Fortune Centre is the kind of Singapore building you can walk past without thinking twice.
From the street, it feels ordinary — a little dated, a little busy, surrounded by the movement of Middle Road and everything happening around Bugis. But go inside and take the lift upstairs, and the mood begins to change.
Three floors up, I found Eizaburo.
That was the surprise.
Not because Singapore is short on Japanese restaurants. It certainly isn't. But because Eizaburo feels like a small Japanese corner tucked into an everyday Singapore building, rather than another polished restaurant waiting to be discovered along Orchard Road.
The menu helps create that feeling.
Eizaburo is built around the kind of dishes that encourage sharing: yakitori, sashimi, sushi, donburi and small Japanese plates, alongside sake and other drinks. It is the sort of menu that makes ordering feel less like a decision and more like a conversation.
Someone wants skewers.
Someone else wants sashimi.
Someone orders a rice bowl because they are actually hungry.
And suddenly the table has become a little crowded, which is usually when dinner becomes more interesting.
For lunch, dishes such as the Mega Chicken Karaage Don offer something more substantial. The restaurant has also served seafood donburi and other Japanese comfort dishes, giving diners an easier introduction if a full izakaya-style evening feels like too much.
But it is the atmosphere that stayed with me.
Eizaburo is a sakedokoro, a Japanese-style drinking and dining establishment, and that distinction matters. The experience is not built around one elaborate dish. It is about food arriving gradually, drinks being shared, and people staying at the table long enough for the conversation to wander.
That kind of dining can feel strangely comforting when you're living abroad.
You do not have to understand every Japanese dining custom before you walk in. You can simply start with something familiar, try something new, and let the meal teach you along the way.
It reminded me of why I enjoy exploring Fortune Centre food in the first place. The building has a reputation for affordable, varied dining, but its real charm is how easily you can move between cultures without travelling very far.
That was probably what I liked most about the afternoon: discovering that there was more to Fortune Centre than I had assumed. Every time I wander through its food corners, I seem to find another reason to stay a little longer.
One floor can give you a local lunch.
Another can lead you somewhere completely different.
And somewhere in between, you find a place like Eizaburo.
That is what food can do in a city like Singapore. It can create a sense of place without asking you to leave the place you're already in.
You walk into Fortune Centre expecting an ordinary afternoon.
Then you find yourself three floors above the street, sharing yakitori and Japanese dishes with friends, perhaps with a drink on the table, and for a little while, the city feels different.
Not foreign.
Not entirely familiar either.
Just full of possibilities.
Maybe that is the real taste of belonging: discovering that home does not always have to look like home. Sometimes, you find a little bit of somewhere else, and somehow, it becomes part of your life here.
