Gyoza Gyoza x Dohtonbori — Restaurant in Melbourne

Entering Gyoza Gyoza is in itself a visual experience with a stunning wall mural and traditional Japanese brightly coloured fluoro lights at the entrance. The decor is modern Japanese tempered within the confines of a compact space. The menu is extensive and I mean very extensive. Pages and pages of food choices that are mostly all photos each with a concise description of each meal. And yes - what you see on the menu is what you get. Then you have to decide what to drink and again, pages of colourful cocktail concoctions, an abundance of imported Japanese beer as well as the usual wine and spirits. I’d recommend taking your time and finding something that will complement your meal choices. We had Asahi and Suntory Premium Malt beers. Tonight we chose a selection of what I’d call tapas style servings. For food, we wanted to explore s little of everything so began with Okonomiyaki, Okra Tempura, Agedashi Tofu and Salmon Tataki Salad. Each serve arrived within two minutes of each other and was refreshing to see the portion sizes were generous. Next was a serve of Miso eggplant and duck fried Gyoza plus a serve of Pork and cabbage steamed Gyoza. Normally I prefer fried dumplings but tonight, the steamed were light, tasty and tender. Delicious. To finish off we had warm saki. Then after some deliberation, chose a typically well crafted dessert of green Matcha Crepe Cake served with fresh seasonal berries and cream as well as a rose, lychee and Sakura parfait in a glorious Dame Edna pink colour. Service was what you’d expect. The staff float by, take your order and disappear as though on wings returning within minutes with your food. Fast. Efficient. Friendly. I’m looking forward to coming here in the warmer months when the semi outdoor seating area will be a nice place to drink Asahi and dine on many of the other dumpling choices. Total cost for the evening with everything we ate and drank was just on $90 which for the variety and abundance of food, a realistic amount. Notes: recommend you make a booking as it does get busy, suitable for vegetarians, restaurant is wheelchair friendly, kid friendly and there is good parking...

An amazing interior including some gorgeous wall art and a neon feature wall really set the tone for a great atmosphere. Staff were super friendly too as is often the case with Japanese hospitality. We started the meal with the sashimi special which included a whole host of seafood you don’t typically experience part of a standard sashimi board. It was quite special to try some of the shellfish more traditionally eaten in Japan and each of the different types of raw fish are all available separately. The drinks menu is amazingly extensive and we enjoyed a Japanese beer and a delicious mango yuzu cocktail which was thoroughly refreshing. The Gyoza was an interesting concept, there are many types to chose from and it comes with garlic, chilli, sesame and soy/vinegar for you to create your own dipping sauce to taste. This was a great idea as you can really customise how you like it. The okonomiyaki was something a bit different too as I have only ever eaten this dish as vegetarian but this had calamari inside which is apparently more authentic, yummy. Miso eggplant was beautiful and sweet, yakitori always one of my favourites and the wafu steak was cooked well with a lovely little sauce. I wasn’t sure how many plates we would need to be full but 8 definitely did the trick for the two of us. Teriyaki chicken was recommended and so we tried that as well as the salt and pepper fried chicken. When dessert came out we were super full but suitably impressed by the Mt Fuji temptation which was a mountainous matcha and roasted tea soft serve in a waffle basket topped with popcorn and fairy floss. Definitely a magical and creative dessert! A great location on the outside of bustling Doncaster Westfield and with such a wide variety available there will undoubtedly be something to impress even the...

1.5 star ⭐️ Had the $16.9 lunch deal at Gyoza Gyoza the other day and it was pretty friggin bad. The variety is good, you get to choose two out of about 30 mini dishes and get salad, rice/cold soba noodles and miso soup.

However when the soba noodles arrived it was smaller than a clenched fist. I was dining with two young kids (2&4) and was hoping to let them have some of the noodles. It was barely enough for one of them. The cold soba noodles also had a huge dollop of wasabi in the middle and than goodness I was looking because otherwise my two year old will get a huge wasabi hit. Why they didn’t put it on the side so we can decide whether to have it or not was beyond a mystery to me. There were still bits and bobs of wasabi all over the noodles so both kids complained that it’s too spicy.

The next thing i had was the kingfish sashimi - it was not fresh at all. I tried one piece and almost threw up. They are happy to return it and I decided to have something safer... well at least cooked- fried chicken wings instead. Once again the chicken wings came with a sprinkle of spicy 7-Spice salt... but it was hidden in the bottom of the plate under the chicken wings. I really don’t get it! I finally had to dust off the spice for the kids to eat it. It was unbelievable. 😒

The gyoza are good though we had the pork and cabbage gyoza and we ordered an extra one for the kids and they are happy with those.

Really I wouldn’t want to come back again. Sure the variety is great but everything else is just sub par. And considering 3 out of their 5 tables have kids eating there, you would have thought they will be more...