Category: Japanese

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Japanese

Ryo’s Noodles – Crows Nest NSW Restaurant Review

It’s extremely rare thing for doctors to go on strike, and probably something that many in power thought would never happen again in NSW, the last time in the 1980s (led at the time by a young doctor now known as CSY) relegated to fleeting mentions in review articles in the MJA[1].

I was proud to have been a small part of the doctors’ walkout on the 8th of April this year, when, even though I wasn’t actually rostered to work that day, I attended rallies both in Western Sydney and at the Ministry of Health’s lavishly appointed headquarters (beautiful staircase in that building) at 1 Reserve Road, St. Leonards.

The protest of it all aside, it was quite nice to see a number of my friends and colleagues that I had worked with over the years, all gathered in one place to protest the untenable state of working conditions and compensation in the New South Wales public health system – a product of both successive Liberal AND Labor governments, which has led to the ongoing attrition of both junior and senior doctors from the state public health system into private practice, as well as public hospitals in other states which are able to offer better staffing, conditions, and on average 30% more in terms of remuneration. Though a Labor party win was once thought by some to be the panacea that would fix the crumbling health system, I do love a bipartisan effort at neoliberalism and keeping the workers down.

Politics aside, one of the people I ran into at the strike, at the rally, was a former frequently featured co-diner on this blog, WKS, and we took the opportunity of being on the forbidden side of the bridge to catch up over a meal at Ryo’s Noodles.

Ryo’s Noodles, I suspect, had never seen such a large turnout for lunch on a weekday, as various small groups of doctors had filled up almost their entire venue capacity, and then some, with a number of people in scrubs still waiting outside for a table even as we left.

The gyoza ($9) were pretty good, juicy, filled with pork and cabbage, fried and crispy, though possibly a little bit burnt, more burnt than I would have liked.

The karaage chicken ($12), a classic, no notes.

The ramen itself, soy sauce flavour ($20.50) I felt was kind of overhyped, and did not reach the criticisable level of the sides. Ryo’s Noodles had been part of my consciousness for the past 5 years since I first started this blog, and at the end of the day I felt that their star item was just not bad – a bit saltier than I would’ve liked, with good chaashu but otherwise definitely not life changing as some have influencers have sold it online.

Ryo’s Noodles
125 Falcon St, Crows Nest NSW 2065
(02) 9955 0225

References
1.Yong CS. The Australian Medical Association at 50 years. Med J Aust. 2012 Aug 6;197(3):182-3. doi: 10.5694/mja12.11108. PMID: 22860798.

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Japanese

Miko Miko – Brighton-Le-Sands NSW Restaurant Review

Bucking the trend of Korean-run Japanese restaurants in Sydney is Miko Miko, a relatively new Chinese-run Japanese restaurant in the coastal suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands, replacing the long standing LUCK SUSHI. We paid a visit to them relatively late on a Wednesday night, to see if they were deserving of all the extremely mixed reviews that they had received on Google Maps.

The salmon sashimi (3 pieces for $7, $14 as pictured) cannot be faulted. It is difficult to do wrong when your only job is to purchase and then slice some fish, and it hit the craving that my partner had that led us to this restaurant in the first place. The grated fresh wasabi, rather than the el cheapo fake stuff from the tube, was noted and appreciated.

The gyudon ($18.80) was really quite good. The beef had a rich flavour, and the portion was adequate to flavour all of the rice. The egg yolk was perfect in its consistency, and again soaked through the rice once popped to flavour almost every grain. The pickles added an appropriate brightness, and I wonder if I could make this at home, though I wouldn’t know what to do with 980g of pickled daikon and 980g of pickled ginger.

The assorted tempura ($15.80) was fine, and though I did not love the prawn, I thought the eggplant tempura was really delicious. Tempura is not something that is easy to do at home, in view of all the oil required, though I do think the portion was quite small for the price asked.

Thoughts
Visiting a Japanese restaurant run by Chinese people, with almost the entire breadth of Japanese cuisine on the menu gave me pause, but ultimately their food was quite alright. I don’t know that I’d get the tempura again though, as good as the eggplant was.

Miko Miko
309 Bay St, Brighton-Le-Sands NSW 2216

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Drinks Japanese

Ogu Ogu – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

This medium muscat grape drink with lychee ($10.50) was actually very yummy, but was it worth 15 minutes of my life spent at work to pay for it, and then another 5 minutes standing around waiting for it to be made?

Probably not.

I do love muscat grape though – the kasugai premium grape jelly beans are out of this world.

Ogu Ogu
127-133 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

(tagged as bubble tea because even though it’s not bubble tea, that’s the general vibe of it)

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Japanese

Edomae Sushi – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I had lunch here with a friend a few days ago and it was actually very good. I didn’t expect a huge amount going in, but it really blew my expectations. There were so many varieties of sea animals that you don’t normally find, with an extensive ‘market price’ menu with vaguely variable pricing, as well as fixed-priced nigiri and gunkan.

Interesting things that I had included fugu, spanner crab, and akanishigai (whelk). My dining friend ate these weird things with me like a champ, but did not enjoy them.

I want to go back.

UPDATE
I finally got a chance to eat here with my girlfriend.

Like before, the variety was excellent, and everything was good.

Except this negitoro and daikon pickle, which was not exciting.

Everything here was very exciting. Salmon Roe (ikura) ($9 for 2). Sea Urchin (uni) ($12.80 for 2) were both delicous, especially with the ikura being not too salty. The Chu-toro ($4.50 for a single piece) was fatty and melty. It would be amazing to have all 3 in a hand roll, but not something this place currently offers. The salmon 3 kinds ($6.60) was just 3 kinds of salmon. Not particularly exciting.

All other fishes were also good, including a number of white fish that I neglected to remember the names of. We had engawa, but the ones we took off the conveyer did not get named on the receipt.

This may have honestly been our first takoyaki ($8.80) since Japan in 2017. I think we ate so much of it back then that we couldn’t face eating it for another 7 years. Not bad.

The concept of soft shell crab ($5.90) becomes spookier to me the more I think about it. So I don’t think about it. I just eat it, and it’s delicious. The oyster katsu hand roll ($5.50) was safe from hungry deer.

Edomae Sushi Burwood
Shop 1/39 Belmore St, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Bakery Japanese

Kurimu – Port Melbourne VIC Restaurant Review

Ignore the location heading – Kurimu is a chain bakery, so it doesn’t really matter where I got this particular original choux ($4.20) from (Westfield Hurstville NSW, by the way) – it would be like going to a Breadtop and writing about a particular outlet, as if there were significant store-to-store variation in the high uniformity products that they produce.

This original choux was a really great snack, with a crunchy buttery almond-coated exterior and a super smooth creamy filling. The most important factor for any dessert, its sweetness level, notched a perfect “not too sweet” from both me and my partner.

Really worth a try the next time you walk past a stall

Kurimu
Multiple Locations – see website.