Category: Japanese

Japanese combines the best of raw and cooked food. Its Sushi and Sashimi are known worldwide for its distinct way to present food.

Osaka Trading Co

Osaka Trading Co Review:

Osaka Trading Co. had literally just been opened for one week when we were there. The restaurant is located in Harold Park Tramsheds. Originally the building was Rozelle Tramway Depot that has been transformed into a food precinct.

Osaka Trading Co designed their menu in line with the current trends: everything is made to be shared! However, I think their perception of small and large is different than mine. I kinda feel like the size was small and super small. Have a look at the dishes below and let me know what you think!

Edamame with seaweed salt – $6

Edamame is the usual starter that you would order in a Japanese restaurant.

Market sashimi, fragrant ponzu sauce – $21

Our first dish is from the ‘small’ share section. As you can see, I would be more inclined to refer to it as ‘tiny’ than ‘small’.

Silken tofu, shiso tapenade – $9.5

Our next dish from the ‘small’ section fits the bill. The tofu was very nice and refreshing. It matched perfectly with the shiso tapenade.

Grilled ocean trout, miso milk sauce, herb oil – $26

This is part of the ‘large – to share’ dishes on the menu. Personally, I think it is more on the medium range. It was also quite hard and messy to share.

Karaage chicken, Japanese tartare sauce – $18.5

Another ‘large’ dish that looked even smaller than the first one. The karaage was acceptable but there was no distinction to any other karaage in a much cheaper restaurant.

Kipfler potato salad, asparagus, onsen egg, miso mayonnaise – $10

The vegetables dish that is usually part of side dishes was actually the same size as the karaage dish above. This is the dish that I enjoyed eating the most.

The final verdict for Osaka Trading Co

In terms of design and concept, there is no doubt Osaka Trading Co is following the current trend. However, we feel that the execution is a bit lacking at the moment. With a bit of adjustments, they can be pretty good in the future.

Did you know?

There are quite a few notable restaurants opening up their shop at Harold Park Tramsheds. Osaka Trading Co. is the second restaurant opened by Tokyo Bird team.

Rating for Osaka Trading Co Restaurant:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $18.5 – $36 per large dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

T18/200 Ross St, Forest Lodge 2037

+61 2 8880 0717

https://www.facebook.com/OsakaTradingCo/

Oct 18, 2016
Sake Japanese Restaurant

Sake Japanese Restaurant Review:

We had a birthday celebration this week and I wanted to have an Omakase dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Omakase is a Japanese term that is loosely translated into ‘leave it up to the chef’. So, instead of choosing from the menu, we let the chef choose our meal for the night. We went to Sake Japanese Restaurant at The Rocks on this occasion.

Sake Japanese Restaurant used to have Omakase on its menu. However, they are no longer offering it. Luckily, on this occasion, we were granted a slightly modified version of Omakase – in which the chef have already decided in advance what we will be having on the night. The price was $125 per person.

Omakase Menu from Sake Japanese Restaurant

Pacific Oysters – with Japanese salsa (ponzu, sweet garlic, tomato salsa)

Each of us got three oysters with three different dressings. Half of the table chose the sweet garlic and the other half chose ponzu as the best one for the night. Despite offering the freshest tasting oyster, the tomato salsa dressing was dead last.

White Soy Snapper – thin slices of sashimi snapper, sesame seeds

The serving of sashimi (9 pieces for 2 people) was quite generous on this occasion. It was quite the perfect continuation of three servings of oysters.

Tuna Ceviche – Lemon dressing, coriander, jalapeno, tomato, crunchy fried onion

The menu listed jalapeno as one of the ingredients. However, this version of ceviche wasn’t spicy at all. Instead, we got this sour-tasting tuna with quite a lot of crunchy onion.

Steamed Prawn shumai – spicy ponzu

The prawn shumai was arguably the strangest Japanese shumai skin I’ve ever seen. Instead of the usual ‘wrapper’, we got noodles wrapping around the prawn meat. The shumai went pretty well with the spicy ponzu. Each of us only received two shumai.

Scampi Tempura – amaze ponzu, red onion, jalapeño, coriander

If they served scampi, I usually ordered two at most in a Japanese restaurant, due to scampi’s more premium nature (in price) compared to the other meat. I was pretty excited that each of us got three scampis. On one side, I thought having a scampi as tempura was quite a wasteful avenue as I would rather eat them as sashimi. However, the scampi tempura that they presented was close to perfection. It was probably one of two highlights of the night.

Caramelised Miso Toothfish – den miso, aji amarillo, shimeji

This was the only dish on the night that truly amazed me. There was that ‘oh my, what was that I just put into my mouth?’ moment. It was probably one of the best fish I have ever tasted. The toothfish’s texture was super smooth with slightly sweet taste.

Nigiri Sushi – tuna, scallop, seared salmon belly, kingfish belly, tamago, red snapper

There were Six beautifully laid out nigiri sushi on the plate. Each one of us got a whole plate for ourselves. I am quite happy with this arrangement, although it might be a bit too much for our partners.

Dragon Egg – Dark chocolate, passionfruit, chocolate mousse

There was a touch of theatrics when they poured the liquid nitrogen onto the dragon egg. Personally, I felt that the dessert was a tad underwhelming. However, my little one had no issue devouring it.

When you cracked it open, you could see another layer of chocolate encasing the passionfruit and chocolate mousse.

Additional:

These two are not part of the Omakase, but we ordered it separately. The edamame as the opening course (would have been nicer if it was an amuse bouche.. but no -_-). The chicken teriyaki is for my little one who still could not eat degustation.

Edamame – $9 – lightly salted soy beans in the pod

Chicken Teriyaki – $29 – sweet teriyaki | bok choy | spring onions

The final verdict for Sake Japanese Restaurant

We had an enjoyable evening at Sake Japanese Restaurant. The portion was also enjoyable, meaning I wasn’t too hungry nor too full.

Did you know?
Sake Japanese Restaurant charges 10% fee on top of your bill when you are in a big group of 10 or more. If you happen to reduce the number to less than 10, they still put that charge on top of your bill.

Rating for Sake Japanese Restaurant:

8.5 / 10

Taste: 8.5 / 10

Price: $125 Omakase

Place: 9.0 / 10

Details:

12 Argyle Street, The Rocks NSW 2000

+61 2 9259 5656

http://www.sakerestaurant.com.au/

Oct 7, 2016
Oishii

Oishii Review:

Oishii is located in quite a prominent place in Hunter Valley. To be honest, we were never interested to even try because of the weird combination that they pitched their restaurant as: Thai and Japanese restaurant.

However, on this occasion, we decided to eat some rice and noodles as we have already had way too much cheese and bread… and apparently there are little to none options around the area.

Fried Rice with Seafood – $19.00

Considering we were here for the rice, fried rice was the obvious choice. The seafood fried rice at Oishii may seem like a very expensive one (especially when compared to most Sydney’s Thai restaurants). However, the portion was quite large and they put quite a lot of seafood toppings!

Chicken Teppan Yaki – $22.90 – barbequed on sizzle plate with stir fried Vegetables

It was a simple chicken teppanyaki with stir fried vegetables. The portion for the teppanyaki was bigger than what I expected.

Pad See Ew – $20.50 – thick white rice noodles with chicken and vegetables

We usually prefer having pad see ew more than pad thai because of the use of dark / sweet soy sauce. Again, Oishii’s pad see ew follows the trait of the other two dishes: quite a big portion with decent amount of meat.

Salmon and Avocado Hand-Rolled Maki – $6.50

The hand-rolled maki was actually an extra dish that I ordered because I was curious about their sushi roll. The temaki was suspended nicely like an ice cream cone.

Deep fried ice cream – $8.50

Deep fried ice cream is our son’s most favourite dessert at the moment. They have the usual three toppings to choose from: strawberry, chocolate and caramel.

The final verdict for Oishii

From the outside, Oishii might seem like an overpriced Asian restaurant with quite a weird combination of cuisines. However, upon closer inspection, their taste was pretty decent and their serving size was massive!

Did you know?

Hunter Valley is the wine region in New South Wales. They are famous of their vineyards and cellar doors.

Rating for Oishii:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $16.50 – $28.90 per main

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Tempus Two Winery, Hunter Valley

Corner of Broke Rd & Mcdonald Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320

+61 2 4998 7051

http://www.oishii.com.au/

Sep 29, 2016

Oku

JAPANESE INDULGENCE AT OKU: Where great food exceeds fancy place

I really prepared myself for Saturday’s meet up on May 29th, 2016. It was a lunch invitation from Zomato Indonesia, which was held at Oku Japanese Restaurant in Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta. When I heard it was at Kempinski the first time, I was like “Oh man, this gotta be good!”

When I arrived, the place met my expectation. Here you’ll meet a clean, modern, and sleek look of Japanese restaurant, but all screams luxury. They have sound-proof private rooms, semi-outdoor private rooms, and a bar too. They were newly opened a couple of months ago.

	Menu They let us picked a seat and mingle with other bloggers. After a few explanations from Rebecca, the PR director of Kempinski, they gave us a couple of menu books. Here was our today’s set menu, full of exciting dishes! Just couldn’t wait to start and I was drooling, haha… You could see that they’d serve more appetizers, just maybe to tease our appetites through main courses.
Appetizer
	Oku Karaage Ok, first teaser was Oku Karaage (IDR 110,000) They were actually black! The plating was as if we were gonna eat coals. I immediately took one, and bit it. Wow, it melted in my mouth! The chicken thigh was tender and juicy, and there was mayo filling inside. They used some kind of black pasta of garlic and leek for the batter to make it looked black. One-of-a-kind Karaage this was! I loved it.
	Karasumi Uni Then the second dish came… On that thick-based plate, you could find angel hair pasta, with uni a.k.a sea urchin and black caviar on top. It is called Karasumi Uni (IDR 320,000). It was served cold, surprisingly. And I found a hint of olive oil when I ate it. There was a sense of bitterness but after a few chewing it was gone.
	Aburi Salmon Roll The next one was Aburi Salmon Roll (price not listed). You can basically find this one in every Japanese restaurant. However, at Oku the presentation was so tempting! Instead of using tobiko on top of the rolls, they used black caviar. It made it tasted so rich.
	Uni The next dish came in in a bowl with bursting smoke! They called it Uni (IDR 245,000). Interesting! Inside the bowl was white asparagus, onsen egg and uni. It was served cold too. Unfortunately out of all the dishes, this was my least favorite. Maybe I just didn’t like it served cold or simply because I’ve never been a fan of asparagus.
	Ajitama Then there was Ajitama (IDR 50,000), organic egg with onion flower and shigureni beef, served with smoked rice straws. The egg didn’t give an egg smell, maybe because it was smoked. I liked this one, except for the small size, haha…
	Sashimi Next that came was a bowl of happiness… or the Japenese would simply call it Sashimi (IDR 350,000). There were 7 chef-selected sashimi, such as salmon, tuna, shrimp, squid, etc. Put as the base of the sashimi were soy jelly, angel hair seaweed, gracilaria seaweed, and sea grapes. These came with excellent quality, very fresh and clean cut.
	Oku’s Signature Cocktails I couldn’t hold myself to try one of Oku’s Signature Cocktails. I picked Ume Jumon (IDR 170,000), which contained Ume-shu, whisky, sugar cane juice, and bitters. In one sip, I knew I fell in love with this one. It was so refreshing, not strong, and just had a slight of bitterness.
Main
	Omi Japanese Beef Ok, then we came to the peak of this culinary party. Did you know what we’ve got for main course? I couldn’t believe myself that we deserved such an indulgence. Okay, don’t freak out! They gave us Omi Japanese Beef (IDR 1,200,000), a 150gr Japanese Highest Marbling A5 OMI Sirloin. The price couldn’t lie. It tasted soooooo good! Like it really melted on your mouth. No extra power of chewing needed, it was so so so soft, tender, and very very juicy. I thought it was everyone’s favorite dish of the day.
	As you can see here, they cooked it perfect medium. The center of the meat was still pink. I ate it altogether with the barbeque sauce, the black paste, wasabi, and fried garlic.
	Potato As a side dish, we got Potato (IDR 50,000). It was a cold potato salad, with cherry blossom, wood smoked aroma. The texture was a combination of mashed potato with diced potato. It was nice but I wasn’t crazy about it.
Dessert
	Granite Dessert time! When these cuties arrived at our table, they got me thinking which one would I choose? These three sorbets on stick are called Granite (IDR 60,000). The green one is made from shiso and japanese plum, the yellow one is from pineapple and yuzu, and the red one is from beetroot and blood orange. I was hesitated between the green and red ones, but I finally chose the green one. It tasted good, so refreshing an had the perfect sourness.
	Lychee Pannacotta Then came the pinkish dessert. They said it was chef’s new creation, a lychee pannacotta (price not listed). The plating was awesome, but I wasn’t a big fan of this one. I found it just a standard pannacotta and a little bit too sweet.
	Yuki Here is Yuki (IDR 120,000). A yuzu-chocolate mousse with lemon cloud, dulcey sponge cake, and crunchy chocolate praline. They added passion fruit sauce at the time. The plating once again was awesome. The mousse, the sauce, the cake and the crunch altogether made an interesting combo. But I didn’t like the lemon cloud though, tasted too sour for me.
	Green Sundae The last dessert, and also the last on the menu today was Green Sundae (IDR 80,000), a sweet matcha custard with shiratama mochi and azuki beans. This one was my favorite. It screamed matcha, the real matcha. Some bloggers found it unflattering because they didn’t like the hint of bitterness. But hey, it’s matcha! I’m soooo gonna buy this one!
	Finally, at the end of the lunch, they brought us the man behind those fancy dishes. That man is Chef Kazumaza Yazawa. He is French-born Japanese. He was actually specialized in French cuisine. But then he got back to his root, and tried to cook Japanese. Thank God he did that, because he’s very good making Japanese cuisine.

The verdict for Oku

OKU is a really great place with great food. They really fulfill their promise: to serve excellent cuisine and not just a fancy restaurant. I’m so pleased with the dishes, and will absolutely go there again. Big thank you to Zomato.id for bringing us here.

Did you know?
The black paste that is used to make Oku Karaage was a mixture of garlic and leek, and it is continuously baked at 40 degree Celcius for a month!

Jun 15, 2016

One Tea Lounge

Review:

We went to One Tea Lounge solely because of its ramen burger. I have actually visited their ‘express’ restaurant at Hawker Lane in Chatswood and I was curious enough to try their main restaurant in the city.

One Tea Lounge and Grill is not your typical Japanese restaurant. ‘Funky’ might be the word that best describe the restaurant. The menu was even funkier. Peking duck fries anyone? Or what about Lava Stone grill?

Peking duck fries – $12 – with hoisin sauce & coriander

Obviously this is the first one I ordered (after ramen burger that is). When the dish arrived, it is a big bowl of fries topped with shredded Peking duck and coriander.

The strange mix of Peking duck with hoisin sauce and chips actually worked really well!

Popcorn curry chicken – $10 – with green tea lime mayo sauce

We ordered this for the little guy. However, he already made his mind up about Peking duck fries. The popcorn was actually pretty good as a snack.

Designer sliders – $21 – Choice of 3 sliders of our signature designer burgers to get started for the night

Ramen burger is actually part of the designer sliders. You can pick between three different sliders (ramen, rice, or matcha baoger) and four fillings: original wagyu beef, braised pork rib, teriyaki chicken, and miso tofu vegetarian. Matcha baoger is a Japanese bun with a hint of matcha.

The burgers were flavoursome. As ‘sliders’, they were not really that small.

Lava Stone Grill 9+ Wagyu Beef 180gr – $48 – Sizzle the best quality wagyu beef with shimeji and enoki on a hot lava stone at the table. Served with 3 dip sauces – matcha sea salt, green tea hollandaise & yakiniku sauce

One of the mains in the menu with quite an eye-catching name and also one of the more expensive ones. It was quite justifiable as they used marble 9+ wagyu beef. The sauce also married up perfectly with the quality beef!

Matcha Fries – $7 – with green tea salt, seaweed or shichimi spicy

The matcha fries was quite standard when compared to the other fries at One Tea Lounge. I guess you can compare it yourself by the picture below.

Matcha Fondue (for 2) – $23 – Fresh fruit, Green tea castella, macarones, cookies with Matcha white chocolate dip sauce

I had a hard time taking a picture of matcha fondue. Everyone seemed to be wanting to dive in straight away! If you look at the pictures below, you’d understand. It has quite a lot of little bits to dip into the pool of heated green tea!

The final verdict for One Tea Lounge

One Tea Lounge and Grill have quite an interesting list of dishes in their menu. If I could, I would try every single one of them!

Did you know?

You should really try their Asahi burger from the lunch menu. I tried it when I visited Hawker Lane in Chatswood

Rating for One Tea Lounge:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $10 – $58

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

Upper Ground Floor, 73 York Street, Sydney 2000

+61 2 9279 3311

http://www.onetealounge.com.au/

May 20, 2016
Izakaya Masuya

Review:

Izakaya Masuya is located at the very heart of Sydney CBD. It is a nice place to wind down after a hectic day at the office. There are quite a lot of varieties at Izakaya Masuya… and quite a few dishes were uncommon in Japanese restaurants in Sydney.

Oden – $1.80 each – Naruto and Chikuwa

Oden was probably the cheapest dishes in the restaurant – depending on how many you actually ordered. On this occasion, we tried Naruto and Chikuwa as those were the two kinds I enjoyed the most.

Izakaya Hot Pot – $48.00 – Snow crab, prawn, scallop, salmon wing, chicken, Gyoza, sausage, seasonal vegetables with Dashi soy soup

By contrast, the hot pot is one of the more expensive dishes in Izakaya Masuya. It came with a few legs of snow crab – justifying the price tag. If I weren’t in a large enough group, I probably wouldn’t have ordered this. It is so much more fun to pick and choose a variety of dishes!

Chicken liver – $6.80 – cooked in ginger soy sauce and mirin

Probably not a lot of you would order this, but we love trying dishes that are pretty uncommon. The chicken liver at Izakaya Masuya was perfectly cooked. I loved how the sauce and mirin kept it from drying up.

Wagyu Robata

It wasn’t the best wagyu I have ever tasted. It was a tad overcooked to my liking.

Salmon Aburi – $14.80 – 8 pcs

Our opinion was a bit divided for this. I liked slightly charred salmon aburi. However, the little one wasn’t a big fan of it – and he usually likes nice salmon.

Roe Rice

Simple sushi rice with fish roe and seaweed flakes. It is perfect if you need to fill your tummy a bit more.

Originally we only ordered the dishes from the list above. However, we were still curious and hungry enough to order some more!

Duck

These duck fillets are not part of the regular menu. We ordered it out of curiosity as duck isn’t a staple in Japanese restaurants.

Karaage Chicken – $6.80 – Japanese style deep fried marinated chicken

Karaage chicken was the ‘substitute’ dish for the little one’s salmon aburi. It is one of those dishes that can’t go wrong in a Japanese restaurant.

Bonito Tataki – $9.80

Picked bonito tataki purely out of interest and the fact that I was still not full.

Desserts

Zenzai – $5.80 and Green Tea Ice Cream – $5.80

It was actually my first time trying a Zenzai. Zenzai is a porridge of azuri beans with mochi.

The final verdict for Izakaya Masuya

If you work in Sydney CBD, Izakaya Masuya is a good place to wind down. They have quite a large selection of Japanese food and drinks.

Did you know?

I must admit that I actually made the wrong booking for this one. I was supposed to go to Masuya Japanese restaurant that are located just next to it. Somehow, I dialled the number for Izakaya Masuya.

Masuya Japanese restaurant is the more upmarket version in the group.

Rating for Izakaya Masuya:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $1.80 – $48

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

Ground Floor, 12 O’Connell Street, Sydney 2000

+61 2 9233 8181

http://www.masuyainternational.com.au/en/izakayamasuya/

Mar 30, 2016