Categories
Japanese

Yakitori Jin – Haberfield NSW Restaurant Review

There aren’t that many places to get yakitori in Sydney, especially if you’re looking anywhere even moderately west. Yakitori Jin, a tiny restaurant tucked away in Haberfield, stands on its own as an accessible, high-quality inner-West izakaya.

The assorted today’s sashimi ($26) was quite good. It featured thick cuts of salmon, kingfish, somewhat-fatty tuna, and scallop, and worked out to be quite good value for money, especially in view of the tuna.

The pickled white fish was nice.

Hiding on the special’s board was o-toro sashimi, which was on offer for 4 pieces for $28, or 6 pieces for $42. $7 a piece is honestly quite cheap for this kind of fish. Chu-toro is also on offer for the slightly more price conscious.

I wasn’t a big fan of this salmon tataki thing. I thought that the marinade was too strong, and the flavours too intense, drowning out the flavour of the salmon.

The ebi chilli mayo ($18) was so good that my ebi-hating partner even had more than one piece. The tempura batter was light and crunchy, and the sauce complementary rather than overpowering.

The chicken karaage ($13) was economical, though I thought the texture and cooked-ness were a bit overdone. The rest of the table liked it though.

The home made yaki gyoza were good, though the prize for the best gyoza I’ve had in Sydney still goes to Nakano Darling.

The scallop with miso butter (2 for $12) were good, though expensive. The scallops were tender and cooked well, and the miso flavours complimentary to the seafood.

And now to the yakitori and kushiyaki.

The wagyu tri-tip ($10 each) was juicy and tender. Much larger in size than ones you may get at competing restaurants.

The negima (chicken thigh and leek) ($6 each) has always been my go-to, and Yakitori Jin’s did not disappoint, offering up juicy pieces of thigh and chunky umami leek glazed with tare.

The enoki mushroom with pork kushiyaki ($5 each) was a bit difficult to eat in view of the long fibrous strands of enoki, but ultimately very juicy and tasty.

The chicken wings ($5 each) were slightly crispy on the skin and extremely juicy inside. A bit of a mess to eat with colleagues, but absolutely delicious and my partner’s favourite.

Of all of the things we ordered, this was one of the only things we didn’t really like. The mune mentai mayo yakitori ($6 each) was a bit drier than the chicken thigh and wing based yakitori, owing to the use of chicken breast. The spicy mentai mayo added a degree of wetness texture-wise which was welcome, however flavour-wise was not.

These dry-aged salmon tail skewers ($8) were also a bit fishy and not excellent.

INTERIM THOUGHTS
I can actually highly recommend giving Yakitori Jin a visit. It’s not a cheap meal – we spent $75 per person including a 300mL bottle of sake and 0.75 beers each – but quite good.


PS It’s worth making a call if there are no open bookings online.

SUBSEQUENT VISIT – MAY 2022

My partner and I enjoyed our first visit to Yakitori Jin so much that we went back, about a year later. We rarely make second visits to restaurants, given the variety and quality of food on offer in Sydney.

We were treated to this sesame-seasoned cabbage just for sitting down.

The bluefin tuna tasting plate ($28) consisting of 2 pieces each of toro, chu-toro, and akami was appropriately priced and served with some good quality wasabi.

It is physically impossible to keep my fiancé from a good croquette, and only a fool would try. These crab flavoured cream croquettes ($12) were in fact quite creamy and potato-y, crab flavoured but lacking for some more crab, in my opinion. She loved them.

The Miso-marinated black cod lettuce wraps (2 for $12) were good, with nice oiliness of the cod really coming through. Satisfied my toothfish cravings, or at least kicked them down the road for a couple of months.

My partner wanted none of the gizzard (tare) ($4). It was fine. Gizzardy.

I didn’t think I would enjoy the sasami ume mayo ($6 each), and I was correct. Every time I’ve had yakitori tenderloin I’ve been disappointed by the dryness, and I truly believe that thigh is the best kind of flesh for grilling by yakitori. Though the plum and mayonnaise helped moisten these skewers, it would’ve just been better as thigh.

The Wagyu Tri-Tip Skewer with Mustard Miso ($12) was seriously good. Thick cut, tender, juicy. A bit on the pricier side but definitely worth trying.

The Fremantle Octopus Skewer ($9) was tender and creamy, but I probably wouldn’t pay $9 for it again.

We enjoyed the kamameshi ($22) which is essentially a bowl of rice topped with flying fish roe, pickles, seaweed, and shallot. Fragrant and flavourful, full of umami goodness and the textural fun of popping-candy like flying fish roe.

The Meat ball with mild boiled egg ($7). Who would’ve thought such a thing would be so good? Loved the silky texture of the egg over the meat. Can definitely recommend it.

The chicken skin (tare) ($5) was not better than negima. I would be happy for a 60% negima meal.

The wing (tare) ($5) I feel should’ve been priced at greater than $5 beacvuse it was huge, juicy, meaty and delicious. At the same price as a skewer of skin.

VERDICT
A year on, it’s still good. One of my favourite places in Sydney, and thankfully not on the wrong side of the bridge for us mere mortals.

Yakitori Jin
101 Ramsay St, Haberfield NSW 2045
(02) 8057 2780

Categories
Café

Piccolo Me – North Rocks NSW Restaurant Review

All things considered, Piccolo Me is home to some pretty tasty, pretty cheap food.

The North Rocks Smash ($19) is a full featured smashed avocado plate consisting of smashed avocado on toast, rolls of smoked salmon, two poached eggs, and some tomato and herby stuff. All elements are good, including the runny yolks inside the poached eggs. At $19 it makes for a pretty reasonable value proposition. Just don’t add a beef patty for $5 like me and then wait fifteen minutes before digging into it.

The Hangover Roll ($10) is a great bacon, egg, and hashbrown roll at a great price. It hits just right, and it hits with the best.

The Piggie Smalls Wrap ($12) is very similar to the Hangover Roll, but in wrap form. I’m not too sure what the difference is, actually, but assume there must be one. Also good.

The Hen Solo Wrap ($12), unfortunately not pictured, is a nice chicken wrap that is jam packed with grilled chicken and enough sauce and tomato to maintain the moistness. I can also recommend.

The Pablo Escobowl salad ($15.90) is, like many of Piccolo Me’s other dishes, a meat forward meal. The pulled pork was absolutely excellent, with good moistness and a slightly sweet and slightly tangy marinade. Maybe it’s the fact that I hadn’t eaten for 24 hours before this meal, but my first taste of it sent me straight to heaven. The other salad components were fine but nothing to write home about, the smashed avocado being the secondary breadwinner of the dish. I opted for some extra Moroccan chicken ($4) in my “salad”, which unfortunately ended up a bit dry for my liking. A good bowl.

Piccolo Me North Rocks
6/213 N Rocks Rd, North Rocks NSW 2151
0468 617 337

Categories
American Café

Happyfield – Haberfield NSW Restaurant Review

I loved the bright, energetic yellow colour scheme of Happyfield, Haberfield’s latest American-style diner, but nice colours don’t stand just on their own. Happyfield’s menu is also a force to be reckoned with.

This Savoury Stack ($21) was amazing. The best pancakes I have ever had, even better than the sourdough pancakes that DTC made for HMB and me in his own home. These pancakes were just so light, creamy, and fluffy on the inside. The maple syrup was not too sweet, and added rather than subtracted from the experience. Pepe Saya’s butter, one of the best widely available Australian artisanal butters, was a worthy splurge by the restauranteurs, as it kept up the delicious and premium theme. The bacon was well cooked, with just the right amount of softness and crispiness without venturing into hardened territory. The two fried eggs, sunny side up, had perfectly runny yolks that mixed in with the maple syrup and butter to form a umami sauce. Perhaps best of all was the slightly spiced, slightly sweet brown powder on top, which may have been cinnamon (this is not confirmed). The child on the table next to us hated it (his mother asked their waiter what it was, but she didn’t get a straight answer), but to be fair children generally have limited palates. Said child didn’t finish his breakfast. Perhaps when he grows into adulthood he will come back and experience this pancake dish for the masterpiece that it is. The best pancakes I’ve ever had.

The Drippy Eggs with Salmon Roe ($18) was well-loved by my girlfriend. She’s always been a big potato fan, and the pomme puree with horseradish was no exception. The mashed potato was silky smooth, and the addition of codded eggs and a bit of salmon roe (for an extra $3) added good and varied flavours. I wasn’t a huge fan of the focaccia sliders (bread for bread’s sake), but I did like the dill in the salad. I don’t think this was as good or as special as the pancakes, but she liked it so I am duty bound to tell you.

The McLovin Muffin ($13) is a McDonald’s style breakfast muffin filled with folded eggs, cheddar cheese, and two chicken sausage patties. I enjoyed the light, slightly herby flavour of the housemade chicken patties, as well as the softness and runniness of the eggs. It is a sign of culinary expertise when the eggs and the cheese of a dish mixes into one, and even though they were discrete layers in this muffin I do feel like they had an omelette-vibe to them. I have been thinking about this muffin for some time. I can’t wait to have another.

Even the baked beans ($5) were good. I have tried to avoid cafe baked beans, ever since I had some very average ones at Grounds of Alexandria in February 2020. It is surprising, therefore, that Happyfield with its Grounds alum has such nice beans on offer.

VERDICT
Happyfield lives up to its name, inspiring happiness through its bright yellow fitout, pleasant service, and delicious food. I can’t wait to go back.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2024
We went back. It didn’t quite live up to my recollections.

The citrus confit salmon ($7.50) was super middling, though I don’t know why I had pictured a tetsuya-style confit fish for $7.50

On our second visit, we had the McGruber Muffin ($18) with pork sausage patties rather than the chicken McLovin Muffin. The taste was generally good, with a nice and runny fried egg included, however overall too salty for my liking.

The Potato Hashbrowns (2 for $6) were similarly very salty, and I found it difficult to enjoy the added flavour of the house-made chilli mayo on top of the already ‘happy salted’ potato.

Luckily the pancakes were as good as ever.

Happyfield
96 Ramsay St, Haberfield NSW 2045
(02) 9716 5168

Categories
Fine Dining Modern Australian

Poly – Surry Hills NSW Restaurant Review

We ate at Poly to welcome my friend and colleague HZM into the warm embraces of the NSW public service.

The fried potato with salted egg yolk ($16), layered internally and topped with some chives was a bit of a cube-like hash brown. I think it’s generally well liked, and certainly my potatohead of a fiancé liked it, but it didn’t really do much for me. It was just salty and oily like every other fried potato dish out there.

This comté tart ($20) was small and expensive but kind of amazing. The pastry was good, but the filling was superb, rich and creamy flowing cheesy umami, though I think it was a bit less warmed-up than the online photos from secondary sources show it as.

The cannibal sandwich ($18) with mostly raw beef (presumably) and horseradish cream between buttery fried bread was excellent. I don’t know if this photo shows a quarter or half of the full serving, but either way the quantity you get is low, but the taste is high and you shouldn’t look past it if you’re an animal eater.

The grillda ($12), was very good. I didn’t love the gilda at Continental Deli, but this skewer of anchovy, tuna, olive, and pickled chilli was a completely different story. So umami, and yet so fruity. Incredible.

I don’t know what this was, but do not really care enough to try and find out. Some kind of plant. Didn’t wow me.

This Black Angus sirloin steak with bone marrow and pepper sauce ($68) was not bad, but not astounding. I don’t really like to order steak at restaurants as I feel like I can cook steak myself without much drama and to a fairly good degree, and so I am always quite doubtful of the cost-quality balance. I know that there are many out there who will disagree, but the combination of small butchers offering dry aged beef and easily accessible home-based sous vide techniques has really changed the game as far as steak is concerned over the past decade. Sure, I might not be able (or rather willing) to make a pepper sauce to smother my steak in, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the optimal thing to smother a steak in anyway. Essentially all this is to say is that it was fine.

COMMENTS
With a lot of very good but expensive things and a constantly changing menu, I think I will be back, in time.

Poly
74-76 Commonwealth St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 8860 0808

Categories
Japanese

Gold Class Daruma – Sydney NSW Omakase Restaurant Review

After an aborted attempt at omakase at Gold Class Daruma during the COVID-19 delta outbreak in 2021, my partner and I were finally able to make our way there to experience Chef Yuta Nakamura’s lunch omakase in early 2022.

We started with some kind of beverage. I don’t really know what to tell you. I only had a small sip. I’ve kind of stopped drinking.

Our appetizer was a small, four shaped star plate with tiger prawn, octopus, and spicy cod roe. The cod roe sack was served slightly torched, and though found it to have too strong and salty a flavour for my liking, much preferring such sea eggs mixed with land eggs in a sort of mentai mayo execution. The octopus and prawn were much milder and more enjoyable, with a nice nuttiness exhibited by the prawn and a kind of olive-oil flavour from the tender octopus.

Our next dish was a sashimi dish featuring kingfish, salmon, mildly seared tuna, and seaweed, smoked in front of us on the bench. The smoked flavour was present though ultimately missable if the whole affair didn’t occur before our eyes. The seaweed had an unexpected but appealing apple-like flavour.

Next up was grilled alfonsino collar, though its identity remained a mystery to both us and the diners next to us for some time. It was only when we asked Chef Yuta to repeat himself that he brought out his labelled diagram of the fish and the guy next to me stopped pretending to know what it was. This part of the alfonsino, also known as imperador, was quite oily and mildly fishy. My partner and I were not the biggest fans of this for the fish itself, but we did appreciate the seasoning as well as the yummy pickles that accompanied it.

I’ve never been disappointed by chawanmushi, and this iteration with abalone was no exception, with its silky warming texture and strongly umami flavours.

This is a box of sea creatures about to be placed on rice, divided between four patrons. The fact that Chef Yuta, arguably the most popular chef at Gold Class Daruma, only had the four of us for his lunch seating is quite interesting, as it means that it is difficult for them to achieve the economies of scale that omakase chefs with booked out seatings of six or even eight diners can achieve.

On offer nigiri-wise was a selection of alfonsino, bonito, see eel, paradise prawn, oyster, scallop, kingfish, travelly, cuttlefish, and o-toro. All pieces of nigiri were of a top standard, with fresh fish and perfect warm rice. The cuttlefish did not tickle my partner’s fancy, and she had quite a visceral reaction to its slimy texture, though I personally enjoyed how creamy it was. The bonito was an extremely soft mouthful, and kingfish belly was aburied to further accentuate its oiliness more.

I’m long thought that I might be mildly allergic to raw crustaceans, but steeled myself for my encounter with this raw paradise prawn, which proved to be sweet and non-deadly. The aburi scallop was served with yuzu kosho on top.

The nigiri course was interrupted by a small ikura hand roll.

The nigiri course was capped off with o-otoro topped with caviar, and a great grilled sea eel nigiri that was surprisingly meaty with a non-oily, flaky texture.

The sea urchin and mashed tuna hand roll, with tuna mashed before our eyes was quite good and of an equal standard to other rolls served at other restaurants. I will note that unlike competitors Kuon and Hachijoi Chef Yuta chose to separate the ikura from the uni and toro, serving them as two rolls rather than combined into one.

The miso soup, nearing the end of our meal had a sweet, tare-like flavour.

I didn’t really go to Gold Class Daruma expecting an amazing dessert, and my expectations were therefore fulfilled when we received this mixed plate of yuzu sorbet (good but I feel like it was probably from a tub – happy to be corrected), red bean (which my partner, red-bean hater, liked), matcha cake (quite good actually), and yuzu jelly (which tasted like nothing).

THOUGHTS
For $110 pp I feel that Chef Yuta’s omakase at Gold Class Daruma is pretty reasonable. I must admit though that I didn’t love the smoked dish, the mentaiko, or the dessert, and it is highly possible that Gold Class Daruma’s reasonably priced a la carte offerings (ie. $50 for 10 piece nigiri from Chef Yuta) may be even better.

I’d still go again, either for a la carte or for omakase by one of the other chefs.

Gold Class Daruma
The Grace Sydney, Level 1/77 York St, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9262 1190