In a stretch of Cottage Grove Road known mostly for bars, you can find a restaurant called Red Lion Singapore Grill & Japanese Cuisine. It’s definitely worth a visit or an online order.
The bulk of the menu is actually comprised of sushi. As a result, it was easy to pick out the few Singapore-themed items, since there were so few of them.
The Singapore fried rice ($9.95) has a thin layer of fried egg topped with the same tasty sauces you would find on sushi. With a choice of meat, I picked pork, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was pork belly. Yum! Interestingly, the fried rice seemed like it was very lightly fried, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would have liked the diced onions to have been cooked longer.
The Singapore roll ($12.95) is big. I loved the contrasting crunch from the delicious soft-shelled crab alongside the tender salmon, avocado and crab. I also appreciate that the soft-shelled crab was cut into sushi-sized pieces. Next time, I’ll try the deep-fried Monster roll ($11.95), which comes with “assorted fish, crab, asparagus.”
Red Lion also serves standard rolls and sushi/sashimi, with special pricing at lunch.
I would normally get pork or beef with Yaki udon ($10.95), but I wanted to try another protein. I’m glad I got the shrimp. It’s plump, juicy and perfectly cooked. The noodles had a good saute flavor and had the right amount of firmness. I would have preferred either fewer onions or for the onions to have been cooked longer so that they were tender.
Among the few entrees, I picked the NY Strip Loin Teriyaki ($15.95). I liked the teriyaki sauce–it wasn’t too salty. You get a lot of the sliced steak, which was flavorful but a little tough to chew. It comes with a side of rice.
Red Lion Singapore Grill & Japanese Cuisine is currently open for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Monday.
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See more photos in our Red Lion Singapore Grill & Japanese Cuisine Flickr album.
