture of the short-grain rice, we find ourselves enjoying this even though we don’t normally fancy pao fan. We had the leftovers the next day and the porridge, perfumed with fried garlic, was even more fragrant and flavourful. Great with a dash of shichimi togarashi. Available from July 23.
Bottom line
Rich, comforting miso and ‘salmon’ soup with restaurant flourishes and premium ingredients at affordable prices. Although the meatier fillet and belly soup is the stall’s bestseller, the real gem here is the fish head variant, which brims with rich, slightly sticky collagen and is great value-for-money at $6.80. Definitely worth making a trip down for.
The details
Salmon by Hinoyama is at #01-103, Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Rd, S199583. Open Mon-Fri 11am-8pm; Sat & Sun 8.30am-6pm. Golden Mile Food Centre is closed from Jul 17-19. More info via Facebook and Instagram.
Photos: Dillon Tan
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