SINGAPORE – With izakaya bar Shako-Ba, the games begin before you even step through the door. Your first task is to locate its entrance. (Hint: Head down an alley off North Canal Road and up two flights of stairs.)

The quest is only partially complete when you step into a neon-hued room. This is the main dining area, where guests banter with chefs along a high counter, and order bites like pitan crab tofu ($12) and lobster crispy rice sushi ($12) from the a la carte menu. 

For a quieter, more elevated experience, head through one final door, which will take you into a wood-panelled dining room that evokes the tranquillity of a regular Japanese omakase joint. At least, that is what you think, until your sashimi is served on a plate of dancing lights and the chef comes over midway through your meal to challenge you to a game of dice. 

That is not to say the kitchen does not take its food seriously. There are four omakase menus here: seven courses for $98, eight courses for $128 or $188, as well as a mysterious $258 “gastronomical adventure” that has to be booked a week in advance and is built around seasonal premium ingredients like hairy crabs. 

However, if you are looking for a line-up of the usual luxurious ingredients, the $128 menu gets you enough bang for your buck. Uni is paired with beancurd skin in a silky appetiser, then joins forces with truffle to crown a bowl of umami-flecked somen. 

Truffle shavings make another appearance later in the meal, cloaking marbled slive...