Horoki Casual Dining Bar
19 Liverpool Street
Melbourne, VIC
On a shopping night, three hungry people were on the street, wandering on where we should go for dinner. Without booking plus it was a peak hour for dinner service, some funky restaurants were 'no-go' zone for us. Mr Tommy the Chef, our visiting friend, laid out his card that he would like to have Asian food since he hasn't had them for a while. After discussion with Miss P and Mr Tommy the Chef, we decided that tonight would be a Japanese night. Miss P suggested that since three of us haven't been to Horoki before, we all should give it a try, so we made our trip there.
When we arrived at the corner of Liverpool & Burke Streets, the familiar scene and memory started to bring back my memory. I've been to this street before and Horoki must be on the opposite side of Laksa me. When I went to Laksa me, I put a mental note in my head that next time I must try this Japanese place. Without knowing the name and focusing on my mental note, the visit to Horoki had slipped out of my mind. Finally, the day for Horoki has come, yay!
Horoki is a small casual dining bar where there were a combination of table and bar services. We waited for 10-15 minutes to get a table, the wait wasn't so bad 'cause we utilised the time to check out the menu :). The staff were so apologetic about keeping us waiting outside. We reassured them that it was ok since we weren't in a hurry anyway. After a while, the moment had come...we got the table! The table was quite small for three people, but of course, it was better than three people sitting at the bar. We started off the night with some warm sake just to warm ourselves up after waiting in the cold. The chilled sake was to followed after the meal came out. I found the way they presented the warm sake was cute. They did not use one of those usual shaped sake bottles, but they used the small kettle lookalike bottle. The sake itself was alright, sweet, dry and taste great when warm.
After couple of cups of sake, the first meal came out, it was Beef Tartare with quail egg. The dish was presented in a simple way, minimalistic with only few things on the plate, which made the Beef tartare the center of attention. I had to admit that this was a great appetizer for us three, especially when having it with sake, the sweetness of the beef was brought out even more. The amount of sauce was just right, not overpowering the flavour of the beef at all.
The next dish that followed right up was the Rice noodle with spicy cod roe sauce. The dish was garnished with dried seaweed and spring onions, contrasted well with the colour of the dish since the sauce was quite orange :). The taste of this noodle dish was awesome, the noodle cooked just right and with the sauce full of cod roe, oh my, what a combination. Very interesting dish indeed!
The most interesting dish award for the night would have to go to the stuffed chicken wings. We ordered three so we all could have wings to ourselves :). It was a chicken wing stuffed with mince meat and veggie, the filling was pretty much like gyoza filling and tasted great. We were so captivated by the idea behind this dish when we noticed that they deboned the chicken wing but still left skin on connected to the wing tip. I had my piece with a bit of lemon, oh so good. Neither of us had the wings with the sauce on the side, the wings were great by themselves, being a true star of the night.
We also had our forks and chopsticks out on the Daikon and Sashimi Salad. The Daikon salad was truly the heart of the dish and Horoki presented it that way. The daikon salad was in the middle and surrounded by fresh sashimi - King fish, Salmon, Tuna and Scallops. I must admit that this salad was refreshing, the dressing had the right tanginess that worked well with the sashimi and fresh daikon. They also added the fried noodles as a crunchy factor to this dish.
Salmon Tataki was on the waiting list for us to taste. All of us agreed that some pieces of the salmon were seared a tad bit too much and they were falling apart. We also wished that they would be more generous with the dressing...it was a shame that there wasn't much dressing for us to taste, so it turned out as if we were just having seared salmon.
After filling up our table with food and plates, then came the elongate dish with Tuna Carpacio. The combination of fresh Tuna, mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, daikon and dressing went very well together. However, Mr Tommy the Chef commented that the Parmesan was overpowering the tuna and overall dish. Miss P and myself didn't notice that in the first bite since the pieces we took had less Parmesan on them. When we tried with more Parmesan on, we had to agree with Mr Tommy the Chef, less Parmesan was a definite more in this case.
After stuffing our guts out with savoury dishes, we shifted our focus to Horoki dessert platter. It was a bit unfortunate that they ran out of Green Tea ice-cream, so our dessert platter only had Creme Brulee, Panna Cotta and Tiramisu. The desserts were average, among all three, the Tiramisu tasted best for us.
After giving happiness to our tummies, Miss P and Mr Tommy the Chef continued to add one last doze of alcohol into their systems with couple of beers in big cold glasses, then we called it a night and slowly made our way out with heavy tummies.
+Disclaimer: The commentary contained in this blog is purely based on my own opinion and experience at the time of visit. Taste is a subjective and yours and mine can be differed.
