Zenya, 18 April 2009

There are so many places to eat at Eastwood and I am familiar with hardly any of them. We were visiting Kiki and Dr King for the evening and, seeing as this is their local area, we entrust them to take us somewhere inspiring. We land ourselves at Zenya; a dark, narrow Japanese restaurant with a small doorway. It’s a Saturday evening and there’s a short wait with us being second in the queue.

We are soon seated towards the back of the restaurant where each table has its own exhaust fan. We check the menu and don’t notice any yakiniku on offer, so we can only assume they belong to the previous incarnation of this shop-space. We settle ourselves into some rather green-hued green tea before we’re presented with our beef tataki. Monsieur Poisson is a particular fan but finds that the dressing is a little lacking in flavour – it needs to be tart and it needs to be slightly oily in order to coat the rare beef. However the fillet is nicely charred on the outside with a hint of smokiness.

The deep-fried soft-shell crab comes with salad and is encased in a crisp, golden batter. It is also interestingly dressed in a sweet sesame sauce and generously sprinkled with sesame seeds.

This is followed by a ton-toro bento with a rather large side-serve of ramen, which makes for excellent value. The ton-toro is thinly-sliced and is sweet and tender (thanks to the fattiness, no doubt). Otherwise the bento itself is a bit bare-looking with only a few slices of salmon sashimi, salad, a small serve of seaweed salad and a couple of deep-fried gyoza (I prefer the pan-fried variety) with a mayonnaisey dressing. But along with rice and the side of ramen, we are most definitely full.

We pay the bill at the counter and Kiki passes us some mint lollies from near the cash register. She then inserts two into her upper gums and gives us her best walrus impression!

Zenya

217 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW

Tel: (02) 9569 8588

Opening Hours:  Mon  CLOSED

Sun-Sat  11:30am-3pm (lunch)

Sun-Thurs  6pm-9:30pm (dinner)

Fri & Sat  6pm-10pm (dinner)

happy eating!