Most of us eat good seafood one thing at a time, weeks apart, and then wonder why we can't quite say what we like about it. A tasting night fixes that in the gentlest way: three things, eaten side by side, in small amounts, with nowhere else to be. It is not a dinner party and it is not a lesson. It is two to four people around a table, paying attention — the kind of evening that makes every future fish purchase easier, because you finally know your own taste.
Miss A's Handpick Fine Food is a Singapore premium grocer founded in 2017, online at missa.sg with a store at 421 East Coast Road. For a tasting, we suggest the three raw things our customers ask about most: bafun uni, Aomori hotate, and our Akaroa king salmon.
Set it up plainly
Everything cold, everything on chilled plates, nothing sauced. A tray of Japanese Hokkaido bafun uni, Premium Grade A — 100g is plenty for a tasting. The hotate: Japanese Aomori sashimi-grade large scallops, 220g, sliced thickly just before you sit down. The salmon: one fresh 150g portion of Akaroa king salmon, cut into sashimi slices with a few skin-on pieces set aside — those you will crisp in a dry pan at the end, for contrast. Rice, warm and plainly seasoned, in small bowls. Soy and fresh wasabi from your own pantry if you like them, in dipping dishes at the side — not on the fish. The point of the evening is the fish itself; seasoning is a second pass, not the first.
Eat in this order, and take your time
Start with the hotate. It is the quietest of the three — sweet, clean, almost shy — and it sets the baseline everything else is measured against. Then the salmon: richer, oilier, the fat carrying the flavour further. Eat a slice plain, then a slice with rice, and notice how the rice changes it. Last, the uni, which is not so much eaten as allowed to happen — cold, custardy, tasting of the sea it came from. A spoon, not chopsticks, does it justice. Between the three, plain rice and water. Save the pan-crisped salmon skin pieces for the very end; after all that softness, something crisp and warm lands like punctuation.
Honest note-keeping helps: which one did you reach for twice? Which would you buy for a celebration, and which for an ordinary Friday? There are no wrong answers — but there is usually a surprise. People who arrive certain they are uni people sometimes leave as hotate people. All three live in the Seafood collection; the uni has its own Uni collection page, and the salmon its King Salmon collection.
FAQ
When should the fish arrive for a tasting night?
As close to the evening as you can manage. The salmon lands fresh every Wednesday and Saturday; the uni is flown in four times a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) and should be eaten within two days, kept at 0–4°C. A Saturday tasting, ordered against Saturday's arrivals, is the easiest version of this evening.
How much do we need for four people?
One 100g tray of uni, one 220g pack of hotate and one or two 150g salmon portions. A tasting is small amounts, slowly — if everyone leaves slightly hungry, order a bowl of noodles after and call it tradition.
Can I add a fourth item?
A small plate of something cooked — the crisped salmon skin is already in the plan — keeps the evening balanced. Beyond that, three is a kindness: palates tire, and the third thing deserves your full attention as much as the first.
