Japanese Izakaya

277 Carlisle Street, Balaclava

Only the two of us (hazellee and gammagum) visited Japanese Izakaya last Friday night, for a last minute meal to celebrate a “last day at work” thing with a friend. I’ve wanted to go there for ages. It’s always packed and I loved the place that used to be there – Piper – best Eggs Benedict in Melbourne! It was a sad day when Piper closed down, but we were very excited to finally make it in to try Japanese Izakaya.

We arrived for a late dinner to a full restaurant, and were not sure that we would get a table. But we were sat quickly at the last available table and bought water and menus. We decided on a nice bottle of Oakridge ‘Over the Shoulder’ Chardonnay and 5 dishes to share. We found the menu a little confusing at first – the price suggested that these were starters or small dishes, however couldn’t work out what quantities to order or if any of them would be considered starters. In the end we ordered 2 dumpling dishes and 3 meat courses.



Weirdly enough though, each dish came out separately and the three of us agreed that this lessened the impact of the meal. We probably would have preferred for the dumplings to come out first (not an unusual request I would have thought!) and the other meals as a second course. This is how the meals came out.

Braised free range otway pork belly flavoured with soy miren and honey – then flamed
I am not sure how prepped the kitchen was for this order… I guess they were ready for the orders to come rolling in! The pork belly came out first after about ten minutes. Hmmm. But the flavours of this dish made it the best of the night. The honey and soy sauce was spot on and delicious. The serving bowl and spoon made it hard to scoop up all that yummy goodness! The pork itself was a bit chewy, which was a bit disappointing, and in rather large pieces, which made it difficult to eat with chopsticks. But the best dish of the night for sure.

Pan seared duck breast on wombok and shiitake laced with Japanese black vinegar
Duck was cooked beautifully, nice and pink in the middle. The girls both enjoyed theirs, but mine was a bit tough, as I ended up with the end pieces. The salad was nice and worked well with the duck. I love wombok and the dressing was nice and sweet. A good contrast with the duck.

Sticky rice coated steamed dumplings filled with chicken, prawn and ginger, with hot mustard and vinegar dipping sauce
First comment and a pet hate – 3 people at the table and they bring 4 dumplings! So annoying. Why not give us a heads up when we order and ask if we’d like to pay a bit extra so everyone can have 2 pieces? What is a table of three supposed to do with one dumpling!? Anyway. The dumplings were ok, but not nearly as amazing as they sound on the menu. The rice was not a sticky rice at all and was a bit too underdone, leaving it crunchy and soggy all at the same time. The flavours of the filling did not really blow us away – it was kind of boring! The dipping sauce was great though and by this stage we had all commented that the sauces were so far, so good!

Soy marinated soft shelled crab with sansho pepper and sesame dressing
Not good. Crab was overcooked and dry and the batter was flavourless. A really disappointing dish.

Dumplings filled with sweet potato, carrot and shiitake, sprinkled with black sesame
These were yummy dumplings and we all liked them. Again, 4 dumplings to share on a table of 3 is not ideal! And we waited a good ten minutes between the crab and this last portion of dumplings to come out. A strange way to present small sharing plates for sure.

Overall, we were pretty disappointed. We paid $40 each, which included a 15% tip and a bottle of wine, so we felt it was good value in some ways. But the food was a big let down, especially when there is so much great Japanese around Melbourne. The staff were very friendly, but if we decided to go back again (unlikely) we would ask for dishes to come out at the same time and also specify the order in which they arrive.

I think next time we will try the Japanese place next to the Espy – a friend went there last week and raved about it. I don’t even know what it’s called! But that will perhaps be our next Japanese place on the list.

Ale Stars at the Local Taphouse

Well, this blog is rapidly morphing into a place for us to upload anything to do with food or drink we feel is interesting… So its probably time I wrote about my experience of being an “Ale Star”, a beer club that is run out of The Local Taphouse in St Kilda East.



I’ve been going there for a few years now and hazellee and I (gammagum) are both members. This means we pay an annual membership fee, and end up at the local once a month for a beer tasting, as well as getting an Ale Stars shirt and beer mug, with our own little locker to keep it in! Cute!

These monthly catch ups are usually pretty memorable… although of course there has been a few that I struggle to remember at all! But mainly it’s a line up of interesting beers and speakers, with great company and a real community feel to it. If you want more info, check out the Taphouse’s blog here



So to our last session - Tuesday night! This month, we had a visit from the Beer Ambassadors, three guys who went off to the States with a mission to visit 25 craft breweries in 25 days. Here’s what the Local had to say:

“The craft beer scene in the US leads the way in many regards when it comes to innovation and experimentation. Here in Australia we’re playing catch up fast but still regard ourselves to be several years behind the US market acceptance of craft beer, consumer uptake and brewer confidence. The Beer Ambassadors, not content to take the word of others, made the trip to the US themselves to experience craft beer at its burgeoning best. The Ambassadors set themselves the task of visiting 25 breweries in 25 days to discover as much about the US scene as they could and return with their livers intact. The following beers represent some of the diversity in beer styles they encountered.”

We tried 4 beers (plus I had a few sneaky ales between tasters) and here’s what we thought of them! You should note that we are not brewers and we don’t have a very functional understanding of how beer is produced. But we love to try new styles and encourage all wine/beer drinkers to do the same!

Lagunitas – A Little Sumpin’Sumpin’ Ale (American Wheat – 7.3%)
I should say this upfront – I am not a fan of wheat beers. Sorry. But this didn’t seem to fit as a wheat beer at all. In fact, I think I quite liked it! It smelt amazing, like it would be choc full of hops. And the taste was very crisp and malty, but bitter in its finish. It also carried a bit of sweetness and we also got a bit of citrus. But we thought that the hops started to really come through as it warmed up and also became less bitter towards the end of the glass. Lots of us commented that the one sample (maybe 100 – 150mL?) was not quite enough. Shandy (our Ale Stars leader!) said he was getting bready/wheaty flavours… but we thought you maybe needed a larger glass served a few degrees warmer to get that.

Avery – IPA (American IPA – 6.3%)
Mmm IPA, my favourite! Wait, it’s an American IPA? Even better! As you would expect, loaded with hops and smelt amazing. My only legible tasting note is the one that says ‘yum, yum, yum’ which is not particularly helpful. Apart from that, what else can I say? This was a super yummy American IPA and I would like to have a few of them in my fridge to come home to every night.

Avery – Salvation (Belgian Strong Pale Ale – 9%)
Phew. 9%!!! The smell of this one was not as pleasant as the first two tasters. I got a lot of banana on the nose, which is not my favourite in a beer, but despite this the taste was surprising. It was very smooth and almost like a tripel. This reminds me of the times we sit down at Cookie to drink some Trappist Ales – it seemed like a session ale to me and something you would sit on for a while in front of a nice, cosy fire.

Left Hand – Milk Stout (Milk Stout – 5.2%)
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, although Shandy promptly informed us that we could expect a sweet stout. Sounds good. Then Tom from Mountain Goat told us that their Surefoot Stout also features a lactose powder, so I was keen to try it. And it is a great beer! Sometimes I find the coffee/chocolatty flavours in a really heavy stout a little overwhelming and I cant drink much. But this was like a chocolate milkshake in beer form, which I suppose on paper sounds pretty awful, but was delicious! Yum yum.

In between I has some small tasters of the Bitter & Twisted IPA from Harviestoun Brewery (UK) which was fairly average and not something I would go for again, and the Wig & Pen Velvet Cream Stout, which was delicious. What was most amazing about this beer however was the incredible colour and finish on it – the head was like velvet (hence the name!) and it carried such amazing bitter and sweet characteristics that this is another one I will need to go out and buy.

Bar Lourinha

We had planned to visit Mamasita tomorrow night, but as luck would have it, I have been forced to have an unexpected x-ray and specialist appointment to work out what's wrong with my ankle. And as a result, Mamasita will have to be postponed for a week or so as I am now broke...

But I did manage to get over to Bar Lourinha last Thursday night, for an unexpected bottle of wine, some yum food and a catch up with a few friends. Ollie has been to Bar Lourinha many times before, and hazellee wasn't with us, so it doesn't really count as our first visit, but I thought I would put up my thoughts anyway!



I had never visited before (my poor excuse is that it’s at the wrong end of the city for me – see why we needed to create this blog??!) and I had heard good things, so was looking forward to trying a few items off the menu. The girls were heading off to dinner after this, so we didn’t order much. Here’s what we had…*

Yellow tail kingfish ‘pancetta’ & lemon oil
This was beautiful – the best dish we had here by far. The fish just melted away in your mouth and it was nice and lemony, without being too oily. Yum. Could have eaten several more portions of this!

The goat special – cant remember much, except that the description featured the word ‘suckling’
The meat was full of fat, so was very sweet and tender, but probably some of it could have been trimmed away. Some of it was inedible… a few potatoes in the dish which were lacking in flavour and super boring.

Roasted mushrooms and garlic cream
These were yum, but weirdly, each tapas item was bought out one by one, so we couldn’t eat the mushrooms with anything else! We had selected this as a sort of side dish, so expected to have this with the others, but they were still good on their own.

Spiced lamb, white beans and free range egg
I can see what the recent Epicure article was talking about – why the need to specify a ‘free range egg’? Anyway it was really yummy, but nothing really amazing… until you added the coriander garnish – then it was super yummy!

*note – we didn’t take photos of the food. Ollie hates food bloggers who do that and so I just sneakily made notes under the table. But I will try and get shots next time when she’s not looking!

We also drank a bottle of rose (cant remember what it was) and they bought a good amount of bread and butter to the table – although I will comment that the bread was in two MASSIVE chunks, when there were three of us at the table? Weird.

Ended up being $45 each, which included a nice tip. We were in really early, around 5pm, so by the time we left at 7pm, there were loads of people waiting for tables. A popular place.



My opinion was that it was just ok. I am not in a hurry to go back there, but it’s a nice little place, great décor (love the horse/deer heads!) but I felt probably a bit overpriced for fairly average food.

Have you been there before? What are your thoughts?

And we’ve booked in for Cutler and Co for October 10 – stay tuned!

And so it begins...

Late one September night in 2010, a group of melbourne friends decided that we don't see nearly enough of our great city. A comment was made that we needed to go on a holiday in melbourne, to experience the food, bars and attractions it has to offer. And so a melburnian holiday was born. The three amigos (gammagum, hazellee and ollie) decided that melbourne's dining establishments would be the first we explore. And we would share our experience with the world via this blog. Welcome.

THE RULES

• Once a fortnight, we get together and head out for dinner

• The restaurant must be new to at least two of us

• We take turns to select where we go (3) then urban spoon's iphone application selects a random choice for us

• We put our review up here!

• We aim to do this for a whole year! Should end up with 26 reviews – that sounds ok right?

We're planning on starting next week with mamasita. Has anyone been there? Got any feedback of what's good to order?