Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi (again!), 25 March 2010

It had been too long since our last meal at Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi and we missed the slippery smooth texture of their handmade soba as well as their okonomiyaki. Monsieur Poisson suggested it as a catch-up location when his friend was back in Sydney for a brief stint from London, and the place was most accommodating when we had last minute additions (2 adults and 2 young children, no less) to our dining party.

Once we have everyone assembled, we settle in with some soba chips which are a hit with the kids and allow the rest of us some time to peruse the menu.

I’m surprised when the soba chips arrive as a tangle of deep-fried stringy noodles, as I’m sure I’ve seen photos of it somewhere as flat, potato chip-style things? They’re crunchy and not at all greasy, but could do with some liberal salting in my opinion.

Next up we have some more nibbling-type food in the form of edamame, which turn out to be quite a revelation for me. I am normally not a fan of these boiled, young soy beans as the squishy texture of the overcooked pods – although discarded and not eaten themselves – are a bit of a turn-off for me. But the edamame here are just cooked enough for the sweet little gems within to be popped through and, in contrast to the soba chips, are very well seasoned.

We’ve also ordered a serve each of chicken and pork gyoza to share. They’ve been split so that four of each appear on each plate and there is an initial confusion as how to tell, and taste, the two apart. It transpires that the chicken ones are sweeter and juicier, whilst the pork ones have a meatier flavour. Nevertheless, both are enclosed in thin dumpling wrappers and are fried to golden-bottomed crispiness.

Once again Monsieur Poisson and I find it hard to go past ordering something from the specials menu, especially when our attention is caught by the promise of flavoured soba. In this case it’s the ‘Three-flavoured tori & kinoko seiro soba’ with green tea, Earl Grey and plain soba served cold accompanied by a hot chicken and mushroom dipping broth. The soba is wonderful without even a hint of graininess and the tea flavoured ones are most refreshing, with the Earl Grey being much more subtle in taste than the green tea variety. As with our last visit, the staff considerately split this serve of soba in two when Monsieur Poisson indicates that we will be sharing it between us.

And then we have the okonomiyaki. It’s the ‘Ju Ge Mu Special’ which features such wonderful things as bacon, scallops, prawns and calamari covered in a tangy barbecue sauce, spring onions and squiggles of mayonnaise. As always served with a tin of nori flakes and bonito shavings (AKA sawdust, by one Dr King) alongside for sprinkling, the okonomiyaki is savoury, sweet, salty and tangy all at once – should rate highly on the umami scale, yes?

Monsieur Poisson and I do not pass up on dessert this time. He goes for the ‘Zenzai ice-cream’ which has the simple combination of green tea ice-cream, azuki beans and ‘slippery dumplings’. Actually, at first, he orders this entirely out of curiosity for what the ‘slippery dumplings’ could be, and all is revealed when the dessert arrives with flat discs of unfilled mochi – chewy glutinous goodness!

As for me, I revisit the ‘Ice-cream Tempura’ fondly remembered from a previous visit. There’s actually not a lot of ice-cream within, but I’m quite taken by the hidden raspberries and their tartness contrasted by the chocolate sauce. The tempura coating is crisp and any possible greasiness is negated by the pieces of fresh fruit alongside.

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi

246 Military Rd, Neutral Bay NSW

Tel: (02) 9904 3011

Opening Hours:  Mon  CLOSED

Tue-Sat  12pm-2pm (lunch)

Tue-Sun  6pm-9:30pm (dinner)

happy eating!

Ozeki, 21 Nov & 7 Dec 2009

So with a sushi loving husband like mine, you know that when a new sushi bar opens in our vicinity we absolutely have to check it out. And the clean and modern Ozeki, which opened as part of Chatswood Chase’s revamp, seemed to hold promise. Although not terribly large, it has its own street frontage and entrance and is mainly decorated in dark brown and black. I particularly like the almost Christmassy ceiling feature.

My first taste of Ozeki is for lunch with Mistress while taking some food away to feed the husband who is working from home. As we both like grilled sushi, we start with a plate each of aburi hotate (scallop) and aburi salmon nigiri. The seafood are smokily charred and each piece is anointed with a squiggle of mayonnaise.

The scampi nigiri proves to be good value as there are two pieces per plate at about 20% more in price than most places which only feature the one piece on a plate. The seafood is fresh but the nigiri are a little heavy on the rice.

Next we have the eel and cheese maki which is a variation of the usual dragon roll. There’s no cucumber or egg omelette shreds decorating the tops but there is eel in the centre, eel on top and a very generous chunk of cream cheese in the middle! But this is where the experience starts to go downhill for me, as I find the rice in the rolls too compressed. We’re not sure what the grilled fish is atop our next plate of nigiri but suspect it is possibly kingfish. What we do notice though is that the rice fashioned into the nigiri is not packed as tightly as that of the rolls.

The tako (octopus) nigiri are brushed sparingly with a pleasantly sweet soy sauce but again feature a disproportionately greater mound of rice underneath. And the soft-shell crab rolls, although not oily nor stale, have the same tightly compacted rice issue as the eel and cheese variant.

Though there is the aspect of the rice which is less than desired, we attribute it to possible early teething troubles and I return for lunch with Monsieur Poisson a couple of weeks later to give Ozeki another go. We see soba going past on the conveyor and the funny part is that when a waitress spots me consuming the cold noodles by dipping them in the cold broth, she instructs me to tip the ‘dressing’ over the soba instead.

We also order a chicken katsu udon from the menu which arrives piping hot but is a bit too thickly coated in batter and panko for our liking. So we move onto the salmon tobiko rolls topped with their red mounds of flying fish roe, and half a deep-fried soft-shell crab without the offensive rice casing of the previous visit.

I give a maki roll one last try and choose one plentifully filled with plump salmon and soft avocado but, alas, the rice is packed in too tightly yet again! But we spot some tuna toro nigiri going round so we have this fatty belly cut to balance out the textures.

The tuna nigiri is not bad either and is a little lighter in colour than usually seen. Monsieur Poisson has to have his favourite uni ships and, although I am growing impartial to sea urchin, I’m not as enthusiastic as my husband is about it. I do try one of the oyster ships however, which are firm, plump and sweet with the added crunch of some thin cucumber and tobiko to the side.

Overall, Ozeki is not bad but it’s not exceptional nor exciting either. It definitely needs more of a wow factor. The latest news is that (someone correct me if I’m wrong) they offer all plates of sushi for $3 only all day everyday – check it out and decide for yourself.

Ozeki

Street level of Chatswood Chase, Victoria Ave, Chatswood NSW

Tel: (02) 9410 2777

Opening Hours:  Mon-Wed  9:30am-5:30pm

                        Thurs  9:30am-9pm

                        Fri  9:30am-5:30pm

                        Sat  9am-5pm

                        Sun  10am-5pm

happy eating!

Five days in Brisbane: Sono (again!), 22 Oct 2009

As I have said previously, you know a place is good when you want to go back for more. In the short space of spending less than a week in Brisbane Monsieur Poisson and I visited Sono twice – once for dinner, and another time for lunch. Apart from Monsieur Poisson’s love of Japanese food, the other drawcard was the prospect of swordfish sashimi which had been sold out the night of our dinner visit. He was hoping that by turning up for lunch he would beat or, at least, join the crowds who had consumed the fish he had sought after a couple of nights beforehand.

We walk in to find that the restaurant is packed and are asked to leave our name and return in roughly twenty minutes. We’re hungry but also pretty intent on having lunch here so we do a quick spot of window shopping in the meantime. When we return and are seated (at a table instead of a hole-in-the-ground booth this time), Monsieur Poisson is delighted that there is swordfish available so we order it sashimi-style. I suspect I’ve only ever had it cooked before and unfortunately find the texture of the sashimi a little grainy. The flesh is firm however, with definite striations, and I admire the lovingly shaped globe of wasabi alongside – is this much wasabi warranted for only five slices of sashimi?!

Having tried dinner at Sono already, we opt to try dishes which are exclusive to the lunch menu and Monsieur Poisson orders the tenzaru soba. The chilled soba noodles arrive on a bamboo mat next to a small cup of chilled dipping broth and a selection of tempura. The tempura batter is light both in colour and texture. The noodles are smooth on the outside but a bit floury within despite their thinness, and are definitely not as nice as the handmade ones found at Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi. Monsieur Poisson enjoys the overall refreshing nature of the dish, and especially so due to the warm weather.

I order the sashimi bento after seeing so many of them drift past as we are browsing the menu. There are several choices for the ‘main’ component of the bento and I decide on the Japanese barbequed beef. Each component is not only placed in a separate cavity of the bento, but sits on its own little dish within each cavity. The dishes are each a different colour and the sizes of which appear to have been made to measure as they fit so snugly. Rice and miso soup with slivers of tofu skin, not the usual tofu and wakame, accompany the bento.

The red dish contains half a deep-fried soft-shell crab with shiso sauce which we already had the fortune of trying at dinner previously. My chosen main component of the bento unfortunately is a little disappointing as I was expecting a more charred tasting beef, which also happens to be a bit dry. The salad is fresh and crunchy with a light, creamy dressing and a cooked prawn on top. The plate of sashimi is generous for a bento and even comes with scallops as well as salmon evenly streaked with fat. But the resounding highlight is the final component which looks like three canapés – there is a skewered quail egg with a ‘cake’ of fish roe, a slice of beef tataki with cranberry jelly, and an intricate ‘noodle cake’ with a base of soba topped with a layer of mushroom then egg which is finally topped with a layer of cooked prawns set in gelatine. They’re so pretty that I almost cannot bring myself to eat these last three things. Almost.

We leave, as we did after dinner, with full bellies and as very satisfied customers. We head out into the sunshine and go for an extensive walk to work up an appetite for the last dinner we’ll be having in Brisbane as part of this trip.

Sono

Level 1, Tattersalls Building, cnr Queen St & Edward St, Brisbane QLD

Tel: (07) 3220 1888

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

                                          6pm-9:30pm (dinner)

                        Fri  12pm-2:30pm (lunch)

                              6pm-10pm (dinner)

                        Sat  6pm-10pm (dinner only)

                        Sun  CLOSED

happy eating!

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi, 13 Feb 2009

After seeing a keen photographer friend’s photos of this restaurant on Facebook, I was absolutely fascinated. There were several showing a man with a heavy-looking cleaver cutting up fresh soba in the storefront window. Fresh handmade soba – in Sydney! I never knew there was such a thing available in Sydney but, then again, I’d never gone searching either.

I called the restaurant on a Monday not knowing they are closed Mondays, so I had to call again the next day. I made a reservation for the Friday but was given a time by which we had to leave, as the restaurant was rather booked being so close to Valentine’s Day. We were quite keen on trying the place, and thought the hour-and-a-half allowed would be sufficient, so we went ahead with the reservation anyway.

Parking is a bit of an issue along the particular stretch of Military Road where Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi is as there are clearway restrictions, but Monsieur Poisson manages to find a spot on a side street.

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi is a little confusing at first as it is essentially two restaurants in one. Ju Ge Mu is the teppanyaki restaurant, while Shimbashi is the soba restaurant and each side is decorated differently. When you telephone for a reservation the staff ask you which side you would prefer to sit at, although you can order from both menus regardless. The only instance where it would be of importance is if you want to sit at the teppanyaki bar, which seats only 6-8 people from memory, in order to be close to the sizzle of the chefs displaying their skills. The restaurant has two doors, side-by-side, separated by a partition, with one for each restaurant. You can enter through either door, however, as the two sides are mutually accessible within. We are seated at our reserved table on the teppanyaki side, near the partition dividing the two. The teppanyaki restaurant has a red and black colour scheme, whereas the soba restaurant has a brown and beige earthy feel. The soba-making window is, of course, at the front of the soba side but on this particular evening there is no soba master in action.

We are given the standard menu as well as the Valentine’s Day menu, even though it’s not until the following day. We order hot green tea, grilled beef tongue, soft-shell crab tempura, tuna tataki, duck soba and prawn okonomiyaki from the standard menu, and chicken and mushroom two-flavoured soba from the Valentine’s menu.

Mistress and I are delighted when the tea arrives in a white, Chinese-style teapot and is placed on this dainty, felt coaster much like the ones sold at hart & heim. The tea is the greenest in colour and the most green tea-flavoured I’ve ever had. As we’re enjoying the flavoursome tea, our grilled beef tongue arrives as a serve of two juicy skewers.

The soft-shell crab tempura has a light if slightly thicker batter than normal and is served in a black, wicker basket. It is not accompanied by the usual tempura dipping sauce, but instead a tartare-type sauce (but pale yellow in colour) and a spicy salt mixture.

The tuna tataki is beautifully presented on a long, white, rectangular platter but is sitting on a peculiar, sticky, sesame-like sauce. It’s fresh, but it’s unusual.

 

 

Both the sobas we’ve ordered are of the cold variety, which arrive on bamboo mats ready to be dipped into the accompanying hot broth. Each soba has been considerately split into two half-serves by staff who have observed the three of us sharing all our food, so we end up with four little lots of soba populating the table. The two bowls of strong broth are similar in taste, with the chicken and mushroom one containing a variety of different Japanese mushrooms. It comes with plain soba as well as cucumber-flavoured, and the latter with its faint green tinge and little green flecks of cucumber skin is especially refreshing. The soba here really is a highlight. The texture is smooth and light with the noodles being thinner, less chewy and also lighter in colour (ie. not cement-grey) than the dried variety. When we’ve almost made our way through the soba, a small pot of the noodle-cooking water is placed on the table for us to dilute the dipping broth for drinking. This practice, I’ve heard, is very common in Japan.


The prawn okonomiyaki arrives at the end, on a mini-hotplate replete with its own spatula which resembles a paint-scraper. The okonomiyaki is firm but not overly doughy, nor overly filled with cabbage so it doesn’t break apart into mush when we carve it up. It is also decorated on top by a wavy pattern of mayonnaise and Japanese barbeque sauce.

We’re quite full and are also a bit pressed for time so we decide to give dessert a miss. However, on subsequent visits we did try the tempura ice-creams, which I highly recommend, but unfortunately there are no photos!

Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi
246 Military Rd, Neutral Bay NSW

Tel: (02) 9904 3011

Opening Hours:  Mon  CLOSED

Tue-Sat  12pm-2pm (lunch)

Tue-Sun  6pm-9:30pm (dinner)

happy eating!

LATEST UPDATE: Ju Ge Mu & Shimbashi scored 14.5/20 in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2010, which is only 0.5 from being awarded a one-hat restaurant honour.