Nami Sushi

Oh, nori roll, what did Australia ever do without you?  As grabbable as a potato cake and as pseudo-healthy as a Boost juice.  Every second toddler I see at Highpoint is clutching an avocado roll in their chubby fists.

Footscray now has a schwank sushi joint in the form of Nami Sushi, just opened on Paisley Street.  I love their groovy design!

You've got your regulars, like tempura prawn and avocado.  But then there are a few quirky characters - sundried tomato, cream cheese and avocado, anyone?  And there are cool "inside-out" rolls with the rice on the outside.

There are also some really funky layered rolls, like the one above on the left, with a nice slab of salmon on top.  The verdict?  I really enjoyed both rolls.  My only complaint is they were quite cold.  I'm not sure how Sushi Sushi et al do it, but their rolls are always at a good temperature that makes the nori not too chewy and the flavours all wide awake.  (Yes, yes, I know all about the other thing they found in one of the Highpoint stores' rolls that was also very much wide awake.)  It's probably a hard line to walk with government food safety regulations, I'd imagine.  The secret is probably fast turnover, which I think will become Nami's reality very soon.

The menu online looks very cool but at least as far as I gathered, not everything was available just yet.  They've even got a sushi pizza, which I don't even know how to describe, looking at the picture on their Facebook page.  I hope they get the brown rice sushi happening soon.  (Yes, I am a big hippy.)

At this stage there are tables and chairs but no specific eat-in trimmings.  It would be great to have plates rather than having to eat out of the takeaway boxes.  But for now, can I revert to being one of those nori roll-loving toddlers and exclaim...  Nami Sushi?  Nummy sushi!

Nami Sushi
3 Paisley St, Footscray
namisushi.com.au

New-season soba at Shimbashi

Disclaimer:  I ate here for free.  See end of post for full disclosure.

Once you get clued into seasonality, there's something deeply disconcerting about cafe menus spruiking  heirloom tomato bruschetta at this time of year.  Why stubbornly hang on to basil, avocado and all the other delights of summer when you can celebrate lovely roast pumpkin and wilted, garlicky kale?  What we're often unaware of is that like fruit and veg, nuts and grains also have seasons, and right now is buckwheat harvest time.

In Japan, soba noodles made from the season's first buckwheat are called shin soba and are highly prized for their particularly sweet flavour and delicate fragrance.  I've previously written about Shimbashi, Melbourne's only dedicated soba bar where Chef Taka Kumayama grinds buckwheat into flour and makes soba noodles with it daily on the premises.  Taka invited me back to try out shin soba, only available once per year.

Deep-fried soba to start.  Perfectly crisp and seasoned.

Shimbashi now have a dedicated sake sommelier!  I love this nigori-sake, unfiltered sake served cool, with a texture almost like drinking yoghurt.  We also had amazing, lolly-water yuzu sake and plum wine.

One of my all-time favourite foods - nasu dengaku, or eggplant with sweet miso sauce.  This was a sublime specimen - the eggplant flesh scored into diamonds, cooked till velvety-soft, with luscious, almost caramelly miso.  WOW.

Gorgeous oysters with ponzu sauce and fat petals of sashimi, all tangled up with fresh salad.

Tempura love!  Delicate wedges of pumpkin, zucchini and eggplant in light, blistered batter.  Only the Japanese can make deep-fried food seem healthy.

The main event.  I love how it looks like a prayer offering.  To eat, sprinkle the dipping sauce with spring onion and gently dunk strands of soba in.  Just so lovely.  I don't eat soba enough to be able to wax lyrical about new-season shin soba, but I can tell you that these are some mighty fine noodles.  You can taste the chef's passion in every bite.

Afterwards, the staff will come and top up your sauce pot with soba cooking water to make a warm "soup" that tastes so delicious and nourishing.

Sake pudding.  Wow wow.  The pudding itself is utterly luscious, like creme caramel.  Loved the tangy, marmalade-like lemon sauce on top.

Shimbashi has been open for about eight months now, and I think it's really come into its own.  The public hold Japanese restaurants to standards of authenticity far above any other cuisine in Melbourne, and Shimbashi definitely hits those heights.  It's a very Japanese restaurant, right down to the quirky, homely decor and the Japanese version of Smooth FM they play.  A refreshingly non-sceney spot.

If you want to catch the season's first shin soba, head to Shimbashi in the next week or so.  Of course you can still enjoy hand-made soba here year-round, as buckwheat keeps well - unlike heirloom tomatoes.

Shimbashi Soba (Facebook)

17 Liverpool Street, city
Open:  Mon-Sat 11.30am-2.30pm, 6-10pm

Disclaimer:  Shimbashi invited me and a friend to try shin soba on the house.  This was NOT conditional on subsequently writing a post, but I so enjoyed this meal I wanted to share it.  Shimbashi have not requested nor been given any editorial control over this post.

Hand-made soba noodles at Shimbashi

Disclaimer:  I attended Shimbashi Soba as a guest of the proprietor.  Please see end of post for full disclosure.

What are your recipe deal breakers?  Will you stuff, bone and truss, or are you a chicken shop boy/girl?  (I confess I'm the latter.)  Do the terms "soft crack" and "hard ball" freak you out?  (They're used in confectionary making, you dirty person, you.)  I know for me, a terrible afternoon with a bowl of dough, a slow-press juicer, a vapid instruction manual and a clothes horse festooned with claggy strips of home-made fettuccine meant that I will never, ever attempt to make my own pasta again.  Same goes for noodles.  And anyway, why bother, especially when we have so many wonderful specialty noodle shops to choose from?

Shimbashi Soba has recently opened in Liverpool Street, Melbourne and specialises in making soba noodles from scratch...and I mean scratch.

The noodles begin life as Tasmanian buckwheat kernels (grown chemical free) which are ground in house daily on a slowly turning millstone.  The freshly milled flour is then mixed with a small amount of wheat flour before being kneaded, rolled and chopped just hours before service.  With the exception of the miling, the production is totally non-mechanised, with Chef Taka Kumayama rolling, folding and - with eerie precision - cutting the buckwheat noodles into uniform lengths with an imposing steel blade.  You can catch him in action in the window of Shimbashi between about 10 and 11am, and again in the afternoon if there's a soba rush at lunch.  (Check out this pictorial of a soba noodle workshop in Tokyo.)

I've tried to make soba from packaged, dried noodles in the past but it's never been very nice, the dried noodles turning soft and claggy very fast.  It was the chance to try hand-made soba that piqued my interest when contacted by Chef Taka's lovely friend and ex-colleague Harumi, who is helping with the PR for his new Melbourne venture.

Agedashi tofu, $8

I love going somewhere and just saying, "Feed me food".  The Japanese have a word for it - omakase, which means you're in the chef's hands.   We couldn't resist making some suggestions as well, though!  This agedashi tofu was good - it's a deliberately benign dish, the neutral, slightly savoury tofu in harmony with mild dashi-based dressing.  Loved the touch of very authentic grated daikon on top.  More bonito flakes though please!

  

Oysters, $2.50 ea

Aren't these gorgeous - like little ikebana flower arrangements!  Loved these oysters with their lip-smacking yuzu citrus dressing.

Echigo beer, $15/500 mL bottle

Shimbashi have an impressive Japanese drinks menu with interesting sake and plum wines.  This beer, made with short-grain sushi rice, was utterly crisp and delicious.

Sashimi, $16/14 pieces)

Anyone who eats with a food blogger knows their meal is not their own for at least 30 seconds after arriving on the table.  I'm not as "bad" as some - one friend has been known to commander your lunch, carrying it off to a sunlit windowsill for a photoshoot before you're "allowed" to tuck in!  It's telling then that I was so excited when this arrived, for the first time ever I had to be reminded to take a photo. This sashimi was divine.  Getting away from the salmon/tuna/something white tired triumvirate, we had Tasmanian ocean trout, sand marlin and classic, rosy tuna.  This combo changes daily according to what the chef finds at the Vic Market.  Sublime.

"Ooh, lovely!" we exclaimed on being presented with this little dish.  We should have stopped right there and tucked in, but I had to ask, "What is it?"  Turns out it is fish eggs and milt or fish sperm sacs!!!  Apparently Chef Taka found a lovely pair of striped jack, a kind of mackerel, at the market that morning, from whence these delicacies came.  So we stared.  We spun the bowl.  "I don't think I can do it," said my friend.  But we did, and boy was it good.  The eggs (on the left) had a grainy texture and a not unpleasant fishy taste (like tuna), but the fishy boy parts (shirako) on the right were delicious - smooth and buttery, not unlike pate or brains.  Definitely the strangest thing I've eaten all year, and probably the most surprisingly delicious!

This is a new discovery for me (thanks K!) and I LOVE it.  It's called nigorisake and it's sake (or rice wine) that is unfiltered, leaving it with a creamy, viscous texture not unlike drinking yoghurt.  It's served chilled and is delicious, both sweet and tart at the same time.  If you want some street cred, try ordering this next time you go Japanese - it's relatively unknown and boy, is it YUMMY.

Tempura (normally served with soba, $16)

Delicious tempura, featuring Aussie prawns from the Vic Market, eggplant, broccoli and other vegies.  It was served on paper as is traditional, to demonstrate the chef's skill in making it non-oily.

Seiro soba, $10

The grand finale!  Soba can be served hot or cold but this is the most traditional way.  The noodles are served chilled on a traditional mat (once upon a time, soba noodles were steamed on a mat like this).  Under the bowl of spring onion is a small cup.  A thin, soy-based, ever so slightly bittersweet dressing (tsuyu) is poured from the small jug into the cup, and each chopstickful of noodles is swizzled briefly before being guzzled up.  The idea is to "haul in" the noodles quickly without having to bite them off.  Slurping is not considered impolite and heightens the sensation of silky soba entering your mouth.  The noodles have such a distinct, earthy flavour - delicious.  I love the ritualistic way of serving and eating too.

Soba have vast health benefits including being very high in protein and various polyphenols and bioflavenoids.  The broth soba are cooked in is very nutritous and it is traditional to mix a little with the leftover dipping sauce for a final drink.  This was delicious, balanced and soothing.

Matcha green tea ice cream, $4

LOVED this - house-made green tea ice cream, ever so slightly bitter and with an intriguing graininess (from the finely milled matcha or green tea).  It married perfectly with soft, sweetened adzuki or red beans.  YUM.

Here's Chef Taka Kumayama with his stone-based buckwheat flour mill.  The Shimbashi "brand" has a history that warrants explanation.  A chef named Yoshinori Shibazaki opened the first soba bar in Sydney in 1994, committing to making soba traditionally and later, grinding his own flour.  Success led to a partnership with a Singapore company, R E & S Enterprises, and Shimbashi Singapore was opened in 2003.  Chef Taka (above) had been making soba in Sydney for "Soba Master Shibazaki", as he is known, and he was then sent to oversee operations in Singapore.  Mr Shibazaki has now moved back to Japan, having sold his Sydney business and later opening and also selling another soba bar on the Gold Coast.  Chef Taka has now migrated to Melbourne, owns this restaurant independently and, due to his longstanding association with Mr Shibazaki, has been given his blessing to continue using the same traditional methods and recipe as the original Shimbashi restaurant in Sydney.

So come for the soba and stay for the unique sake and well-made Japanese fare.  I know there are plenty of good Japanese places in town, but the soba really makes Shimbashi stand out.  The interior, while unpolished to a degree, is quaintly charming in its homeliness.  Chilled soba, sashimi and sake in the peaceful laneway on a hot summer evening sounds like a definite plan.

Chef Taka is very focussed on good ingredients and it shows - his signature dish, warm soba noodle soup and duck is coming soon.  Speaking of recipe dealbreakers, anything involving duck is another one of mine, so duck and hand-made noodles sounds like a most delicious plan!



Shimbashi Soba
17 Liverpool Street, Melbourne
Hours:  Mon-Fri 11.30am-2pm, Mon-Sat 6-10pm (last orders 9.30pm).  Closed Sunday.

Disclosure:  I attended Shimbashi as a guest of Chef Kumayama, which means a guest and I did not pay for our meal or drinks.  We left it up to the chef to design our meal but we selected our own drinks.  This offer was not conditional on subsequently writing a post.  Shimbashi has not sought nor been given any editorial control of this post.


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Okonomiyaki (aka Japanese pancake)

Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake or pizza) is one of my favourite things.  I wish I could say I discovered it at a quaint wayside inn beside a bubbling brook, somewhere beyond Tokyo, but in fact I first ate them at Highpoint.  These thick vegie-rich pancakes are my shopping centre saviour - made daily, sort of healthy and meal-size for about $4.  When Ajitoya opened in Seddon, giving us a western suburbs counterpart to Fuji Mart or Suzuran, I gathered up all the ingredients to make okonomiyaki at home - and you can too!

You will need:

(Makes two pancakes - recipe adapted from Visual Recipes)

* 1 cup okonomiyaki flour (available from Ajitoya).  This is superfine white flour seasoned with dried seafood and other goodies.  You could possibly vegetarian-ise or frugal-ise it by seasoning white flour yourself (with maybe powdered mushroom, garlic powder etc?)
* 3/4 cup dashi (Japanese bonito stock) or water.  I recommend Spiral Foods dashi above (available from KFL Supermarket in Flemington) which does not have MSG.  You really don't need to use dashi as the flour is seasoned, but I love the extra flavour!
* 1 egg
* Roughly 1/4 cabbage, finely shredded (you may need more)
* 1 carrot, grated
* Neutral oil eg rice bran
* Japanese tonkotsu sauce and Kewpie mayo (pictured below)

Whisk dashi and eggs together (ignore the two eggs - I was doubling the recipe)

Add flour.

Whisk till smooth.

Add cabbage and carrot.  You want it really thick - when it goes in the pan, it needs to sit in a clump, not spread out like a regular pancake.  Just keep adding and mixing until it is a good, thick mixture like the above.

Heat a frypan, add oil (about 1 or 2 Tb) and add a big dollop of mixture.  Push the sides in a bit so it's nice and circular.  You could make more pancakes that are less tall, but I like the contrast between crispy ends and soft, doughy middle.

It is hard to get the timing right so you don't burn the sides or end up with an uncooked centre.  I experimented by adding the mixture in on high, cooking for a couple of minutes then turning it down low.  After about 5-10 minutes, flip and repeat.  You need the top and bottom to be crispy but the middle cooked.  I stuck a knife in and if batter was still welling up, I kept cooking.  Eventually a tiny bit of batter still looked wet, but I took it off the heat, left to stand  for 5 mins and it was done upon eating.  Each pancake probably take about 20 minutes total to be done all the way through.  Sorry to be vague - I am really much more an eatie-foodie than a cookie-foodie!

Put pancake on plate and take tonkotsu (fruity BBQ-style) sauce and Japanese Kewpie mayo (sorry about crusty, well-loved bottle)...

...quickly squeeze squiggles over in perpendicular fashion.  Serve with greens (preferably dressed with addictive creamy toasted sesame dressing, also from Ajitoya).

Yuuuummmmmy....  The cabbage becomes soft but doesn't have any stinky boiled cabbage smell.  The pancake is soft in the middle yet tantalisingly crispy on the edges, while the BBQ sauce and mayo combine to give it creamy, tangy flavour punch.  You can cut it into wedges and sell it to the kids as pizza and mine absolutely love it.

I think really authentic okonomiyaki is a bit different - some have topping cooked onto it while in the pan (hence Japanese pizza) while others have bonito flakes and other goodies on top.  I like my simple version though, and it does beat the Highpoint version!

Local identity Nick Ray (of the Ethical Consumer Guide) is putting together a new project called Local Harvest.  Among other things, it will comprise a directory of sustainable food links such as food co-ops. community gardens, pick-your-own schemes, all aimed at connecting you with your food on a more grass roots level, bypassing the handful of multinational corporations who control a lot of our food.  They need funds at the moment to meet their fundraising target to get off the ground - see widget to the right, or check out the website.

Ajitoya - Japanese in Seddon

Hara hachi bu is a Japanese saying that advises one to eat until "80% full".  This mild form of calorie restriction is said to be one of the secrets of the particularly long-lived residents of the Okinawan archipelago in southern Japan.  Similarly, there is an Islamic teaching which advises that the best diet is 1/3 food, 1/3 liquid and 1/3 air.  Whatever the health benefits, it is also simply pleasurable to eat mindfully, and there's something in particular about Japanese food that just gets you in the zen zone.

Ajitoya ("secret shop") has just opened in Seddon where the old Mareenie deli used to be and I foresee a rosy future for this bright and bubbly little place.  They have a great Facebook page where they share their meals of the day and respond to requests and comments with genuine hospitality and infectious delight.

There's also a colourful, well-ordered, tempting Japanese grocery range with sweet little hints for buying and cooking.

Sushi rolls ($2.80) are unreal, served on gorgeous earthenware.  The brown rice avocado rolls on the left were a bit of a revelation - the brown rice was surprisingly soft and faintly nutty, not at all what I would have expected.  The nori is springy and tender and the salmon spanking fresh, rolled with just a tingle of homemade wasabi.

Now, the rolls here are smaller than the ones at Highpoint, but you can't argue with the quality and besides, this way you get to try more flavours!  Crispy chicken was good and the inari, sushi rice stuffed into sweet beancurd skin pockets, was a kid hit.

Many of the sit-down meals come as a "set" with your choice of "osozai" deli salads from the cabinet.  They are just so pretty, like little rockpools filled with colourful sea creatures.  We loved these soba noodles, perfectly al dente with a little vegetable, Japanese mayo and teasing sprinkle of chilli.  Salmon tataki was delicious, cooling and centring - sashimi-grade salmon seared momentarily before being accented with sesame and soy.

A set comes with your choice of dish (tempura, karaage fried chicken, agedashi tofu and so on), rice, miso and osozai salad.  The miso was perfect, little soybean paste swirls billowing up from the bottom of the bowls, concealing tender tofu squares.

This tempura was excellent.  Traditionally it is served on paper as here to demonstrate the chef's skill in making it almost totally non-oily.  We got super-fresh fish, calamari, long green beans and a delicate wafer of pumpkin.  Loved the green dipping salt!

Everything here is very authentic, so it is very possible our so-so verdict on the agedashi tofu was our overseasoned palates craving salt and sugar, rather than a failing of Ajitoya's.  The squares of tofu were soft and the seasoning was very mild and subtle.  Freshly grated ginger on top lifted the dish.

I was feeling the Ajitoya love so very much, I wanted to carry on the Japanese theme at home.  The grocers in Footscray do have Japanese product sections but they only have the standards and you have to watch the use-by dates.  At Ajitoya, I found this fantastic specialist flour for okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake), all-natural and seasoned with dried seafood and vegetables.  With fruity okonomiyaki BBQ sauce and Kewpie mayo, we had the fixings for a great dinner to match our lovely lunch.

Winner dinner - took less than 30 minutes to make, was easy peasy, packed with vegies, kids loved it and it used up the half-head of co-op supplied cabbage that has been languishing in the crisper, accusingly haunting my dreams.  If you want the recipe, tell me :)  Salad was gorgeous with creamy, sweet sesame dressing, also from Ajitoya.

Well, this is yet another day I didn't eat til 80% full, but I sure did enjoy the extra 30%.



Ajitoya (Facebook page)
82 Charles Street, Seddon
Phone:  9687 1027
Hours:  See Ajitoya website (link above) - now open for dinner and breakfast by arrangement



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