HOT: Sake Restaurant and Bar, Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne

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I visit the Arts Centre Melbourne reasonably frequently and so I’m always on the lookout for great pre and post-theatre dining options in the vicinity.

I think I’ve alighted on a new favourite. Sake Restaurant and Bar, a fusion Japanese restaurant and bar originally hailing from Sydney (and with a Brisbane outpost too), launched last year as part of the Hamer Hall refurbishment.

I can’t believe it’s taken this long for Melbourne’s arts precinct to take full advantage of its river frontage – the view the restaurant commands of Princes Bridge, Federation Square, Flinders Street station and the skyscrapers of the CBD must be one of the most iconic Melbourne postcard images you can find.

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The restaurant is double-storied and very large, though you won’t feel like you’re in a beer hall or a dining shed. There are small tables riverside, larger tables inside (though the restaurant full opens out to the waterfront when the weather is pleasant), booths and more seating upstairs.

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The decor is contemporary Japanese chic. I loved the rising sun foil artwork hanging at one end of the restaurant, the swathes of cloth draped from the roof beams, the fibre optic sakura branches and the beautiful plateware, all of which is imported from Japan (so don’t break it!).

I was invited to sample various dishes from Sake’s restaurant and bar snacks menu with appropriate sake and wine matches. Most of the dishes are part of the ‘signature dishes menu’ which is $88 per person.

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The night started off with a cocktail, a Japanese version of the Tom Collins. A refreshing gin and mint hit for a hot summer’s evening.

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To start from the bar menu we tried paper-thin slices of translucent Hiramasa kingfish topped with slices of jalapeno and a small bunch coriander in yuzu soy ($22). This is one of Sake’s signature dishes for a reason – the lightness and delicate flavours of the sashimi are heightened by the very mild chillis and freshness of the coriander. It’s fusion that works.

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Another fish+chilli combination in the entrees is the salmon tataki with jalapeno dressing ($24). While the combination of the rich salmon and creamy, almost foamy, dressing was interesting, it paled in comparison the cleaner, brighter flavours of the kingfish. I felt that the richness of the dish needed a cut of acid to balance it out.

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Next up the crispy coins of panko rice balls would be perfect with a beer in hand. I found the interior to be more rice than the advertised soy bean, bamboo and shiitake mushroom hence they are very filling, especially when doused in the thick wasabi mayonnaise.

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In contrast, I didn’t think the popcorn shrimp ($29) was up to scratch and if I was going to order a fried morsel option I’d go with the panko rice balls. The tempura batter was much too heavy and the prawns were a bland, watery flavour masked by a spicy sauce that wasn’t spicy enough for me. It was generously proportioned though and I saw plenty of other tables enthusiastically tucking into the bowls with chopsticks.

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If you don’t like fried food (or even if you do) as a starter I’d steer you towards the grilled cubes of miso marinated Patagonion toothfish ($20) instead. I’ve never eaten toothfish before and I’d liken the texture to that of eel, in this case served with a thin veneer of caramelisation from the grill and resting on tiny springy lettuce leaves.

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From the restaurant menu the slices of medium rare wagyu beef teriyaki was meltingly tender, with the seared grill lines imparting a slightly smokey flavour into the meat ($39). It was almost outshone by the combination of sauteed shiitake and buckwheat in yakiniku sauce – a surprising combination of crunch and sponginess and an even better accompaniment to the meat than the traditional bowl of steamed rice.

Sake Restaurant and Bar Hamer Hall Arts Centre Melbourne

Dessert was a buttermilk pannacotta with passionfruit coulis which isn’t on the usual dessert menu. I don’t normally get excited by pannacotta but this was an unusual texture – light and fluffy and more akin to a meringue than a gelatine-set dessert.

At Sake Restaurant and Bar food is interesting and generally works well, the staff are highly professional and the setting is magnificent. The locations in Sydney and Brisbane are both one-hatted restaurants and I expect the Melbourne version will be similarly awarded. Melburnians seemed to have already embraced it.

Sake Restaurant and Bar,  +61 (3) 8687 0775

 

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HOT: Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar, 17 Liverpool St, Melbourne

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My parents recently returned from Japan where they raved about all the fabulous food that they ate, including oodles of noodles. So when they came to Melbourne to visit recently I pressed them to come with me to Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar and bestow their expert opinion on the handmade buckwheat noodles made on site.

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The first thing you notice on arrival at this tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant is the noodle-making operation. It’s old-fashioned craft – the chef rolls a long sheet of dough, sprinkles flour, thins out more dough, sprinkles more flour and finally guillotines the cloth-like folds into thin strands. The window display is clear evidence to their claim that the noodles are made fresh every day.

Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar, 17 Liverpool St, Melbourne

Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar, 17 Liverpool St, Melbourne

Sacks of buckwheat and a mechanical flour mill also form part of the decor of the restaurant.

Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar, 17 Liverpool St, Melbourne

The soba noodle menu is split into cold and hot and the noodles are either dipped in either a broth or soy dipping sauce. As it was 30+ degrees during my visit I gravitated towards the cold noodles but decided to have them accompanied by a broth of sliced duck and vegetables – chunks of eggplant, cabbage and delicate shreds of enoki mushrooms ($19).

You’re warned from the outset that noodles take 10-15 minutes to arrive to your table, so appetites can be temporarily sated by the complementary salad or order other Japanese favourites such as Agedashi tofu, takoyaki, sushi and sashimi.

Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar, 17 Liverpool St, Melbourne

As I arrived before the office lunch hour rush my dish arrived promptly – a large heap of freshly boiled noodles on a bamboo mat and a similarly large bowl of broth.

The silken strands had an excellent chew without stodginess, and were declared comparable to the noodles my parents sampled in Japan. And the serving wasn’t skimpy either (though you can order extra noodles for $4)! The miso broth was well-balanced in terms of saltiness touched with tangs of citrus, with a generous gathering of meat and veg in the bowl.

The dish was only let down by the slices of duck, as chewy as rubber – I assume as a result of being boiled for too long.

I also have a small misgiving about the price – $19 is at least a few dollars more than I’d expect to pay for a bowl of noodles. However, the price could be ameliorated by the fact that the end result is a labour-intensive product of high quality and after your noodles are all slurped up you will be offered a teapot of the water in which your noodles were boiled. The idea is to pour the water into the broth and drink the resulting soup. It’s apparently health-giving and will definitely fill you up, transforming a bowl of noodles into a complete meal such that you won’t need to have entrees or sides or dessert.

As I went at lunchtime I wasn’t up for sampling any of the alcoholic drinks but as their name suggests there is a selection of sake and the cocktail menu, mostly consisting of sake or plum wine based mixes, surprised me with their very reasonable $10 price tag.

Shimbashi Soba and Sake Bar, +
Mon to Fri 11.30am–2pm, 6pm–10pm
Sat 6pm–10pm

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HOT: Aka Siro, 106 Cambridge St, Collingwood

Could Peel Street be the start of a Little Tokyo in Collingwood?

First Tokyo Bike cycle shop, then Aka Siro lunch spot and recently Mina-no-ie cafe from the folks behind Japanese-style cafe and shop Cibi (also in Collingwood).

Part the door curtains and step into cosy Aka Siro and you really could be in a backstreet neighbourhood joint in Japan. The bustling kitchen prepares home-style Japanese food along one wall while the seating is squeezed in narrow rows along the length, with Japanese cushions lining the wooden benches.

Aka Siro’s selling point is authentic, simple Japanese cuisine that will nourish your soul and your stomach. There’s no hidden trickery here – the stoves are there to inspect and fresh produce is presented as part of the decor.

The menu lists eleven teishoku meal sets ie a hot dish served with rice, salad and home-made miso soup which they clearly state is not packet-based. What a difference in taste too!

I tried the San Sai Teishoku ($16) which is merely described as three different types of dishes including a Japanese omelette. My three dishes turned out to be three vegetarian items that I couldn’t identify other than ‘beans’,  ‘tofu’ and ‘vegetables’ (so if someone could help me, I’d be grateful). Regardless, the plate held simple, honest flavours which combined well with the rice and soup to make a healthy, filling meal which I could imagine my non-existent Japanese grandmother serving me for my well-being.

B had the fragrant soup ($12) with minced chicken balls and a mix of daikon, Chinese cabbage and mushrooms. As denoted by the fiery red colour the soup was spicier than you’d expect Japanese food to generally be and with the dumplings I guess you could consider it the Japanese equivalent of comforting matzo ball soup.

There are many other teishoku I would like to try on the menu so I’ll definitely be returning…if I can get a seat.

Aka Siro,  

Tue-Sun, 11am to 4pm


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HOT: Momotaro Rahmen, 392 Bridge Rd, Richmond

Everyone has their favourite winter comfort food. For my mum it’s Ma Po Tofu. For RM it’s shepherds pie. For my friend M it’s lasagne.

For me, it’s soup noodles. Laksa, won ton noodles, pho – nothing beats hugging a big steaming bowl of noodle goodness when it’s blowing a gale outside.

Momotaro is a low-key family establishment that bills itself as a Japanese Noodle Bar and they specialise in ramen (not sure what the errant ‘h’ is doing in their name, I’ve never seen it spelled like that). When I visited most of the other customers were Japanese so I think they have a expat following for their authentic dishes (plus there’s lots of Japanese mags for browsing). They also have curries, teriyaki and gyoza on offer but really go there for the noodles.

The mark of a good ramen stall is their tonkotsu – a white soup broth made from pork bones. At Momotaro for a mere $11 you are presented with a rustic bowl of tonkotsu soup with a large slice of charshu pork, your daily vegetable serving requirements in the form of bean sprouts and cabbage and a filling bundle of ramen.

As you can see, the bowl of soup was so huge it acted as a face sauna! Momotaro’s ramen will not only open up your pores, it is an extremely hearty and warming meal. I found myself progressively stripping off layers and layers of clothing as I slurped on the soup and noodles, feeling like I was making no headway at all. The Magic Pudding of Ramen!

The broth itself is unlike any other tonkotsu I’ve had – mainly because it was light and frothy. I guess that goes with the family-style nature of the restaurant – at home you’d probably not bother skimming your broth for hours on end just to make it clear. I don’t think the frothiness affected the flavour at all, with its rich porky aromas.

As for the noodles and the toppings, they were good but not particularly unique although I did appreciate that the noodles were homemade. It really was all about the soup.

Fancy it is not. Good value for great flavours it certainly is.

Momotaro Rahmen, +
Lunch – 11.30am – 2.30pm
Dinner – 6pm – 9.30pm
Closed – Mondays, Sundays & Public Holidays


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HOT: Hako, 310 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

Hako is a refined yet relaxed Japanese restaurant located in the office precinct of Flinders Lane. In the narrow half-block between Elizabeth and Queen Streets there are a lot of lunch options and my stomach firmly supports a trip to Hako.

The interior design is Zen spare – nothing adorns the expanse of off-white walls and lighting is provided by naked bulbs suspended from the uncovered ceiling. Large groups get prime position in the elevated polished floorboard dining area – a semi-separate space looking right onto Flinders Lane.

Hako‘s lunch menu covers small plates, bento boxes, lunch sets, main courses served with rice or noodles and a small selection of sushi and sashimi. There’s no fusion or confusion – just simple, healthy, traditional Japanese fare.

For my lunch I wanted something substantial but not heavy, so decided on the soba chirashi sushi set ($23.50). Quick-as-a-flash a lacquered tray came bearing a large ceramic bowl of steaming buckwheat noodle soup and a delicate arrangement of sashimi and sweet ginger on vinegared rice.

It was a perfect combination for my appetite – the raw fish was sweet and fresh while the just-blanched noodles begged to be slurped in Japanese-style appreciation and certainly not a drop of the broth remained at the end.

The prices at Hako are a little higher than some of the quick-and-easy Japanese lunch spots around town so for me it’s more of a place for a ‘treat’ lunch than somewhere to visit every day. The dinner menu mainly focuses on small plates to share so it could still add up to be quite an expensive meal if you have a large appetite.

For other Japanese lunch options in the CBD in high-end surroundings, try Taxi,  Yu-uor Shoya.

Hako, 310 Flinders Ln, Melbourne +


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NOT: Kokoro Ramen, 157-159 Lonsdale St, Melbourne

In the documentary and cross-cultural love story  there’s a funny moment where the Chinese girl and her Anglo boyfriend argue whether cereal is a breakfast food or ‘anytime’ food. It mirrors the kind of conversations that I’ve had with RM before – to me cereal is only for breakfast, whereas he thinks it’s weird to eat noodles in the morning.

This is just a roundabout introduction to say that I LOVE NOODLES and consider myself a bit of a noodle freak. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, I could eat them all day (and for 3 weeks in Vietnam, I did). So when I heard  had opened I rushed there, post-haste, to broaden my noodle horizons.

is a roomy ramen joint where the noodles are made fresh on site. The colourful menu is fairly overwhelming with all the possible options (you can even create your own toppings with your choice of broth) so I went straight for the menu recommendation – deep-fried soft shelled crab with the Tokyo chicken and seafood stock base ($14.90).

The bowl that arrived was generous with the noodles and less generous with the toppings – but I guess for under $15 you can’t be expecting too much seafood. At least the crab was juicy yet crunchy, spurting out soup stock at every bite.

But when it came to the noodles and the broth, disappointment set in.

I love noodles that are bouncy and toothsome, with a slight chew and glutinous resistance. These noodles were deadened. One chomp and a nothingness of noodle dough lying in your mouth.

I also found the broth very bland – spoon after spoon I sniffed and slurped, trying to discern some skerrick of chicken or seafood flavours. All I got was a semi-salty murkiness. There was no fragrance, no clarity. And I didn’t have a blocked nose…

On my visit  was busy with blue-shirted male office workers in a scene reminiscent of neat Japanese salarymen bedding down for their lunch at their local. And the ramen at  is certainly filling and reasonably priced and makes a change from a ham and cheese sandwich, so if you work in the area I can see the attraction.

However, I’m voting with my feet and walking that extra couple of blocks to Ramen Ya.

, 157-159 Lonsdale St, Melbourne +


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HOT: Bento Lunch, Taxi Dining Room, Level 1 Transport Hotel, Federation Square, Melbourne

Out of all the dining venues in Federation Square, my favourite is the Transport/Taxi/Transit complex.

Transport is great for a quiet riverside drink (though it can get rowdier on weekends), I often take visitors to experience the slick food and expansive Yarra views at the high-end Taxi restaurant and we even arranged our post-wedding drinks at Transit.

A few months ago Taxi introduced the Bento Lunch, a more accessible way to try their Japanese inspired fine dining menu. For $45 you receive a meal consisting of four separate courses of sushi/sashimi, a soup, a main course and dessert. It’s bento without the actual bento.

I was invited to sample the Bento Lunch and was most impressed with the quality of the produce and the startlingly fresh flavours.

The lunch commenced with a platter of super-fresh salmon, tuna and alfonsino (a deepwater fish I’d never tried before) served with a sinus-clearing hit of freshly grated wasabi. So different from the insipid green toothpaste you often get served.

The soup course was a salmon miso soup with wakame seaweed and shimeji mushrooms. I don’t tend to get very excited by soup – I can take it or leave it (and most of the time I leave it, just takes up room unnecessarily in the stomach). However, this light broth had a very rich flavour as the soup stock had been made with ground salmon bones. Loved the slithery little mushrooms as well.

The main course offered two choices – snapper or pork belly. I chose the sticky pork belly with seared scallops and a spicy red nam jim sauce. I loved the strong flavour combination in this dish but the pork belly lacked the crisp crackling that I really love about the cut. On the other hand, the snapper with red pepper essence and crumbed mussels presented a very crispy skin.

Dessert was a lineup of three sorbets – mandarin, green tea and passionfruit and coconut. I particularly loved the punchy freshness of the mandarin scoop.

The Taxi Bento Lunch is offered seven days a week and is available with a changing menu right up till Christmas. It’s not your everyday grab-a-quick-bite-in-your-lunch-hour option but it is a great opportunity to try out Taxi at a cheaper price point. The service, views and food are all top rate – who needs to know you only paid $45 for it?

For other bento-style lunch options around town, check out Yu-u, Nobu and Matteo’s.

Bento Lunch, Taxi Dining Room, Transport Hotel, Federation Square, Melbourne +61

Taxi Dining Room on Urbanspoon

NOT: Takumi, 32 Bourke St, Melbourne

Melbourne CBD abounds with good Japanese lunch spots, from tiny laneway favourite Sushi Monger to the rarified surroundings of high-class Shoya.

Takumi is a restaurant which spans these two extremes – it is spacious and uncrowded with a quiet and sedate ambience. The decor is inoffensively neutral, almost blandly boring. Boppy J-pop plays quietly in the background and the service is sweetly deferential.

The restaurant calls itself a wagyu beef specialist so of course that is the thing to try here (unless you’re vegetarian), with the lunch specials around the $15-$25 mark. I ordered the Deluxe Bento Box ($22.80) as I needed a large meal to replace my lunch and dinner.

The neat compartments were filled with my choice of wagyu beef pattie, yakiniku beef  or sukiyaki beef, salmon and scallop sashimi, ebi fried prawns, wagyu beef curry, salad, steamed rice and miso soup. There was certainly a lot of food and enough to dissuade me from dessert, even though I had already earmarked the black sesame pudding with ice-cream ($5.80).

Sadly, my yakiniku beef was a bit dry and stringy, not the sort of texture I’d be expecting from cuts of waygu, a by-word for melt-in-your-mouth beef. On the other hand, the wagyu beef curry was an unexpected favourite, given that I’m not normally a Japanese curry fan. The authentic home-cooked comfort dish was warming, roundly flavoured and the slow cooked cuts of meat were just perfect with the rice. As for the rest of the bento box, the flesh of the deep fried prawns was fresh and juicy and well-encased in a crunchy panko crumb batter. The sashimi was good but not particularly remarkable, along with the salad liberally draped with a sweet dressing and a pedestrian miso soup.

My friend A had the gyoza bento box ($15.80) which had much of the same items except it included deep-fried gyoza. I’m not sure why they chose to deep fry the dumplings as we agreed that these overly crispy morsels would have been much more palatable pan fried.

All in all, Takumi is an ok option for Japanese food if you’re down the top end of town, but would I recommend it? It’s certainly not the best Japanese I’ve had in the city and even for its very reasonable price point I can think of other places I’d rather go for lunch – such as Yu-u, Izakaya Hachibeh and Yamato.

Takumi, 32 Bourke St, Melbourne +61 3

MON – FRI 12:00-2:00pm
MON – SUN 6:00-10:00pm

Takumi on Urbanspoon

HOT: Chasing Kitsune, State of Design 2011

Winter in Melbourne can be pretty grey, cold and miserable but it does bring with it some joys – festivals galore!

One of my favourite festivals is State of Design, Victoria’s annual design festival. So get ready because from 20-31 July I’ll be bringing you lots of State of Design related blog posts. I’ve got my online Festival Planner all sorted and diarised!

This year the theme for State of Design is ‘Design that moves’. Interpret that in any way you wish – design that moves you emotionally, design that moves you physically. One of the events which falls into the latter category is Chasing Kitsune, a Japanese food truck – otherwise known as a  Yatai – designed by Melbourne architecture and design firm HASSELL.

Chasing Kitsune has been cunningly fitted out inside a Budget rental truck by another design firm Schiavello and it will be moving amongst various inner city areas during the period of the festival, with outdoor seating set up in each location. The Japanese street food is courtesy of Mopho – finger-licking-good chicken yakitori, okonomiyaki and pork ramen feature – and drinks are a choice between Asahi and Robot Ninja Sake.

Melburnians love their food and love a pop up, so I’m guessing that Chasing Kitsune will be a hit. You can follow Chasing Kitsune on or  or download the State of Design iPhone app to receive Chasing Kitsune location hints.

Thank you to HASSELL for inviting me to the launch.

NOT: Misuzu’s, 7 Victoria Ave, Albert Park

I wanted to like Misuzu’s, I really did.

Out of all the cafes and restaurants in the Victoria Avenue strip, I thought that Misuzu’s sizeable crowd of alfresco diners signalled that the kitchen must be producing something good. Also, the restaurant was rated second on Urbanspoon for the best Albert Park restaurants.

On entering, I immediately liked the cool, almost Indonesian/sub-tropical dark slatted wood decor and the super-friendly Japanese waitstaff. The menu seemed to be authentic too, with a familiar litany of hot and cold dishes and a selection of sushi and sashimi.

As I was dining alone and not currently eating raw fish, I ordered the small non-vegetarian platter of starters and salads in order to sample the largest variety of food ($18).

The platter was very generous for one person although a bit messily put together given the refined presentation normally evident in Japanese cuisine. I decided to tackle the food in a clockwise direction, starting from twelve o’clock.

The first rule of sushi is that it should be eaten in one bite. So I have no idea why they served wagon-wheel sized nori rolls which disintegrated immediately when picked up with chopsticks. The fillings were also bland and limp and not even a liberal dose of ginger and soy sauce could spice them up.

The first rubber ball was a chicken and tofu patty. Not very exciting, but certainly filling. Again, it needed more of the sweet teriyaki sauce to make less bland. The second rubber ball was a chewy fish patty. Honestly, the only difference between the fish and the chicken that I could discern was the texture.

Next I think there was a calamari salad, as well as some sort of vegetable salad involving pumpkin. It was hard to tell what was what as the viscous sesame dressing for one of the salads ran into the other salads leaving everything a bit of a gloopy mess.

Lastly was a salad involving sodden vermicelli pieces mulched with corn kernels, canned tuna and mayonnaise. I have never encountered a salad, Japanese or otherwise, consisting of these ingredients and frankly I never want to again. Both the texture and taste were so unpleasant that I left almost all of it – and I hardly ever leave food on my plate.

It was all so disappointing. I acknowledge that I didn’t have any of the main dishes or the sushi/sashimi and maybe they are fantastic, but based on my encounter with Misuzu’s I’m not encouraged to return.

Where’s the Beef seemed to have a more positive experience…

  • Misuzu’s, 7 Victoria Ave, Albert Park +