Sunday, November 04, 2012

a food lovers venture

after some convincing from the beau, i decided on two things:
  1. i might as well blog again.
  2. and while i'm on it, why not, i might as well just blog about my food since we eat out so much. might take me a few tries to get into the swing of actually putting my food ideas onto a blog (and make it interesting) and it's been oh, sooooo long since i've actually needed to type anything which wasn't in a report style. trust me, once you start writing reports, it's hard to get out of the swing of that.
so anyway, i'll just blog about one of the more recent food ventures since it's fresher in my mind. J and I headed to this japanese gyoza shop called Gyoza Douraku on Bourke Street near the Virgin gym. totally stumbled across that one by accident as i wanted japanese and we were walking to Ajiesen Ramen (which i might blog about some day, if i ever get around to going back there) and i looked across the road, and there it was. Gyoza Douraku which we both had never heard of before but there were people inside, so had to try it, eh?


First, the menu is phenomenally cute and the choice of sake is crazy. i think it rivals chuji's choice and that place is famous for its choice of sakes. since we were at a gyoza place and we both had hefty lunches at work, we decided to just go with gyozas (it is after all called gyoza douraku, y'know)
and tataki as the waitress recommended it. and dessert coz well. i do love my desserts.
the place is really quaint as well, with these cute little wood striped tables with baskets underneath them for diners to store their bags and coats. that by the way, is a great idea, one which more restaurants should look into. really useful for those who dislike putting their bags on the floor. 

had myself a mocktail as i've been pretty sick recently. since i'm so hopped up on a concoction of medication, i figured it be better i avoid the alcohol. as mocktails go, it's ok. not the greatest but i wouldn't mind another one.


first up the tataki. it's supposed to be wagyu tataki but honestly, couldn't tell it was wagyu. the wagyu tataki we had at nobu literally melted in your mouth whereas this one, while good, don't get me wrong, didn't do any melting moments.

we were then asked to mix our gyoza sauce and they provided us japanese soy, japanese vinegar, chilli, sesame seeds and garlic. we were provided these huge ass plates with two compartments to mix our gyoza sauce in (i'm assuming in case we messed up the sauce concoction once, we could try again, hehe)
look at that bandit skunk or whatever that's supposed to be. how damn cute is that?


so our gyoza dinner from the top: pan fried duck gyoza, steamed prawn gyoza and cheese wagyu and red onion gyoza. they have a pretty decent range of gyozas all of which can be done in three ways - pan fried, steamed or cheese covered. the gyoza wraps are very thin and are well done but i couldnt' taste the difference in the duck and wagyu ones ! the meat isn't very distinguishable. but seriously just look at that melted cheese.. how nomolicious is that?

 
 finished the meal off with a really well presented mocha icecream with green tea/red sesame garnishing and red sesame mochi which was a decent effort.

they have a set meal option that cost (if i'm not mistaken) about 30-40 bucks perperson but that includes heaps more food as well as soft shell crab rice which is actually really tempting me to go back to this place to try that !

i'll try doing a rating sort of urbanspoon/rotten tomatoes style and do a scoring over 100. i'll rate this place 65/100, i.e, good enough to go back to but i won't be rushing to go back anytime soon. ambience is amazing, the service is great and the food isn't too bad !

note to self, gotta start bringing a better camera around with me to take better food shots - my galaxy doesn't do the food pics any justice.

may the force be with disney,
cheers





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