The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
The Dolar Shop is, to date, the most luxurious and expensive hot pot restaurant I’ve ever eaten at. We paid around $70 per person for a full hot pot meal with 7 attendees. The restaurant was operated in the personal hot pot format, and so each person needed to fork out for individual soup bases.
The quality of the wagyu was truly extreme, and each briefly-boiled mouthful was a great experience. The sauce station provided ample choices, and there were lower-yield complimentary options including fresh fruit and matcha and vanilla soft serve.
UPDATE DECEMBER 2022
I went back to The Dolar Shop with my friends HWJ XWO and CJP, and we managed to spend even more ($85 pp) this time. Key differences from this visit were that we, by choice, had a lot more vegetable and tofu. Wagyu was the only beef available with no cheaper options on the menu – I’m not sure if this was the case the first time around. I had the Exquisite Silver Soup on the recommendation of HWJ and XWO, which was a peppery soup containing some pork tripe and chicken broth, quite good, but quite expensive – I’m not sure that a plain soup would’ve been that much worse.
They also mixed some initial sauces for us tableside, with the option to also create our own at the sauce bar, which I don’t remember happening the first time, and the dessert changed to quite a good strawberry and yoghurt flavoured soft serve.
VERDICT The Dolar Shop, being extremely expensive, is really only a high end option for a special occasion. There are much plenty of cheaper hot pot places across Sydney that are almost as good.
The Dolar Shop Sydney Shop 5-7 1909 Dining Precinct, Level 3 Market City, 13 Hay St, Haymarket NSW 2000 0487 886 677
Our recent return to living and working in Western Sydney has given us ample opportunity to revisit some of our favourite cafes from before our 12 month Eastern Suburbs sojourn. Auvers Cafe is the Rhodes counterpart to Auvers Dining in Darling Square, and keeps the tradition of Asian-French fusion alive in a more casual daytime venue.
For drinks we had fun milk in two varieties – black sesame and hojicha. Both were quite good, though I wish their fun milk was offered with some caffeine included.
The first food I want to talk about is this bargain basement scrambled egg ($4). It’s not the best scrambled egg I’ve ever hard (Dopa’s furikake scrambled egg don takes the cake by far), but at $4 is an absolute steal.
The Beef Curry Pasta ($23) was seriously good. It’s been one of our favourites over the last three years, frequently brought home by my partner in a takeaway box after a night shift. While it was good back then, having it fresh in person brought a whole level of previously unknown joy. Eat-in plating of this pasta was quite beautiful, similar to the Ox Tongue Soba Cabonara at their Darling Square store. The curry sauce, though not written down explicitly any more, was a tasty and flavourful rendang style base that coated each strand of pasta perfectly. The serving of beef was generous and tender, and the parmesan crisp added a nice and upmarket feeling variation in texture to the dish. I particularly liked the addition of tomato salsa on top, which added a delicious freshness and contrasting flavours. A can’t miss.
The Squid Roulade ($22) was a bit of a confusing and overall non-satisfying dish. The main attraction was essentially a squid tube filled with dry and almost gamey tasting “wagyu” beef mince. This tube was situated on a bed of black rice with edamame and pomegranate seeds mixed in, topped with crunchy fried kale. The rest of the squid was battered and deep fried, served aside the roulade and next to a swirl of black cauliflower puree.
I thought that this dish ultimately failed in both taste and composition. The taste of the squid roulade was too mild and unexciting, and the mince inside so dry that I doubt it being wagyu made any difference at all. The rice mixed with edamame and pomegranate was fine but difficult to pick up and eat with the fork provided. The fried kale was my partner’s favourite part of the dish – she does like fried foods in general – but I felt didn’t fit with the theme of the rest of the dish. I would avoid this one.
The chocolate croissant looked very plain but was actually surprisingly full of chocolate cream. Quite good.
SUBSEQUENT VISIT
The Soy Cured Salmon ($26) was an interesting, beautifully presented near miss for me. The fatty cured sashimi salmon was soft and delicate, but let down by the blobs of radish and yuzu gel, which I felt were too salty, even though I enjoyed the citrus notes. The accompanying salad was probably better than the main attraction. I really enjoyed the fresh little pickled radishes, which just tasted so bright and crisp. The avruga caviar, which I am told is not actually caviar, was also great mixed into the quinoa to give it a bit of umami and salty flavour and set it apart from all the dull quinoa out there.
I quite enjoyed the Grilled Wagyu Soft Tacos ($28), even though in my weakened state I was not allowed to enjoy all of it. The wagyu beef cubes were juicy and tender, worked well with the yakiniku sauce mayonnaise, which is something I’ve never seen anywhere else. The perfectly light and moist scrambled eggs also benefited from the yakinku sauce, while the salsa with coriander added an element of freshness. The hot chips, of which I only had a single chip, were sadly extremely good and fresh. I can’t comment on the naan bread (a weirdly thick choice for a “taco”) as neither my partner nor I had any of it.
Overall I can recommend Auvers Cafe in Rhodes as one of the best places for an all-day Asian fusion brunch menu out West. Service is speedy, and the food is great.
Chippendale’s Gyusha is a mixed-service restaurant and meat-focused grocery store. Their restaurant business offers a selection of meats for yakiniku and shabu-shabu, as well as a less core selection of sushi and sashimi.
Gyusha’s yakiniku meats can be ordered as part of teishoku sets or on their own. It was only a few dollars extra to add a lot of extra accompaniments to our order of chicken thigh, and so we ended up going with a chicken yakiniku set ($18.80), which along with its core offering of chicken thigh marinated in soy and spicy sauces (150g each, 300g total) came with a bowl of miso soup, some agedashi tofu, pickles, rice, tamago, edamame, and a small garden salad.
The chicken thigh meat was marinated well , but not too overmarinated. My pick was the soy marinated chicken as it had less sugar on it to burn. The rest of the teishoku set was actually quite delightful, and we loved the variety and fun flavours on offer to us at such a cheap price.
If I had one complaint about the yakiniku experience it’s that our grill wasn’t changed during our time, and it did get quite encrusted with burnt marinade towards the end.
The shabu-shabu hot pot with 300 grams of sliced wagyu beef also came with its own set of accompaniments – thought not as complete as the chicken yakiniku set. This set was without miso soup or agedashi tofu, which was a shame as the miso soup bowl ended up being the bowl we had that was really suitable for eating the shabu shabu. The flavours were light and good, and there was plenty of mushroom and vegetables (and just a little bit of tofu) to go with our meat. Additional meat for the shabu shabu could’ve been added on at the same price as yakiniku, and indeed the meat was interchangeable as we did grill some of the shabu shabu meat.
VERDICT We had quite a nice time at Gyusha. Their teishoku set menus are quite aggressively priced and provide a really nice array of different flavours. The yakiniku and shabu shabu components of the meal consisted of high quality meat at a reasonable price. I thought it was odd that the guy kept calling me “young man”.
I can definitely recommend giving Gyusha a try.
A4.5
Gyusha Shop 7/6 Central Park Ave, Chippendale NSW 2008 (02) 9304 0451
The suburbs North of the bridge are full of Japanese-flavoured adventures, however they are can be difficult to access to us mere mortals. My South Eastern Sydney colleagues had previously had dinner at Spanish Sakaba, but missed out on their famous wagyu ramen. We therefore made a special decision to cross the bridge for a second time as a group to give it a go.
The Yuzu slushy ($8.80) was quite good, but very expensive and small.
The deep fried wagyu gyoza (4 for $10) were pretty good. The filling was more complex than the usual cabbage pork stuff that you get at most Japanese restaurants in Sydney. My brave senior colleague had the great idea to ask for an extra gyoza for an extra fee, so that we could each have one.
We each ordered a Trio Wagyu Ramen ($29.29), which was served in a large, hat-like dish (see above). This was a mixture of oxtail, sliced beef, and tri-tip in a thick chicken and beef soup. I liked this, however thought that the fatty meats made the soup too thick and rich. Apparently the wagyu oxtail ramen without the other two meats comes with a lighter soup.
The chef served the five of us a complimentary wagyu salad with horseradish dressing. In my opinion this was actually the best dish of the meal, and we were so surprised that we were offered it for free. It was really delicious, and it had plenty of just-charred meat. The horseradish dressing added a great flavour to the dish. I would honestly pay for this if I could, but I don’t think it’s even on the menu.
The Angus Beef Katsu with Chips ($27.80) was not what I expected. First off, $28 is a super expensive for a burger and chips. My colleague who had been here before said that it was a classic Japanese burger – I thought this would be some epic level hamburg. What it actually was was a katsu crumbed beef steak with cabbage and tonkatsu sauce. I thought it was good, but not great, and definitely not $28 great. The chips were fine. Normal shoestring chips.
The Chips with Osaka sauce ($7.50) were just fine. Neither strong nor weak.
My overall verdict is: good, expensive. Avoid beef burger. Get beef salad (try to order off the menu)
It takes good planning, a childhood spent spamming clicks into party quests in MapleStory, and a generous helping of luck to secure a spot at Kuon Omakase, one of Sydney’s newest and at $200, most expensive omakase restaurants. With only two seatings of eight per night, it is an experience so exclusive that multiple senior medical colleagues expressed their dismay at not being to secure a visit for themselves in the weeks leading up to our visit. One of these colleagues even offered to pay a 40% premium to buy one of our seats. Essentially it is Japanese Dorsia.
Executive Chef Hideaki Fukada started the night by introducing us to his lobster friend, who would soon be taken into the back room and slaughtered to produce our first dish of the night: Ise Ebi Sashimi (live lobster) with toro and caviar. Premedicated with loratadine and with adrenaline in pocket, I dug into the sweet, fresh flesh of the lobster, the delicious fatty umami of the tuna belly, and the actually pretty-soft saltiness of the osetra caviar. This was, overall, a good dish to start – even if I was extremely nervous about having an allergic reaction with the first bite of a $240 meal.
Second on the menu were Aomori Hotate, sauteed scallops with butter garlic soy sauce from the Aomori region, on the northernmost part of Honshu. These were lightly flavoured, slightly tougher than I expected, and really didn’t do anything special for me. In fact, they got me a bit worried about the meal to come.
The Traditional Chawanmushi, an egg custard with fish cake, chicken, scallop, prawn, and gingko nut was next – a warm bowl of subtly flavoured goodness. The egg custard was soft and silky, and I felt like I could eat bowls and bowls of it on its own. As for the embedded proteins, the prawn was large and sweet, but unfortunately there is nothing much more to say about the chicken, scallop, or fish cake.
The kusakari tsubodai tatsuta age, fried armorhead served with a slice of okra and a slice of lemon, was really also just fine – though it doesn’t look like armorhead is a commonly eaten fish. The subtle layer of batter helped to seal in the fish’s moisture and sweetness, though at the end of the day this dish didn’t feel much more elevated than any other battered and deep fried fish that I’ve had in my life.
The uni tempura wrapped in shisho leaf was a $20 supplement and one of the best morsels of the night. The Hokkaido sea urchin was plump and creamy, with not even a hint of bitterness. The warmth added to the sea urchin through the tempura process helped make an already melty snack creamier than I could have even imagined. A must get add-on.
This giant abalone was flashed before our eyes five minutes before our next course. This is apparently the amount of time it takes to slice, dice, steam, sauce, and plate abalone.
The steamed abalone in Saikyo miso sauce was generally poorly receieved among our party. Though we appreciated the theatre of seeing the entire abalone, the complex, slightly bitter sauce was certainly very divisive. While I didn’t hate the sauce, I also didn’t really feel like this was anything above and beyond what you’d get in a standard Chinese seafood restaurant.
The Wagyu dish, a full blood MB9+ wagyu strip loin with optional foie gras ($20 supplement), was divine. The juicy meltiness of the beef paired perfectly with the rich umami of the foie gras and the semi-sweet berry sauce. Each bite of this was treasured, though I think it would’ve been just as good without the foie gras.
A fresh yuzu sorbet was offered as our meal transitioned into the nigiri zone.
Executive Chef and Owner Hideaki Fukada, caught in a non-photogenic moment, displaying his box of treasures.
The ten-piece nigiri omakase was overall an excellent journey through the Sydney Fish Markets’ best buys of the day. While it makes for a very poor food blog reading and writing experience for me to not know what exactly each piece was, our friendly chefs also did not make a huge effort to tell us. One tiny bone I have to pick is that the chef made a point to tell us that particular bites cost him $200/kg from the supply side. As a group each paying $240 for much less than a kilogram of fish, it felt like these pricings almost cheapend the experience.
Our selection was essentially an assortment of cuttlefish, o-toro, chu-toro, cuttlefish, calamari, prawn, marinated akami, imperator, tamago, and this most fabulous piece of rich and umami fatty tuna neck that I’ve chosen as the highlight photo. Each bite was a delight, but this piece really took the cake as something special to remember.
Back to our regular programming, this lobster miso soup was delicious and warming. Unfortunately no tools were supplied with which to eat the our lobster friend’s meat, and while I can infer from this that it wasn’t meant to be eaten, this didn’t stop us from trying.
The star of the night and Chef Fukada’s specialty is this amazing temaki of uni, toro, and ikura. Essentially my three favourite sea products into one, each bite of this hand roll was bursting with oceanic umami flavours. Absoutely amazing.
A hot cup of matcha green tea signified the end of our main course, and the beginning of dessert.
Our dessert was a matcha white chocolate mousse, topped with boba with a side of sliced strawberry. Small and delicate, like the rest of our meal.
VERDICT Kuon, by virtue of its exclusivity and unparalleled price-tier, is difficult to consider objectively. Most of the food, especially the bits that involved sea urchin or tuna belly, was certainly very good, however there were still some misses, not just for me, but also for the rest of our group. Comparing it to other Sydney fine dining establishments in this top-tier price range, I’d definitely consider Kuon ($240) to shoot above Quay ($290), and probably also Tetsuya’s ($250). Comparing it to other omakase experiences I’ve had in Sydney, however, I’m not sure that I can definitely say that our meal was worth three times that of our also-excellent omakase experience at Yachiyo ($80). That said, it’s probably the uni-toro-ikura hand roll, and the fact that my partner missed out (dutifully doing a locum in Victoria), that means I’ll probably be back at Kuon in due time.
Kuon Omakase Shop 20/2-58 Little Hay St, Sydney NSW 2000 0488 688 252
