Na Oh's Autumn Menu - A Beautiful Burst of Flavours
- Ava Lyn
- Sep 19
- 4 min read
Na Oh Restaurant
2 Bulim Ave, Level 3
Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS)
Singapore 649674
It is our third visit to Na Oh and this time for their Autumn Menu. If you are interested in our previous visits, you can read them here and here. We continue to visit Na Oh every season, because Chef Corey Lee and his brilliant team has shown their commitment to bringing the best in seasonal produce and every visit yields a new sense of delight and understanding for contemporary Korean cuisine.
We start off our dinner with a Sahwa Rice Mill Maekgeolli, an unfiltered, luscious rice wine that drinks almost like a smoothie. It is opaque and rich, with a deeply satisfying nutty and lactic notes. Our server took a good 2 minutes to ensure it was well mixed, yes it was that viscous. Sahwa Rice Mill Maekgeolli is a new generation Korean brewery that is committed to artisanal brewing processes using traditional methods. It is different from regular maekgeolli in that it uses double the amount of rice in the process, making it thick and rich, intensifying the creamy, grain forward aspect, which is reminiscent of original farmhouse styles before the lighter, fizzy styles of maekgeolli came around. The flavour profile is nutty, velvety and creamy with a nice lingering note of earthy flavours. Really rustic and a very long finish.
For Appetizers we started with a Homemade Tofu with Aged Soy Sauce, a staple in all the previous menus and then was served a Mugunji and Pork Belly Jeon with a side of freshly harvested greens from the smart farm. This time's jeon was extremely crispy and delightful with the perfect balance of flavours between the pork belly and the aged kimchi.
The new addition this season is the Gungjung Japchae that is served with autumn vegetable namul, cured beef striploin and braised konjac. Gungjung Japchae refers to the original royal court version of the now very popular modern japchae version. Before commercial cellophane noodles were available, japchae was noodle-less, but a refined dish presented as part of the opulent Joseon palace banquet. In Na Oh's version, briased konjac was added, together with beef striploin and some egg yolk at the bottom of the dish, which resulted in an extremely umami forward dish and one to remember.
Now on to the mains or Jinjitsang. We had 3 options and went with Yellow Croacker Sotbap and Pork Bulgogi this time. The Seolleongtang will have to wait for our next visit. Autumn signals the start of harvest and also warmer weathers and autumn dishes are typically warming with traditional flavours. Being close to Chuseok, the dishes are also typically what is seen at festivals. Season produce include persimmon, roasted sweet potatoes, jeon and seasonal seafood, which we see featured in this season's menu.
Our first Jinjitsang consisted of:
Half-Dried Yellow Croacker Sotbap
Eoran Spicy Mussel Soup with Chrysanthemum
Preserved Maesil Geotjeori
Dolgim
And our second Jinjitsang consisted of:
Charcoal-Grilled Pork Bulgogi with Golden Queen's Rice
Gangdoenjang
Garlic Scape Muchim
Smart Farm Ssam
Oyster Masengi Jeon
Yellow Croaker is a prized fish in Korean cuisine and is especially popular in Autumn when it is at its peak. The fish is rich and savoury and paired together with the dried pollock roe, which gives a nice salty, savory and umami flavour was beautiful as a sotbap.
And the Pork Bulgogi was rich, fatty and full of charcoal flavour. This is k-bbq done absolutely brilliantly.
Our Jinjitsang was absolutely fantastic. It was refined but had the warmth of Korean home cooking. The flavours clean and coherent.
We ended our meal with a bang with a preserved persimmon and walnut tart. The gotgam and walnut target was served with a Sikhye infused with sweet potato. This dessert is such a standout and one to remember for a long time to come. Persimmons and walnuts are classic autumn ingredients that are often enjoyed in various sweets and snacks. This tart we had, had a crispy crust that perfectly contrasted the nutty filling. Hints of salt ran through the rich walnut layer, elevating the natural sweetness of the dried persimmon. It was so indulgent and well balanced. If Na Oh ever sells this as a standalone, we would be buying boxes.
Served together with the tart is a home made Goguma Sikhye, the perfect autumn drink. Light, subtly sweet and a great way to end the meal.
Booking
The link for reservations are provided on the top of the page through Sevenrooms and reservations are open 30 days in advance at 10 am each day. I will not sugar coat this, it is not easy to book Na Oh. The venue is not huge and they do 2 seatings per service. But the demand is high and you would have to ready to book at 10 am when reservations come out. So do plan and book in advance!
Accessibility
We have written and re-written this many times. Na Oh is truly very inaccessible. However, it is definitely worth your grab ride (:
The Damage
Total Damage for the night was 480 SGD (tax inclusive) with a bottle of Maekgeolli. At just under 100 SGD per person for just the meal, and extremely high quality ingredients, it is very good value.
Would we recommend?
Yes Yes Yes! The food this season is the best yet that we have tried. Perhaps it is the Autumn menu, we thought the flavours to be punchy, hearty and full of umami. We love Na Oh because of its quality of food, its environment and its exquisite pursuit of excellence. The staff is always wonderful and this visit, the staff stood out immensely. After we settled in, our server took out his trusty notebook on our reservation and welcomed us back for our third visit and also shared how this season is different from before. Its little gestures like this that make us feel welcomed. Throughout our visits at Na Oh, it always felt like the staff wanted to take care of us and wanted to have as great an experience or an even better one this time. And this is something we truly appreciate.
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