Takeru, May-Sept 2009

This Japanese restaurant is not obvious to the unfamiliar. It has no street frontage nor signage and is tucked away up the back corner of the first level of Victoria Plaza. Its dark wooden interior and dim lighting near the doorway don’t do it any favours in attracting customers either. Despite all this the place is mostly full, even into the early afternoons, as I attest when Mistress introduces me to its tasty fare.

There is a half-mezzanine level within which is decorated in pale wood and is much more brightly lit. At the foot of the stairs to the mezzanine is a cute little children’s play area replete with LCD TV usually with Japanese anime or Thomas the Tank Engine on rotation. Takeru is dominated by booth seating with only a few free-standing tables near the door, but all have access to their own touchscreen menus. I know these have been around for a while but the novelty of flicking through photos and reading their descriptions (sometimes in Japlish) has yet to wear off for me.

Takeru Chatswood is the sister restaurant to Takeru Chinatown and does not major in either sushi or sashimi. Sure, there’s sashimi on the menu but it’s more of a passing thought in amongst all the other Japanese-style café dishes. I have eaten here at least ten times over the past seven months but I have yet to order the sashimi. There are too many detractors, especially the selection of half-size dishes which inversely equate to double the sampling rate!

Takeru’s ‘Seafood Salad’ contains dice-sized sashimi pieces decorated with creamy mayonnaise sitting on mixed salad leaves, tomato wedges, cucumber slices and kernels of corn dressed with a vinegary mixture. The ‘Takeru Salad’ which, according to the menu is “very popular”, has a sliced boiled egg served next to grilled chicken which has been marinated in soy sauce, and renkon chips served on top of mixed salad leaves with a sesame dressing.

More renkon chips are abound in the ‘Soft-shell Crab Salad’. The crab is lightly dusted with parmesan which gives it an interesting aroma when served but doesn’t intrude too much on the taste. Soft-shell crab can also be found with a serve of crisp-coated agedashi tofu, topped with a generous helping of bonito flakes.

Takeru offers a few Japanese interpretations of pizzas, including one which is topped with mochi slices. The pizza bases are soft, light, slightly sweet and quite more-ish. I’ve tried the ‘Squid Ink Pizza’ but expected it to taste more distinctly ‘inky’, although I’m not at all sure what I expected ink to taste like! In actuality the ink has very little taste – perhaps a faintly bitter aftertaste – but offers the pizza a very saucy texture. My favourite has to be the ‘Mentai Hotate Pizza’ with its sweet, barbeque-like sauce contrasted with the salty mentai and sweet scallops.

Takeru has a range of dishes which are available as half-serves, presumably for children or those wanting a light snack, which serve as a chance for people like me to taste test many more items. Amongst my favourite are the ‘Half-serve Gyu-tan Curry’ and the ‘Half-serve Mentai Spaghetti’. The ox tongue is very tender and comes in a pool of smooth Japanese curry while the spaghetti is usually linguine, and comes with a mix of seafood, sticky mentai, okra and mushrooms in a thin creamy sauce.

The ‘Half-serve Tonkatsu Doria’ is a dish of tomato-flavoured rice topped with a fried pork cutlet smothered in a white sauce and melted cheese. It arrives piping hot and is very warming, not to mention rather rich as well!

The ‘Half-serve Omelette Rice’ features more of the tomato rice, but enclosed in a thin egg omelette with a side of meat sauce. It is large for a half-serve, quite filling, and exceptional value for its price of $5.90.

Also on my recommended list are the ‘Half-serve Unagi Cha-han’ and the ‘Half-serve Teriyaki Chicken Don’. The eel fried rice is smoky and garlicky with perfectly separated granules of rice topped with shredded nori. The teriyaki chicken is sweet and sticky without being overly salty or dark in colour.

The ‘Ika Butter Shoyu’ is not a half-serve, but just happens to be a serve at the smaller end of the spectrum of tender squid rings which are a bit too oily for my liking.

Takeru has a page (yes, there are printed menus too) of bentos under its ‘Lunch Specials’ section which are unfortunately not available at other times. They provide a generous meal with the usual inclusions of rice and miso soup. Standards in Takeru’s bentos are agedashi tofu, potato croquette and ebi-fry (prawn) with runny egg salad that has much mayonnaise. I usually choose the ‘main’ of Japanese barbequed beef because it has a nice charred flavour, is juicy and comes in a sweet soy sauce. Of course there are other options which include salmon and chicken.

I don’t normally order dessert here, and one of the few things I’ve tried is the ‘Chiffon Cake with Green Tea Ice-cream’. Feather-light green tea sponge is served with creamy green tea ice-cream. The sponge has a thin, chewy ‘crust’ while the inside of the cake is smooth and springy rather than buttery and crumby.

Service is swift and hardly requires conversation here, but the food and comfortable surrounds are what keep me coming back.

Takeru Chatswood

Shop 10, Victoria Plaza, 369 Victoria Ave, Chatswood NSW

Tel: (02) 9412 1203

Opening Hours:  Mon-Wed  12pm-9:30pm

Thurs-Sat  12pm-10pm

Sun  12pm-9:30pm

happy eating!

Ryo-Tei (aka Ryo’s Noodles), 22 Aug 2009

A few years ago Monsieur Poisson and I first noticed Ryo-Tei, usually en route to Maisy’s, and wondered what manner of deliciousness the place offered in order to attract a constant group of patrons to patiently wait in an orderly queue outside. The eatery has a distinct garish orange frontage but no obvious English signage apart from the (usually obscured by the queue) red plastic sheet hung outside the window displaying highlights from the menu and the name, ‘Ryo’s Noodles’. The only other signage is a plaque above the doorway in Japanese and a pair of drapes framing the doors bearing the massive kanji characters of 亮亭– neither of which are of any use unless you can read the language. Being in a non-restaurant area away from Pacific Highway just adds to the mystery, however parking is easy to find on side streets.

So after driving past Ryo-Tei for almost a year without knowing its name, assuming only that it served some sort of Japanese food and being suitably intrigued, Monsieur Poisson put his internet searching skills to good use. Many questions were answered when he found this post on Grab Your Fork, and the photo of the deep-fried soft-shell crab alone meant that we just had to go and try it for ourselves. Not to mention the personalised endorsement from Iron Chef French, Hiroyuki Sakai gracing the wall!

We have since had numerous visits to Ryo-Tei but have yet to introduce all our friends to its delights. So one particular weekend when Ms Sourdough was in town we gathered up Weirdo, Dr King and Kiki for a visit and warned all involved to expect there to be a wait especially seeing as there are six of us in attendance. But the surprising part is that there is no queue when we get there – we are the queue! However Ryo-Tei is full inside at only 6:30pm and we do have to wait a little as tables for smaller groups become available sooner to those behind us.

Ryo-Tei’s dining space seats only around thirty people, which partly explains the queues. The two largest tables seat just six, and we manage to get one of these which is adjacent to the front window – you know, the one which attracts stares from people in the queue while you eat! The walls are a bright canary yellow and are decorated with menu items written in Japanese plus the aforementioned soft-shell crab which is not on the orange printed menu.

We order several things to share and soon our table is crowded with plates. There are two onigiri (one roast pork, one mentaiko), two serves of gyoza and four deep-fried soft-shell crabs which are served whole in a tangle of legs. The onigiri are plump and are larger than they seem with the roast pork one being much tastier; and I lament the lack of mentaiko in the other. They gyoza are crisp and juicy while the soft-shell crab is always a hit with its bare coating of batter. On a separate return visit, Monsieur Poisson and I order the ‘Fried Chicken’ which comes with a dollop of beautifully rich and creamy Japanese mayonnaise. A word of warning though: do not be greedy and eat the chicken as soon as it’s set down on the table – such action results in burning the roof of your mouth! I speak, of course, from personal experience.

As if this is not enough food already, strewn across the table we have a couple of ‘Tokyo-style ramen’, a ‘Spicy hot ramen’, a couple of ‘Japanese-style curry beef rice with tonkatsu’ and a ‘Mixed vegies ramen’ (not pictured). I often order the ‘Tokyo-style ramen’ as I like bamboo shoots and, because it comes in a soy sauce chicken stock soup, is great when I want something a bit lighter than the pork bone stock variants. It is also accompanied by a whole sheet of nori unlike most other places.

Of course Monsieur Poisson and I have to have the requisite side of corn!

Kiki braves the ‘Spicy hot ramen’ which I’ve had once before and comes with a serious layer of chilli oil floating on top. The oil conceals a bowl of pork bone stock underneath, both of which help to retain heat in the bowl. The chilli oil offers heat of another kind and coats each strand of ramen as it is slurped upwards.

Dr King and Monsieur Poisson both go for the ‘Japanese-style curry beef rice with tonkatsu’ which comes with a heap of curry studded with beef bits to accompany the rice, a mound of Japanese pickles and a large deep-fried pork cutlet. It is an effort for both of them to finish their meals.

Monsieur Poisson is not a fan of ramen in general but Ryo-Tei is one of the few places where he does enjoy it. Their sticky pork bone stock is a delight and each bowl offers great value in its use of straight noodles cooked to retain some bite (many places use a curly variant), whole sheets of nori, gooey-centred boiled eggs and thick, tender, fall-apart strips of roast pork. If you haven’t been to Ryo-Tei, I highly recommend it.

Ryo-Tei

125 Falcon St (near cnr West St), Crows Nest NSW

Tel: (02) 9955 0225

Opening Hours:  Thurs-Tues  12pm-2:30pm (lunch)

       5pm-9:30pm (dinner)

Wed  CLOSED

happy eating!

A week in Melbourne: Café Vue (again!) & Sushi Burger, 8 July 2009

You know a place is good when you want to go back for more – more of what you had, or more samplings from the menu. It’s even a greater vote of confidence when you want to go back within a short timeframe and, in this case, we only had a week in Melbourne anyway. After dining solo at Café Vue, I raved about it to Monsieur Poisson so much so that he decided to forego his training course-sponsored lunch vouchers one day to try it out for himself. And being the considerate person that I am, I wasn’t going to let him dine alone!

Monsieur Poisson is already seated when I arrive and we order drinks. He has a caffe latte as per usual and I decide to try the juice of the day – orange and grapefruit. The coffee arrives with a little love-heart on the foam and my juice arrives vibrant and freshly squeezed in a short glass bottle. We notice that people ordering take-away receive their juices in the same type of bottle but with a metal lid on top for convenience.

We order a couple of things to share and first to be placed in front of us is the ‘Vue burger with fries’. It is a narrow diametered burger piled high with a thick beef pattie, bacon and melted cheese. The pattie is juicy with lots of flavour and evenly cooked to the centre. The thin-cut French fries are crispy, not greasy, not overly salted and are a light shade of golden. The burger and bowl of fries are served on a rustic wooden chopping board like the ‘Café Vue Lunchbox’, alongside a dollop of tomato ketchup.

Next up is the ‘Yorkshire pudding with roast Wagyu, mash and gravy’. It is interesting when you read the order of billing in the dish’s description as the Yorkshire pudding is the headlining act. And when the dish is presented to us, the pudding is indeed the largest component with thin strips of fatty Wagyu draped over its cavity. There is a quenelle of perfectly smooth and buttery potato mash also on the wooden serving board but no sign of the aforementioned gravy.

Café Vue has little cakes and macarons for sale which, yet again, I need to refrain from purchasing due to travel practicalities. I do purchase a pistachio cupcake for consumption later in the day however. The cake itself is dense, chewy and very green on the inside but I am letdown by the hard marzipan icing on top.

For dinner we feel we are in desperate need of an Asian food fix so we decide to take Mistress’ recommendation from her trip to Melbourne earlier in the year and visit Japanese Café Restaurant J, which sells an ingenious item known as a sushi burger. It is an interesting little place with a very long name where ‘SUSHI BURGER’ on the shop’s awning is actually larger than the name of the establishment itself.

Just inside the doorway is their takeaway counter with a display window of plastic models of the different sushi burgers on offer. A sushi burger is much like a sushi handroll, but in the form of two rice ‘burger buns’ sandwiching filling contents and held together by a sheet of nori.

Monsieur Poisson and I are seated at the back of the café and, upon browsing the menu, discover many set deals. My attention is captured by an udon and sushi burger set as there is tarako udon available. It is something which I had never had but with mentaiko becoming a recent obsession of mine, I am eager to try.

My udon arrives steaming with aromas of saltiness and fishiness. There is a star-shaped piece of carrot and plenty of wakame seaweed floating about. The udon noodles are standard but the soup which has been flavoured with mentaiko is particularly welcome on a cold Melbourne winter’s night. Soon after, our two sushi burgers arrive – one ordered as part of a set with the udon and another separately.

The sushi burgers come wrapped in paper and are presented on individual platters with pickled ginger alongside. We have ordered one which is yakiniku with barbequed beef and one with spicy salmon. They are easy enough to hold and do not fall apart much, but the surrounding nori does get a little chewy from moisture after a while so some bite-and-pull action is required.

Last to arrive is our sushi platter which features a tuna and cucumber maki roll down the centre surrounded by various nigiri. The maki roll is tasty with mayonnaise and the rice is packed to a nice firmness. The portions of fish for the nigiri are fresh, thickly cut and very generous in size. Following this our craving for Asian food is well and truly satisfied!

Café Vue

Normanby Chambers, 430 Little Collins St, Melbourne VIC

Tel: (03) 9691 3899

Opening Hours:  Mon-Fri  7am-4pm

                        Fri from 6:30pm for Cocktail Nights

                        Sat & Sun  CLOSED

Japanese Café Restaurant J

167 Exhibition St, Melbourne VIC

Tel: (03) 9650 9877

Opening Hours:  Tues-Sat  12pm-3pm (lunch)

                                       5:30pm-9:30pm (dinner)

                        Sun & Mon  CLOSED

happy eating!