Yayoi, CBD

Yayoi is a popular international chain of Japanese restaurants that opened up a branch in Sydney about a year ago. The restaurant focuses on teishoku which is a form of Japanese meal which includes a number of items including rice, miso soup, a main and some side dishes such as pickles.

Zensai – Zensai Moriawase

To start off our meal we were served an interesting mix of ingredients including egg, grilled eel and some vegetables. These are designed as starters and I personally didn’t see anything too special about them.

After salmon sashimi I would have to say that kingfish is my next preference, I’m well aware that those who swear by tuna think I am insane but I’ve always loved the more solid texture of salmon and kingfish.

Although I generally prefer my fish raw (especially for salmon) I do enjoy a nice grilled piece of fish once in a while. This teriyaki salmon was very tender and the teriyaki sauce was very flavoursome.

At first I thought these were like pork tonkatsu but after having a few bites I believe there may be a slight difference in the batter used and the cooking methods in general as it was noticeably more flaky.

This was probably my favourite meal of the lot, I don’t think you could ever go wrong with wagyu beef patties. It almost seems like a waste to mince such a good cut of beef but it’s still good even in this form.

I’ve never been a big fan of soup based dishes like sukiyaki as I prefer something a bit more substantial so I was happy to see that this was actually a rice based dish with meat based on a delicious sukiyaki broth.

I love mochi but because the others we were sharing with thought the opposite we ended up with more than we could handle. I would personally prefer ice cream over red bean but both are good options.

Overall a great meal and a nice show put on by Jenny Liu to kick start the event. Although this was more a degustation than a traditional teishoku meal, it was a great showcase for the quality of food and ingredients served at Yayoi and we were also provided with a few types of sake which were smooth and delicious.

Mr C dined as a guest of Yayoi and Plenus Australia.
All views and opinions expressed in this post are my own.