Following up from my craving for Korean abalone and crab (no thanks to all my Korean shows), I did a search for Korean abalone and got to know about MaciMani.

Apparently, MaciMani has many branches established in Korea. And the abalones served in MaciMani are imported from their abalone farm in Wando Island. In fact, I think MaciMani is the first Korean abalone restaurant in Singapore. And as with their restaurant name, most of their dishes have abalones!

My friend and I came here twice. Once at 7pm, and a second time at 8pm on 2 weekday evenings. We arrived to a big and spacious restaurant that’s dominated in neutral hues. White washed 3D brick-patterned wall paper, black painted exposed ceiling and brown furnitures. Brightened up with some orange (fake) autumn leaves.

MaciMani being located on the quieter end of Tanjong Pagar Road, not many seem to know about their existence yet. Which explained why the restaurant was a little quiet.

And from the menu (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), we ordered:-

1) Jeonbok haemul pajeon, $9 (above) – Seafood and green onion pancake with abalone. Unfortunately, I could only taste the prawns in the pancake. But despite having not found the abalone within, I liked this rendition of the pancake where it’s more on the thin side with more dough than ingredients (excluding the top layer of spring onions).

2) Jeonbok wang lamyeon, $12.50 (above) – Abalone ramen. I liked this! I like that a lot of scallion and bean sprout were put into the dish for a refreshing taste. The broth was on the lighter side which did not have me reaching out for my cup of water. Ramen used was also the thinner type. Good portion of seafood too!

3) Jeonbok golbaengi someon, $35 (above) – Spicy abalone and whelk with noodle. This was ordered because I have always been curious to try whelk. And this was a cold dish comprised of abalone, whelk (sea snail), cabbage, cucumber, dried shredded squid and 3 bundles of noodles. Mix the noodle with the ingredients, and it was almost like Korean cold noodle (dry version). The serving of the cabbage was so much that we only finished one-third. And halfway through eating this dish, we realised we had not seen / tasted any abalone. So we went searching and came out with maybe half abalone worth. It was quite tricky looking for the abalone because in the red sauce, the abalone slices camouflaged well with the cabbages pieces.

4) Gui shabu, $21/pax (min. 2 pax) (above) – This is a BBQ and steamboat set which comprised of beef, pork belly, seafood set and vegetables set (includes tofu and vermicelli). One can choose to boil the vegetables in the soup or eat it raw, like the lettuce for example. But as with most Korean restaurants, lettuce are normally given to wrap our BBQ meat. So it did feel as though we were buying our own vegetables with only a few pieces of lettuce given. I did not like the fish balls too. And one can exchange the beef for pork belly, like what I did since I don’t take beef.

5) Jeonbok gui, $65 (M) (above) – Grilled abalone with butter. 4 abalones and 3 prawns were served on a bed of salt. Abalones were firm and chewy.

6) Desserts, Complimentary (above) – We were each given a slice of orange and a cup of Korean traditional drink (plum tea) at the end of our meal.

The menu is separated into ‘meal’ and ‘main dish’. Judging from the prices and the portion given for our ordered dishes, items under the ‘meal’ are individual portion while those under ‘main dish’ are for sharing between 3-4 people.

Craving for Korean abalone? MaciMani is the place to go! But to see a full abalone in the dish, do be selective of one’s choices.