Samurai restaurant review

My affection for Japanese food is so great that I constantly look out for Japanese restaurants. I'm lucky that there are quite a number of Japanese restaurants in Melbourne and there'll usually be at least one Japanese restaurant in each suburb. I was in Hawtorn the other day and thus, decided to try out Samurai Japanese restaurant on Glenferrie Rd. 

Samurai is a small Japanese restaurant catering for dine in as well as take away. It's quite popular as it's always packed during peak hours. The menu is quite simple. There are the usual sushi and sashimi, entrees (small/side dishes), rice dishes as well as noodles. 

We decided on a sushi and sashimi set, some croquettes and a salmon teriyaki with miso soup. I've also ordered a green tea milkshake to satisfy my cravings. Apparently, the milkshake is one of the favourites! 

The food was served pretty quickly. The sushi and sashimi were fresh and well presented. Portion wise it was just right for a single serve. 

The croquettes were great. The smooth potato filling with the cripsy crumbs was a perfect entree for me. Although it was fried, it wasn't oily. 

The salmon teriyaki was perfectly cooked. It was just lightly seared and the meat remained juicy as well as tender. It has a good portion too. The thing I like most is that the sauce was served separately in a mini jar instead of having it all over the meat. In this case, I could decide how much sauce I needed.

Last but not least, the sinful and yet heavenly green tea milkshake! Unlike the usual milkshakes, it wasn't too sweet. It was really great to finish my meal with this yummy milkshake.  

Overall, the food is good and it is definitely one of the cheap eats Japanese restaurant in Melbourne. 

Meshiya restaurant review

Meshiya is a Japanese restaurant in QV. It's a small restaurant located at the corner of the lane way next to Queen Victoria Women's Centre on Lonsdale Street. There aren't many tables in this restaurant but there is a huge stone table where customers can be seated around it. 

For some reason, I haven't been visiting this restaurant since 1-2 years ago until recently when one of my colleagues suggested having lunch at Meshiya as they offer special lunch menu for only $10. 

The $10 lunch menu is indeed a good deal. Basically, there's a list of don (dishes on rice) to choose from for only $10. And it comes with miso soup, salad and pickles. Besides that, there is another deal where you could get a plate of fried rice and gyoza for $10 too. It's worth mentioning that the $10 don offer is only available from 12pm-1pm while the $10 fried rice and gyoza offer is available from 12pm-3pm. 

Well, I ordered a teriyaki salmon don. My expectation was a tiny slice of salmon being served for $10. To my surprise, there were actually 5 decent pieces of salmon in the salmon don. The salmon was cooked to perfection where it was lightly seared. Hence, it's tender and juicy. However, it's interesting to find some stir-fried bean sprouts with vege on top of the rice which was quite unusual for a Japanese don. Anyway, it was still tasty. 

My colleague ordered a prawn tempura don and it came with 5 prawns too. The prawns were coated with crispy tempura batter and were adequately cooked. 

The lunch offer is really a good value for money. I'll certainly visit Meshiya more often now.

Japanese green tea cheesecake recipe

I have a bad habit of stocking up food whenever there's a discount. Often, I end up throwing them away simply because I have no time to finish or use them before the expiry date. I recently realised I have 2 blocks of cream cheese which are expiring in 1-2 months time. Rather than baking a few cheesecakes together towards the end of its shelf life, I thought I should at least use a block now. This is when I decided to bake a Japanese green tea cheesecake.

This is my second attempt in baking green tea cheesecake by modifying the Japanese cheesecake recipe which I baked previously. My previous attempt wasn't that good as the batter was a tad too watery after I increased the amount of milk and the cake sunk. Hence, I tweaked the recipe further by increasing the milk portion and reducing one egg to reach a balance this time. Besides that, instead of turning green tea powder into green tea paste which has extra water content, I used the green tea powder directly. The result was satisfying! 

Recipe:

(Make one 8 inch cake)

150 ml milk

50g unsalted butter 

250g cream cheese 

60g cake flour

20g corn flour

5 egg yolks  

20g green tea powder 

5 egg whites 

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

110g castor sugar (increase the amount if you prefer a sweeter cake.)

1. Heat up the milk until warm. Pour warm milk onto cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl. Melt the mixture and mix well over a pot of hot water. Some recipes suggest to sieve the mixture at this point to get rid of the small slumps. Interestingly, my mixture was silky smooth so I didn't sieve the mixture. It's up to you to decide. 

2. Cool the mixture. Add in the sifted cake flour, corn flour and green tea, followed by egg yolks and mix well. Leave the cream cheese mixture aside.

3. Beat the egg white in a mixing bowl.

4. Add cream of tartar as soon as the beaten egg white starts to foam.

5. Gradually add in the sugar when the egg white starts to thicken. Beat until soft peak stage.

6. Add the egg white mixture onto the cream cheese mixture in 3 batches. Mix until they are almost combined on each addition. Lastly, scrape down and fold until everything is evenly combined. Bang the batter on the table for a few times to release the big air bubbles.

7. Pour the batter into a 8 inch round cake tin. I used a non-stick cake tin. Otherwise, you could lightly grease and line the bottom and sides of the pan with parchment paper. 

8. Bake the cheesecake in a water bath in a pre-heated oven at 160c for 1 hours 10 minutes or until golden brown. 

9. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool on the wire rack.

10. Gently separate the cheesecake from the cake tin. Cut (without sawing) and serve.

Note: If you want to chill the cheesecake, make sure you remove the cheesecake from the fridge 30mins before serving. Otherwise the cheesecake will be a bit firmer and not cotton soft.

Rice Workshop restaurant @ Little Bourke St review

There are a number of cheap-eat restaurants in Melbourne. Generally, you can get a decent meal from any of these restaurants with less than $10. Rice Workshop is one of them. There are two Rice workshop outlets in Melbourne CBD. One is located on Little Bourke street and the other is at Emporium food court on level 3. 

Rice Workshop on Little Bourke st is one of those cheap-eat restaurants that I'll pop by to get a quick lunch on the busy workdays. It's a fairy small restaurant with a few seating on the ground floor but there is also a seating area on the first floor. Similar to a fastfood outlet, customers would place their order at the counter, collect and pay before getting a seat or packing the food for a take away. It's pretty much self service. 

There is considerbly quite a selection from their menu ranging from various rice bowls, noodles bowls to salad bowls as compared with Don Don and Hanaichi which have the similar setup. Besides that, there are some ready made sides which you could add on to your meal. 

Ontama teriyaki chicken is my favourite at Rice Workshop. Although there was a lack of grilled effect on the chicken, the meat was tender soft. I especially love the perfectly cooked soft boiled egg which really made an egg-cerlent meal! 

Well, it's often hard for me to resist topping up my meal with additional sides such as the prawn tempura and crab croquette. I have to say that the prawn tempura was really good. The prawn was coated with an adequete thickness of crispy batter and it's not oily.

During one of my visits, I have a taste on the tempura prawn and veggie udon bowl and topped it with a soft boiled egg as well as some croquettes. By the way, I always request for the tempura to be separated from the udon noodles to maintain the crisyness of the tempura. While the tempura prawn and veggie were good, the udon noodles weren't great. The soup was lack of flavours other than saltiness.  

Overall, Rice Workshop on Little Bourke St is a great place to grab a quick lunch as the food is decent and affordable. 

Heirloom restaurant review

Christmas is around the corner! As always, this is the busiest time of the year for businesses like restaurants and retailers to attain their profit targets before they close out the year. And for us, it’s the time to catch up with friends and family! I recently attended a pre-X’mas lunch with some ex-colleagues at Heirloom. This was my first visit to this restaurant and I’ve planned for another X’mas catch up at the same place again due to its nice ambience and of course, the food. 

Heirloom is a modern Japanese Izakaya. A Japanese Izakaya is like a pub where food are served to accompany the drinks. Izakaya is a casual place for after-work drinking in Japan. Located on Bourke St, Heirloom is quite a big restaurant with a high ceiling that makes it looks airy. The design of the restaurant is modern and simple. There’s a bar at the centre of the restaurant and the place is decorated with Japanese embellishments. 

There is quite a selection of dishes from the lunch menu and there’s also a daily lunch special for $14.50 each day. What a deal! Having said that, Heirloom only serves lunch on weekdays. In the end, I ordered a Teriyaki Salmon which cost $18.50 from the lunch menu. It came with truffled mashed potato, kobachi, salad, miso soup and rice. The portion was surprisingly big. I have never had a salmon slice as big as this when dining at other restaurants. The lightly seared salmon was placed on top of the truffled mashed potato coated with teriyaki sauce. How pretty!

Taste wise, the mashed potato was heavenly. It was the finest mashed potato I have ever had. The salmon which was perfectly cooked was superb! With the mashed potato, mushrooms and a layer of teriyaki sauce, the salmon dish was yum. This wasn’t the usual teriyaki salmon but a fusion version of the teriyaki salmon dish. Although the main dish was a star, the sides were pretty average and the rice was a tad dry.  

The daily lunch special on that day of our visit was the Wagyu beef burger. It looked good and was generous in portion. According to one of my ex-colleagues, it tasted great too. 

To me, Heirloom’s dining environment and food were excellent. The lunch menu is good value for money. It was an enjoyable pre-X’mas lunch catch up with old colleagues over yummy food at Heirloom.

Hakata Gensuke restaurant review

After our visit to Fukuryu ramen, my colleague and I continued to search for the best ramen in the Melbourne CBD. I was told that Hakata Gensuke ramen restaurant is the new hit for ramen. Could it be the best ramen in Melbourne? Therefore, we quickly checked it out on the following week.

Hakata Gensuke is a new ramen restaurant that opened in August this year. It is situated on Russell street, closer to the junction of Bourke street. The design of the restaurant looks similar to those ramen restaurants in Japan where there are not too many seats. The red shop is very inviting and you certainly would not miss it when there's a crowd waiting outside of the restaurant. There was a queue when we arrived at 12:15pm! And on the next day when I passed by the area, I saw a queue too at 2pm! It must be very popular as there seems to be always a queue.

At the front of the restaurant, there are some posters and a newspaper cutting about the founder of the restaurant. In addition, there was a TV showing the chef and how the ramen is made and prepared. Apparently, he has won some awards over the years. 

We were given a menu and an order form each when we waited for our turn. There are only 4 types of ramen to choose from which makes decision making easier. Besides that, there are options for the texture of the noodle (soft/normal/hard/very hard), taste (light/normal) and spring onions which is brilliant. You could customised your ramen by adding the extra toppings too. However, I was told that the marinated egg is not part of the standard bowl of ramen. What?! An egg is essential for an egg-cerlent meal. Hmm. Well, I had to pay $2 more for an egg then.

I ordered the signature tonkotsu ramen which cost $13 with normal noodle texture as well as normal taste and topped it with a priceless egg ($2). We also ordered a plate of dumplings and karaage chicken for sharing which cost $5 each.

We were seated probably after 10-15mins of waiting in the queue which wasn't that bad. The whole kitchen crew shouted "irrashaimase" when we stepped into the restaurant. Wow, they were so energetic! 

The food was served pretty quickly. The tonkotsu ramen looked really good. The broth looked authentic. However, there's only one stingy slice of char siew, a bit of ear cloud fungus and spring onions that came in the standard bowl of ramen aside from the extra egg that I have added. Other than that, the broth tasted fabulous! It's very close to the ramen you get in Japan. In terms of the noodles, I found that the normal texture wasn't al dente and it was a bit soft probably after soaking in the soup. I would certainly try the hard or very hard texture on my next visits.

The karaage chicken was great too. It was well marinated. The chicken was crispy on the skin and the meat was juicy. Other than the price, which is a bit pricey for 4 small pieces of chicken, they are perfect. 

Our dumplings arrived shortly after the ramen and karaage chicken. To be honest, it is the smallest dumpling I have ever had and I'm thinking maybe it is also in the running for the title of the smallest dumpling in the world. Lol. Taste wise, it's not bad but it's not something that I would brag about. It's quite pricey to pay $5 for 5 dumplings where the size is the same as my pinky. (Don't be deceived by the picture above! :P)

Overall, I reckon the ramen at Hakata Gensuke is quite authentic and it's indeed the best ramen one can find in Melbourne so far. However, it's a bit pricey from my perspective.

Fukuryu Ramen restaurant review

Fukuryu ramen seems to be quite popular ever since their business started earlier this year. Some reviews even rated it as the best ramen in Melbourne. Wow, how can I not try? However, I haven't had a chance to pop by until recently!

Fukuryu ramen is situated on the first floor at Corrs Lane, a small lane way in Chinatown. It's quite a big ramen restaurant. The design of the restaurant is quite basic. The customers are required to place their orders at the counter and the food would be delivered to the respective table. Similar to the usual ramen restaurants, the menu is quite simple.

I ordered the signature tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen and my colleague had tam tam (spicy) ramen which cost $12.90 each for a regular size bowl of ramen. According to my colleague, the price has increased quite a bit over less than a year. It was $9.90 in the past. Wow, that's quite a hike really. Must be because they're popular now?!

The food was served pretty quickly. The tonkotsu ramen actually looked quite good but wasn't authentic as the traditional tonkotsu ramen doesn't come with cloud ear fungus. Taste wise, the noodles were cooked al dente, the texture was good. On the first few bites, it was actually not bad. However, as I tasted more of the soup, I found that it's a bit too salty and too garlicky for me. Besides that, the char siew hadn't achieved the melt-in-the-mouth texture and the marinated soft boiled egg was a tad too salty. It was certainly not the taste of a traditional tonkotsu ramen. If you have been to the ramen restaurants in Japan or at least have tried the Hakataya Ramen in Gold Coast before, you would know how a traditional tonkotsu ramen should taste like. 

The presentation of the tam tam ramen wasn't as pretty as the tonkotsu ramen. I didn't have a chance to sample the food. According to my colleague, the soup was very tasty and the spiciness was about 1 out of 5 which is not too spicy. She actually quite enjoyed the ramen but agreed that it wasn't as good as Hakataya's.

Well, to me Fukuryu ramen isn't as good as I thought and it certainly not the best ramen in Melbourne from my perspective. Having said that, I haven't found an authentic, best ramen restaurant in Melbourne yet.

Shira Nui restaurant review

There are a number of Japanese restaurants in Melbourne. However, when it comes to authentic Japanese cuisine, Shira Nui is my first choice. Mind you, Shira Nui is a popular Japanese restaurant with a lot of regular customers. So make sure you reserve a table in advance to avoid disappointment.

Well, Shira Nui is not one of those cheap-eat Japanese restaurants. In fact, it's quite pricey but given its quality and authenticity, I reckon it's worth it. Having said that, they do have a lunch menu that is a lot more affordable.

We had lunch at Shira Nui on our recent outing where we reserved a table one week earlier. We ordered a sashimi lunch special and grilled unagi (eel) don which cost $19.50 and $21.00 respectively.

The sashimi lunch special came with appetisers (a small bowl of yummy pasta and another small bowl of preserved veggies), chawan mushi (steamed egg custard), pickles, miso soup, salad, rice and sashimi. The appetisers were yummy and the chawan mushi was smooth and soft as usual. Besides that, the salad, with its light Japanese dressing, was very refreshing. Most importantly, the sashimi was very fresh and professionally cut by the sushi master! This is a dish that we would order whenever we have lunch at Shira Nui.

In the past, Nigiri sushi lunch special would be on our table too. However, I decided to make a change this time by ordering the grilled unagi don as I was after something that's cooked instead of raw fish. Well, the grilled unagi don came with less sides than the sashimi lunch special. There were only an appetiser, pickles and miso soup served with the grilled unagi don. It was a generous serve of unagi in the don and the unagi was juicy as well as tasty. However, the portion of the rice was a wee bit too small for a big eater like me :p

Overall, it was a great lunch and we were happy that our Japanese food craving has been fulfilled!

Gekkazan @ GPO restaurant review

Gekkazan (used to be known as Kenzan) is a nice little Japanese restaurants at GPO. To be honest, I haven't visited this restaurant after they changed its name. That was so long ago! During my visit to Mama's Buoi, I saw nice Donburi being served at Gekkazan and thus, I decided to return to Gekkazan on the following weekend.

Well, Gekkazan hasn't changed much other than its name. They still offer many varieties of sushi rolls as well as noodles and rice dishes to be ordered from the counter. They seemed to have more choices on their menu now. We ordered a grilled salmon Donburi, a unagi Donburi and a bento box. It is $14.90 for each Donburi and $18 for the bento box.

The salmon Donburi was nicely presented in a wooden rice bucket. In the bucket, there were salmon, rice, salad veggies as well as a few small side dishes like croquette, mini roasted potato and sushi. The salmon was slightly over cooked but overall the Donburi was quite satisfying.

Similar to the salmon Donburi, the unagi Donburi came with the exact same sides. The unagi was tender and tasty. However, there were only 3 small slices of unagi.

The bento box came with a good variety of small dishes such as edamame, sashimi, potato mayo salad, sushi, noodles, tonkatsu (fried pork), tempura mushroom etc. All the dishes were quite standard but nice. The only interesting dish was a sushi look alike tuna sandwich. It was actually tuna mayo sandwiched by two small slices of bread with a strip of seaweed wrapped around the center. I was quite happy with my bento box. However, I reckon that the salmon Donburi is the most good value for money among the three.

It's good to see that Gekkazan is still as good as before if not better. I will return for more Donburi soon!