I love ADOs. That fluffy feeling you get when you look at
next week’s roster at work and see that you have a day off in the middle of the
week...priceless. Working for the public system, we get one accrued day off
every month. I usually spend mine sleeping in, lazing about watching daytime TV
(something I rarely get to do), going for a coffee and a stroll, meeting a
friend for lunch in the city.
This month I met up for lunch with my sister, and we decided
to try Hanabishi’s which was located near her office building. I’d had a
hankering for good sashimi for awhile now, and my trip to Japan is not
happening until July...
Now, Amy used to be a chef, and she’s done a whole lot more
traveling – so her appraisal of the food is often a lot more critical than
mine. However, we both agreed that Hanabishi’s didn’t live up to its name as
one of the best Japanese restaurants in Melbourne.
We were keen to try the sashimi, and also decided on a
couple of other entree sized dishes – unagi and soft shell crab. I of course
wanted to try one of the desserts.
Sashimi Chef’s
Selection (entree size)
Crispy Soft Shell Crab
Eel Kabayaki
Green Tea Creme Brulee
with fresh seasonable fruits
While the food was good, there wasn’t anything exceptional
or spectacular about it. I was quite disappointed with the tiny green tea creme
brulee – for $15, it was much too pricey for such a small ramekin, and although
it was beautifully presented, the green tea flavour was lacking in this dish.
It was rather like a normal creme brulee that was green in colour.
The sashimi was decent, but I’ve definitely had better.
Ditto for the unagi and crab.
Now, perhaps this assessment may be a bit too harsh – I
think it was because we were expecting to be wow-ed, and it didn’t happen. None
of the food was bad at all, but it failed to live up to the high expectations
we had coming in – I feel this dampens the dining experience sometimes.
The restaurant had a more modern upmarket feel, rather than
the typical Japanese set up (a la Shoya) – very elegant, but a tad too stuffy
for my liking, especially for lunch; it didn’t help that we came for an early 12pm
lunch, and were virtually the only people there for the first half of our meal.
However, as lunch hour progressed, it did gradually fill up – lots of business
suits and the like.
One thing about the menu which impressed me was that they
had a special section for vegetarians – not a lot of Japanese restaurants cater
for vegetarians (usually even the seemingly vegetarian options have dashi sauce
or bonito flakes or something), so I thought this was quite good.
Overall, a decent Japanese restaurant – I’d like to try some
other items on the menu such as Wagyu steak, Kurobuta pork, tempura, gyoza and
agedashi tofu. A bit on the pricey side (even their lunch boxes are higher
priced than what you typically expect), so this has to be taken into
consideration. The location is a bit out of the way of my usual hang-outs,
hence I’m not sure it’s worth the effort to come back, since there was no
wow-factor...
Ratings (based on my own
experience, on this occasion):
Food – 7 / 10
Service – 7 / 10
Value
for money
– 5 / 10
OVERALL CONSENSUS: 3 bags
(out of 5)
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