Jugemu & Shimbashi

Hang on, this is completely crazy, I say to him. We’re going to be eating our way around Tokyo in a couple of weeks. Why are we in a Japanese restaurant now? He looks over from his steaming bowl of soba noodles and shrugs. Needless to say, B and I are both nuts about Japanese food. Or rather, I’m nuts about Japanese food, and B is just plain nuts. Either way, it ends up being a bit of a win-win situation.

Jugemu & Shimbashi are two restaurants combined – a teppanyaki restaurant and a soba noodle house. It was recommended to me a couple of months ago, when I attended a Kaiseki cooking class in Chatswood, but it’s taken me until now to check the place out. If I remember correctly, she said that the chef at this restaurant used to make the noodles at the highly lauded but now defunct Shimbashi Soba by the Sea.

When you ring to book, they will ask you which section you want to sit in, but in the end it doesn’t really matter unless you want to be right in front of the teppan, because you can order from either menu anyway. And what a sprawling menu it is. From appetisers such as steamed edamame to tempura, karaage, chef’s specials, sushi and sashimi, soba and udon noodles, okonomiyaki and teppanyaki. There is even a brochure at the back of the menu, expounding the virtues of soba and explaining (with diagrams) how to enjoy the noodles. Just like something out of Tampopo (“stroke the pork to show it that you care”). The soba noodles at Jugemu & Shimbashi are made in-house, so you can’t really visit this place without at least trying them once.

B has the Tempura with warm Soba, which doesn’t disappoint. I on the other hand, tried to be a little adventurous and picked the Soba Dumplings, which the waitress kindly warned me were not to everyone’s liking. When it arrived, I could see why. In a bowl was a large lump of greyish dough, the texture of mushy mashed taro. You break off pieces of the dumpling and dip it in a soy dipping sauce, along with a little wasabi and some sliced spring onions, for flavour. It’s comforting, and when the waitress returns later to enquire my opinion about the dish, I tell her in all honesty that I liked it…

..but wouldn’t order it again, as there are plenty more things on the menu that I can’t wait to try out, the next time we return.

Jugemu & Shimbashi
246 Military Rd
Neutral Bay 2089

Masuya

A quick bite to eat after work. Walk down the steps, past the plastic food display, into this basement restaurant with a sushi counter at the far end and tables dotting the spacious floor. Service is very friendly and welcoming. Everyone around us seems to have ordered off the virgin cocktail menu. Mocktails aren’t really my thing. Overpriced fruit juice, if you ask me. Instead I have my eye on the prize : a special of sea urchin tempura with pink salt. It turns out to be a lovely dish you can’t fault, but which in retrospect still doesn’t beat sea urchin served in the simplest but best way – with rice, wasabi and nori. This we later have in the form of a few pieces of sea urchin sushi, which were unfortunately served up too cold to be able to appreciate the natural sweetness of the urchin. A shared sushi platter gets the tick, but it’s decent, rather than remarkable.

Masuya is part of a group who also run the popular Musashi Restaurant and Makoto Sushi Bar. Not a day goes by that there isn’t a big queue outside of the Chatswood branch of Makoto. I’ve eaten there several times and still am not sure what the fuss is all about.

However, some essays written by Mr. Sadamatsu, the Managing Director, feature on their website and are well worth the read as they’re quite entertaining!

Masuya
Basement Level, 12-14 O’Connell Street
Sydney 2000

Aki’s

After a strong start with some great entrees, including a complimentary amuse and a palate cleanser of shotglasses of grapefruit and lemon, we hit a snag when the mains arrive. Two of the dishes are verging on unpalatably salty, but are manageable when eaten with rice. We don’t complain, but decide to let the waiter know as he clears the plates away. He seemed a bit confused or unsure as to what to do, picking up the dish, putting it down, then finally deciding to clear it off the table for good. Nothing more is said. The bill arrives, it gets paid, we leave.

If you find yourself at Aki’s, I would highly recommend their take on salt and pepper squid which was nice and crispy, and strong on the ginger. Also, the spinach leaves in lentil batter, which arrived standing tall, like the sails from a boat moored off the wharf. Who knew spinach leaves could hold so much tasty batter? The shards were smothered in yogurt, date and tamarind, and chilli sauces, and were very moreish, if a bit on the sweet side.

Aki’s Indian Restaurant
1/6 Cowper Wharf Road,
Wooloomooloo 2011

Spice I Am

It’s been awhile between visits to Spice I Am. It turns out, from the discussion around our little round table, that some of us are prone to forgetting to eat. I am not one of these people. In fact, when I don’t eat, I tend to get grumpy.

And so it is that the hungry and the grumpy found themselves a few nights ago, at this hole-in-the-wall Thai eatery that’s perpetually busy. So busy that they have to run like a well-oiled machine or risk collapsing into a hysterial shambles. The military operation kicks in the moment you step up to add your name to the waiting list. In no time at all, you find yourself seated, ordered, watered, fed and out the door again. The machine ensures the bill lands on your table even before the last dish is cleared. It doesn’t allow you to order an extra spring roll (crisp, juicy and packed with flavour) because they are prepared according to portions which can’t be split. You also have to eat as fast as the machine otherwise dishes come flying out of the kitchen that your tiny table doesn’t have space for. So quickly do they manage to manouvre you out that I’ve only managed to have dessert once in this place. I don’t even know if they still serve desserts, but have a fond memory of what I remember as the best Thai dessert I’ve ever had thus far.

The food is good, so you don’t mind the machine. The dish of the evening was a fish curry in banana leaf, which arrived as little banana leaf packages secured by skewers. Inside each was a perfectly spiced portion of fish and curry, heady with coconut and lemongrass, with a tender texture somewhat akin to fish custard. And besides, the machine kind of makes me laugh. Especially when A says her dining group was once told that they had no knife to lend the table in order for a birthday cake to be cut (what, no knife in the entire kitchen?) and that no extra cutlery could be lent to them to eat the cake because all the cutlery was hand-washed and couldn’t be spared.

For superlative Thai food in Sydney, visit Spice I Am, and visit it often. All you need to do is rock up and put yourself in the friendly and capable hands of the machine.

Spice I Am
90 Wentworth Ave
Surry Hills 2010