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.