Sushi Tengoku

Dinner appointment at Kensington was at 630pm, I was already in the city at 430pm with nothing to do. So I was wandering around thinking how to kill the 2 hours. Then I remember this store that I stumbled upon in World Square. Yogen Fruz. Basically it's a yoghurt bar. Pick your own fruit, pick your yoghurt (normal, low fat, no sugar no fat) it's just like Fruit Flo from New Zealand Ice Cream but fancier.  

I picked 1 of the more popular flavour - green tea + lychee (regular size for $5.50). Tried the strawberry + lychee the last time, I think that was better. All sorts of fruits are available to mix - mango, lychee, strawberry, blueberry, etc etc. If any of you have tried any good combo, let me know. I'm too scared to make 1 and then end up with 1 that I don't like :p 

Anyway, still too early for dinner, so I just drove to Kensington, parked my car right in front the restaurant and sit inside my car and read. Lucky for me, everyone was quite punctual :) 

Food was ordered when they made reservation. So I didn't really get to see the menu, hence no price :p Should've taken a piece of the order form though. Started with mixed sashimi. All the pieces are seriously THICK and HUGE. I don't think I've been to any other Japanese restaurant that cut their sashimi so big. 

Believe it or not, here's a plate of sushi. NOT sashimi. I know, the fish on top is so big that you can hardly see the rice. Example to follow. 

Here's 1 of my favourite sushi that can never go wrong - Tamago Nigiri Sushi (side note: I did 1 of those psychology test ages ago - about 10 yrs or so - where I pick my favourite sushi out of a few choices, I picked this. Result says I'm flirtatious and I have been crowned "flirtatious" ever since. *sigh* - Things that get stuck in people mind. It still gets brought up from time to time in conversation.) Anyway, back to our sushi. 

See this thick fluffy sweet egg? You would think that it's just a piece of egg wouldn't you? Turn it around, you'll see this. Look at the proportion of egg to rice. The egg is like twice the size of the blob of rice.

Here's another piece from the sushi plate. Fresh scallop sushi. 

I think there was 2 or 3 scallops on this sushi. Sweet fresh thick scallops :D 

The sushi plate and sashmi plate weren't quite enough for us, so we added a tonkatsu to the table. Again, very generous serving of deep fried pork chop with the  demiglaze sauce. Crumb was very crispy, but have to be careful when you use chopstick on them. You don't want to leave the yummy crumb behind :) It should be dipped in the sauce together with the juicy tender meat inside . 

This is probably the place with best value for money in terms of sushi and sashimi. However, there is no service at all. You get your own cups, refill your own tea, if you want to order anything extra (which you have missed when you call to make reservation), you'll fill in the form on the table and pass it to whoever walking past with a dish coming out from the kitchen. I've been there many times already, 1 thing that I don't recommend having is the ice-cream in the freezer. They are icy, not smooth at all. You can tell that they have melted and refroze probably multiple times and they weren't covered up in the freezer, so they would absorb all the fridge smell :p Other than that, you're safe to order everything on the menu, everything tastes great :D


121 Anzac Parade

Kensington NSW 2033
Phone (02) 9663 3388
Note: Reservation recommended.

Jazushi

Here's another place that we discovered through Entertainment Book. It's really is a good buy if you eat out a lot like me (yes yes, I know. I used to deny it, but now that I'm actually keep track of food I eat in this blog, I realise I actually eat out a lot more than I thought.) 

Jazushi is a nice little cozy restaurant with live jazz performance EVERYDAY! They have a board on the wall with list of the performers' names on it and the time of performance. The place is not big, but they do have bigger rooms for functions if needed. We got there quite early that day, we started eating before the young-ish cute pianist came in and played on the piano :) 

Here's our entree. Green tea noodle salad $13 - Mixed lettuce and Japanese green tea noodle with soy and onion dressing. The menu had no picture, so I had imagined it to be something small and light. This mountain of green tea noodle came out instead. It was very nice, just as well we were hungry at that time. 

Here's my favourite sushi - Seared Sushi Set $21. It's chef's selection of seasonal assorted seared sushi. On our plate we had 7 pieces of sushi:(from left to right) scallop, salmon, some white fish, scampi, tuna, oyster, another salmon. As mentioned when I posted about Musashi, my faourite is seared salmon of course :) Next best sushi is the seared scallop. The toasty smell and the thick sweet scallop, we should've got each person a plate of this so that we didn't have to share :p Kinda disappointed with the seared oyster though. Still much prefer fresh oysters :) 

JFC $21 - Jazushi Fried Chicken with Yuzu citrus sauce on bed of homemade tartar. Basically it's a tower made with fried chicken pieces holding together by the tartar sauce :) It was GOOD! It's more than finger lickin' good :D  However, as there was only 2 of us and after clearing the mountain of noodle, we had to take it slow with this JFC. The crispy batter of the chicken got soggy towards the end because of the tartar sauce. Still taste very very good though.

Kakuni Kurobuta Pork Belly $23 - Japanese Kurobuta pork braised and marinated overnight in soy dashi sauce. I think those red threads are saffron. Still not too sure how does saffron taste like on its own, but it definitely goes well with the tender pork belly. The sauce was very nice, it's like a sweet soy sauce. The only problem with this dish is that the pieces are too big. I would prefer to have more pieces but bite size :) 

Lastly, we had a dessert platter $25 to share. We had the green tea ice-cream, vanilla creme brulee and cheesecake. No surprises there, just yummy desserts for 2 very full people :) I would try the chocolate creme brulee next time though, since vanilla creme brulee is more 'common'. 

145 Devonshire Street cnr Clisdell Street Surry Hills, 2010

Phone: 02-9699-8977, (direct reservation) 0417406928

Email: jazushi@googlemail.com

Tuesday to Sunday from 6pm till late

Sakana Ya

Long overdue 2nd post!! I think I should post more often if I want to make this blog a popular 1 out of the thousands :p 


Anyway, here's some photos from 1 of my favourite Japanese restaurant in Sydney. Excellent food, there's not a single thing that I don't like about it - other than the price that makes it a 'special occasion only' or 'someone else is shouting' place :p 

Mixed sashimi with extra scampi sashimi. Everything was very fresh. After we finished the sashimi, the waitress asked we want to use the scampi heads to make miso soup and we did. The miso soup were so much more 'sweeter' with the scampi heads in them. 

 Next, tuna sashimi salad. Thick slices of tuna sashimi on top of some salad leaves and those japanese salad dressing. Anyone know how to make those japanese salad dressing? 

Just a few days ago I was wondering why is tuna belly sushi so expensive. I was told that it was because of the spread of fat on the meat (like wagyu beef). So when I was eating my tuna, I was looking at colour and the 'marble pattern'. I could see there are pinkish part on the meat but not sure if this is consider a good cut :p 
Next, grilled swordfish. We were given the choice of teriyaki style or salted. We went for salted. This fish is very very very very nice. It looks dry outside, but inside is still very moist and cooked just perfect. Very fresh piece of fillet,  all natural flavour. In terms of look, it doesn't look as 'interesting' or colourful as the barasushi or the deep fried flounder, but this can easily be my latest favourite.

All time favourite - Barasushi. Since the first time being introduced to this dish probably more than 5 years ago, I've been ordering this almost EVERY SINGLE visit (oh, maybe except the 1 time when I went there for just dessert). 

Another dish that is guaranteed to be nice is their deep fried flounder. My favourite part of the fish? All the crunchy bones!! If given the whole fish to myself, the first thing I would do is snap away the fins and tail and start crunching.

Next, cold green tea soba. A very 'dangerous' dish if you don't dissolve the wasabi completely in the sauce/soup. I took some soba, dip them in, stir them a bit, took them out, luckily I didn't put them straight into my mouth. Put them on the plate and saw a blob of light green stuff in my soba. A very close call.


The ONE thing that I didn't get to take photo of is the mochi. The 1 that says to take 20 mins to prepare on the menu. SOMEBODY took a bite of my mochi before I got to take the photo of it. It's a palm size mochi with red bean inside. This is the thing that made me go all the way there for dessert a while ago. Oh well, something for next time... :p 

336 Pacific Hwy
Crows Nest NSW 2065
(02) 9438 1468