Jazushi

145 Devonshire Street cnr Clisdell Street, Surry Hills, 2010, NSW, Australia
Phone: 02-9699-8977
Phone(direct reservation):0417406928
FAX: 02-9699-8973
Office Hour: 12pm~late

Chris is going to Africa on Wednesday the 4th of February, so he organised a farewell dinner at a place called Jazushi. It's located in the Surry Hills area two blocks up from the Strawberry hills Hotel. It's a modern Japanese restaurant with a bit of a unique touch, where they play live jazz music while you eat.

The night we went, there was a jazz singer and a pianist performing in the front corner of the dining area. The music wasn't too loud so we could still talk to each other and not have to yell. It was an open kitchen where we could see the chefs preparing our meals. This I thought was a pretty good idea since Betty told me about a steak in Burwood being infected with herpes.

We started off by ordering the mixed sushi and sashimi platter, green tea noodle salad, tempura camembert and stir fried wagyu beef.


The platter was meant for four, but I reckon we could have had one each since we only had two pieces each.



The green tea noodle salad wasn't as nice as we thought it would be. There was too much salad with lashings of dressing which drowned the flavour of the green tea noodles which should have been the main attraction of this dish. A saving grace would be the seaweed strips on top.



Now on to the best part of the meal, it was so creamy much like the pool of jizm in my pants right now thinking about it. This was the first time we'd ever had tempura cheese and we didn't know what to expect. It “blew” us away with its crispy outer layer giving way to the soft, creamy, cheesy centre. It melted in our mouths releasing an explosion of cheesy flavoured goodness.



I had some of the stir fried wagyu beef. The beef itself was tender but not overly chewy. The sauce was similar to the kind of sauce you'd get when eating com bo luc lac at a vietnamese restaurant but with extra fresh salad and spanish onion. I'd say it's an average stir fry with a touch of wagyu. I liked the sesame seeds though...



After that we weren't full at all, so we ordered teriyaki salmon, crispy soft shell crab and duck teriyaki.

I was expecting the teriyaki salmon to have crispy skin with the sauce drizzled on top to compliment the flavouring, but to my dispair it wasn't so. I was a little disappointed in this one but it was tasty nonetheless. I reckon with a bit more time the skin could have been crispy and this would have been a friggen awesome dish.



The soft shell crab was pretty good. It didn't taste like the crap you'd get in most places where they use frozen soft shell crab. It was quite crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside with plenty of crab flavouring to fill my mouth. I'd say it was pretty damn good!


Last of all was the duck teryiyaki. This was so good. It melted in my mouth like an M&M without it's candy shell. The duck itself was cooked rare with the teriyaki sauce drizzled on top. The whole dish was set out like a teepee. The base was made of boiled bok choi, then with the duck slices placed on top to look like a cone. There were a few garnishes of noodles and cherry tomatos which made the dish look like a tribute to the pharoes of egypt haha.



The overall rating I'd give this place would be a 8/10. I loved the music, the lighting and the food. It was an excellent dining experience.

Sakae

116-120 Liverpool St
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9269 0990
Fax (02) 9269 0017

Sakae is one of our favourite value for money japanese restaurants. It's located on Liverpool street in the city opposite Makoto and next to a few Korean BBQ places. This was going to be a light dinner for us since we weren't too hungry yet again. So we ordered a mixed sashimi plate, Spider roll, Takoyaki and some seaweed salad.

The last time we were here, the soft shell crab in the spider roll was the best we'd ever had. This time though, we were a little disappointed because it wasn't as nice as we'd first had it. Probably bad consistency on their part here. Although when you drench it in soy sauce, it doesn't really matter all that much afterwards. It was still pretty good with the crispy spider legs and fresh sushi rice mixing nicely in my mouth with the kewpie mayonnaise.



The sashimi was quite fresh, set on a wooden plate true to japanese style. Everything was cut perfectly into their little slices of fishy goodness. This was another dish we drenched in soy sauce and wasabi.


After that we tackled the takoyaki. It came out nice and hot with the bonito shavings curling up on top of the takoyaki balls. I love bonito shavings, so I ate those first. It tasted a little like the dried squid you can get from Cabramatta, although it's easier to eat and not quite as smelly. The takoyaki balls were hot, but they lacked the usual crispyness on the outside. The inside of the takoyaki was nice and creamy with a little cube of octopus right in the middle. The kewpie sauce and brown sauce complimented the takoyaki quite well, although I'd have liked it better if it was crispier.


The best part of the whole meal was the seaweed salad. Sweet, spicy and topped with seasame seeds. What more could you want? The seaweed was quite cold so I'm assuming it had just come out of the fridge, but this didn't matter since it tasted so awesome that I didn't care about the rest of the meal. It was that good.


I'd come back again if I wanted fairly priced and good Japanese food which is pretty hard to find these days.

Istana

277 Church St
Parramatta NSW 2150
Phone (02) 9687 5113

We've been wanting to try this Malaysian restaurant for a while, but were afraid to go in because it looked so empty each time we walked past. Being a little indecisive, we decided to try it out. Not being too hungry, we ordered two dishes. Seafood Mi Goreng and supposedly Seafood Nasi Goreng. I say that only because there was chicken in it after we ordered.

I think we confused our waitress by making her think that only one was to have no chicken. It all worked out in the end since I ate the Nasi Goreng and Betty had the Mi Goreng.


The Nasi Goreng was richly flavoured with the usual amounts of kecap manis and oil. The Nasi Goreng on it's own was quite nice, but when eaten with Sambal Chilli it's like having a rave party in your mouth with everyone charged up ready to rock.


The Mi goreng was a tad on the oily side as well, but I'd say this rips the packet Mi Goreng over a hundred times over! The noodles were pretty springy and the prawns weren't the usual frozen prawns you'd get with asian food. These were real prawns, without the plastic and tasteless texture. I absolutely loved it!

Alongside the two dishes we ordered, I ordered a fruit punch. It was a decent punch with lots of sweetened fruit chunks. I'd have this on a hot day for sure.