Grilling @ Takumi

Takumi

32 Bourke Street

Melbourne, VIC

www.takumi.com.au 

I noticed that I have been eating a lot of Japanese food lately.  Since I started writing this blog, this is probably the forth Japanese restaurants that me and my fellow diners have been to within less than two months time frame.  Well, what can I say, between me and my friends, Japanese cuisine is one of our favourite, after Thai - which is our background.  Now thinking about it, we should visit more Thai restaurants around Melbourne and see which ones worth for the revisit.

Over the weekend, Little T and myself decided to pay a visit to Takumi.  Takumi is a Yakiniku's style restaurant with smokeless BBQ technology.  They also claim that they serve only highest quality Australian Wagyu beef.  We decided to give it a go since we haven't had Yakiniku for quite a while and we wanted to check out their range of Wagyu.  Of course, we wouldn't just go there for their Wagyu, we would put other items on the menu to the taste test too.

First off, we start the night with some drinks, lucky Little T that we went there during the happy hour, so Little T got a special Asahi on tap ($6), while myself settled with Plum Flip ($15), one of the four in the range of Japanese cocktails that they offered.  The cocktail came in nice colour layered, with a mixed of plum wine, midori, lemon juice and cranberry juice.  The smell of it was very sweet, tasted like a cordial with a kick of alcohol.  I kinda enjoyed this Plum Flip drink, too bad that they only gave it just little more than a half-full glass.

  

 

We didn't have to wait for long until our entree arrived.  Our choices for the night were Takumi's Special ($20.80) and Salmon Carpaccio (13.80).  Little T and myself agreed that the Takumi's Special was the best among the two entree.  It was a thinly sliced & lightly grilled wagyu dressed with diced onion and lightly tang dressing.  The wagyu texture looked like marble meat, with fat evenly spread out.  It was soft and sorta melted in the mouth, went really well with the dressing.  Salmon Carpaccio dressed with honey mustard, which somehow overpowering the taste of the good quality salmon.  Taken out the dressing, the salmon was fresh and fatty, I was pretty sure that Little T and myself had enough dose of Omega 3 oil after finishing this dish.

Little T ordered some interesting dishes from Sake partner snack list: Ate-no moriawase ($12.80).  It was three sampler plates from the Sake partner snack list.  The choices Little T picked were Mentai ika, Tsubugai kimuchi and Okizuke.  After seeing what was ordered, I somehow was glad that they were in small serving sizes.  Among all these snack, Little T and myself prefered the Mentai ika the most.  It was pickled cod's roe and squid, tasted quite alright compared to the others.  After tasted few pieces, we decided that it was a time for Sake to the rescue - warm house sake ($8).  Without sake, it would be impossible for us to try and finish these interesting little dishes.   Tsubagai kimuchi were sea snails marinated in kimchi sauce.  They were little bit chewy and the kimchi sauce wasn't that tangy nor strong, this was an acceptable dish for us.  Okizuke was the last dish that we tasted, since the looked of it already spook us a little bit.  There were five small equally sized pickled squids with soy sauce.  The taste of it was beyond our imagination... to give you a bit of a picture - I had a sip of sake before tasted the squid, and immediately followed with two more cups of sake! 

We also ordered Yukke ($10.80) to try...though I just had Yukke couple of nights ago at Horoki, but I wouldn't mind trying one more yukke...since Takumi claimed that they served premium wagyu, so yes, bring on the Yukke!  The beef was very tender and nicely seasoned...may be a little heavy on pepper from the kitchen.  After a while, we found that it was a teeny bit over coated in apple sauce.  

After the entree and interesting little dishes of Sake partner snacks, 't was the time for the Yakiniku.  The pick of the night was Premium Wagyu Beef Plate ($32.80), comprised of Jo-Karubi (Premium Rib eye cap), Jo-Tongue (Premium Beef tongue) and Jo-Rosu (Premium Porterhouse) at 50 g each.  They were all very soft in texture due to high fat content in the meat.  Probably the Jo-Karubi was the least favourite, I guess it was too much of the fatty bit in the meat.

 

We also ordered Yaki-Onigiri ($4.80) on the side, it was two grilled rice balls served with pickled vegetable on the side.  Interesting rice balls coated with soy sauce and grilled, quite enjoyable to eat actually.  

Dessert time was calling right after we finished the main, after we ordered Japanese Parfait ($8.50) and Japanese Sweet Plate ($8.50), we moved to the seats upstairs since they needed to prepare the table for the next round of booking.  We didn't mind since we could still get to enjoy the dessert rather than being asked to leave.  The Japanese Parfait was simply three scoops of ice-cream with azuki red beans, diced fruit and jelly.  The flavour of ice-creams were azuki red bean, green tea and black sesame. The taste was OK, not something out of the world unlike the ice-cream I had at Koko.  The Japanese sweet place was simply a scoop of ice-cream of your choice, a mini version of dorayaki and teeny portion of Japanese chiffon cake.  Another ordinary plate of dessert, which just satisfied the crave of something sweet after the meal.   

+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.