Ocha — Restaurant in Melbourne

2s (Melbourne Eateries that I wouldn't rush back to, but wouldn't be adverse to going back to either. Food needs some development)[40]: Centonove (Kew) Cicciolina Back Bar (St Kilda) Da Guido La Pasta (Carlton) Emporer Court (Mitcham)[RIP] Fonda (Richmond) Georges (Croydon)[RIP] Grants On Sherbrooke (Kallista) Harry's On The Esplanade (Cowes) Ishiya (CBD) Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie (Albert Park/Camberwell/Doncaster) Maestro (Geelong) Matteo's (North Fitzroy) Matsumoto (East Brunswick) Minh Xuong (Richmond) Nude Food (San Remo) Ocha (Hawthorn) Pope Joan (CBD) Queenscliff Brewhouse (Queenscliff) Rumi (East Brunswick) Sarti (CBD) Small Block (East Brunswick)[RIP] Spot + Nosh (Heathmont)[RIP] Stalactites (CBD) Sugardough (East Brunswick) The Corner Hotel (Richmond) The Court House (North Melbourne) The Firehouse (Ringwood) The Groove Train (Cheltenham)[RIP] The Press Club (CBD)[RIP] The Restaurant At The Herb Farm (Lilydale)[RIP] The Studley Park Boathouse Cafe (Kew) Thirty Eight Chairs (Carlton North)[RIP] Tiamo 2 (Carlton) Tien Dat (Box Hill) Tin Pot Cafe (North Fitzroy) Trotters (Carlton)[RIP] Warwick Thai (Brunswick)[RIP] Wild Cattle Creek Estate (Seville) Woodstock Cafe (North Fitzroy)[RIP]

3s (Melbourne eateries with good solid tucker that I wouldn't mind eating fairly regularly. Food is competent)[63]: Allegro (CBD) Alma (Geelong) A Minor Place (Brunswick) Bar Idda (East Brunswick) Bekendales (Croydon) Bellarine Estate (Bellarine) Bistro Guillaume (Southbank) Bistro Thierry (Toorak) Boire (Collingwood)[RIP] Brunswick Flour Mill (Bunswick)[RIP] Cafe Terroni (Yarraville) Carlton Wine Room (Carlton) Carsons (Yarraville)[RIP] Chapelli's (South Yarra) Cheeky Monkey (Richmond) Chez Bob (Armadale) Chez Olivier (South Yarra) Chris's Beacon Point Restaurant (Apollo Bay) Cicciolina (St Kilda) Collins Kitchen (CBD) Cornershop (Yarraville) Di Palma's (East Kew) D.O.C. Mozzarella Bar (Carlton) Donnini's (Carlton) Dragon Boat (CBD)[RIP] Emerge (Geelong) Empire Cafe Gallery (Brunswick)[RIP] En Izakaya (Balaclava)[RIP] Enoteca Vino Bar (Carlton North) Feast Of Merit (Richmond)[RIP] Fiorelli (Hawthorn East) France-Soir (South Yarra) Grossi Florentino: The Restaurant (CBD) Ides (Collingwood) Izakaya Chuji (CBD) Kinya (Docklands)[RIP] Kofi Beans (Croydon) Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie (Toorak) Lau's Family Kitchen (St Kilda)[RIP] Lindt Chocolat Cafe (CBD)[RIP] Little Creatures Dining Hall (Fitzroy)[RIP] Miss Marple's Tearoom (Sassafras) Monsieur Truffe (East Brunswick) Mr. Wolf (St Kilda) Orange (Windsor)[RIP] Pumphouse Hotel (Fitzroy) Punch Lane (CBD) Reunion Cafe And Dining (Surrey Hills) Sapa Hills (Footscray) Secret Kitchen (Doncaster) Shujinko (CBD) Thanh Phong (Richmond)[RIP] The Carlisle Wine Bar (Balaclava)[RIP] The Green Refectory (Brunswick) The Hardware Societe (CBD) The Kent Hotel (Carlton North) The Perch At Lavers Hill (Lavers Hill) Tim Ho Wan (CBD) Truffles Patisserie (Balaclava) Vines Restaurant at Helen's Hill (Coldstream) Wing Loong (CBD)[RIP] Zelena Cafe Bar & Restaurant (Croydon) Zen (Hawthorn)

4s (Melbourne eateries with great food. Food is a strength[32]): APTE Cafe (Alphington)[RIP] Attica (Ripponlea) Bamboo House (CBD) Biagio's (Niddrie) Brae (Birregurra) Chin Chin's at Koto Moon (Carlton North) Choi's (Hawthorn) Cumulus Inc. (CBD) El Mirage (Brunswick) Estivo (Kew)[RIP] Ezard (CBD)[RIP] Flower Drum (CBD) I Carusi (East Brunswick) Igni (Geelong)[RIP] Jack Rabbit (Bellarine) Junior Tan Hawker Kitchen (Bayswater) Ladro (Prahran)[RIP] Le Petit Bistro (Kooyong) Locale at De Bortoli (Dixons Creek) Mule (Brunswick)[RIP] Papa Goose (CBD)[RIP] Paris Go Bistro (Carlton) Pioneer Kitchen @ The Grovedale (Grovedale) +39 Pizzeria (CBD) Ribs & Burgers (Hawthorn) Riche (Richmond) SUD Food And Wine (CBD) Tao's (Bulleen)[RIP] The European (CBD) The Grand Dining Room (Richmond)[RIP] Vue de Monde (CBD) Wall Two 80 (Balaclava)

5's (The Best Melbourne Eateries. Food is very much a strength)[5]: La Fantaisie (Richmond)[RIP] LeTAO (CBD) L'uccellino (Yarraville) Rockpool...

3.0. I was a big fan of the old Ocha in Kew. It was a tiny venue and it was often hard to get a booking there. But, it had real atmosphere including an air of exclusivity. The new Ocha has been in larger premises in Hawthorn for some time and it continues the modern Japanese food tradition of the old venue.

There’s plenty to like here. The food is good, sometimes very good, and the bar and table service is terrific. But, I had a couple of issues with our experience here. One, the place is a bit noisy when it’s full. Two, and more troubling, we had to wait an eternity before any food arrived after being seated. More on this shortly.

We started with a drink at the bar which was very pleasant. The bar and managerial staff were totally on the ball both with drinks and conversation. A long humour laden discussion over our drinks about the merits of dirty martinis was both entertaining and funny. We enjoyed the banter and then moved to our table.

We ordered promptly after sitting down essentially leaving the venue to choose the dishes. But, then we waited and waited and waited. So did other tables around us. The food was just so slow to come out. It was basically a glacial one hour wait. I was just about ready to start eating the cutlery, I was that hungry. I haven’t experienced a wait like this for food for years. To be fair to the restaurant, it was clearly the absolute busiest time of the night. The restaurant was full and clearly lots of people had ordered around the same time. I get that. But, aren’t restaurants meant to anticipate these sorts of things and manage them. As we sat waiting and waiting I wondered why the restaurant couldn’t arrange just one appetiser or small dish to tide us over a bit. That plus actually being advised of a bit of a delay would have helped the situation. Instead, we were left hanging and had to make our own enquiries with the staff about when something might be coming. All in all, it was not well handled and it left us frustrated.

Finally a dish and then multiple dishes started to arrive after an hour. Our first was finely sliced calamari. On first tasting, I found the calamari bland and thought it needed seasoning. It didn’t. All it needed was a couple of squeezes of lemon juice from the supplied wedges on the plate and the dish was absolutely transformed. It was very nice. A lovely dish. Next dish was salmon tartare with seaweed. This dish too had beautiful taste and textures. We really enjoyed it. A carpaccio of beef was next. It looked good but we all thought it was a little flat and needed more flavour. The sashimi and sushi combination followed. This was good but certainly short of top draw. There were several nice pieces, the best probably being the unagi nigiri which was delicious. We finished the mains with eggplant with miso which was lovely and tempura crab and beans with a green pepper which was also good. Our dessert was a couple of scoops of green tea and black sesame ice cream.

All in all, we enjoyed the food. It’s good but not spectacularly good modern Japanese fare.

Our thanks to the staff here who were terrific as suggested earlier. The table and bar service was uniformly good and the banter was a lot of fun particularly from the head barman. He didn’t convince a couple of us about his views about martinis but we enjoyed our conversation with him immensely.

(I marked the restaurant down half a mark for the lengthy wait for food. Without that, I would have...

Visited this restaurant recently for dinner with my wife when staying a few days in Melbourne. Loving japanese food, I have been to Japan, frequently cook japanese food at home and also dined in countless japanese joints on a regular basis across the world. I looked up 'best japanese restaurants Melbourne' with the aim to dine in of of the highly recommended places here. A restaurant guide from Dec 2021 listed Ocha as one of the top 20 places to eat. So we made a booking for dinner. We ordered: 12 piece Sashimi plate, Eggplant Dengaku with red miso, Katsu Pork Slider, Agedashi Tofu, Grilled Swordfish Steak with Salad and Yakisoba noodles.

The positive: Service was friendly and prompt, so 5 stars for that. The food was of good quality. The dining ambience was pleasant although nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing related to Japanese dining. The Agedashi Tofu was delicious, can't fault that. The Pork Katsu slider was nice, although nothing outstanding.

The negative: Sashimi plate - I have never seen Sashimi cut into such small pieces, looked like a kids meal. While the quality of the fish was good, it was not anything outstanding and certainly the presentation was not what you would expect from such a restaurant.

The Eggplant Dengaku, while delicious - the presentation was disappointing. It did not look appetising at all, there was just this blackish eggplant put on to the plate without any regard for making the dish visually appealing (which is what you would expect for a japanese restaurant).

The Yakisoba noodles were a fair and decent sized portion. The taste however is not any better than what I had in places that charge half of that. Watery sauce, large amounts of chunky cut carrots.

The biggest let down was the grilled Swordfish steak. While the steak was tasty and perfectly cooked, the presentation of the dish is the worst I have ever seen. A bunch of green leaves of whatever 'salad' that is supposed to be dumped lovelessly on to the plate and then the 2 pieces of swordfish popped on top. Zero stars for presentation. I would not even serve a meal like that to my friends on a weekend BBQ at home.

Japanese chefs and restaurants are known for their passion and attention to detail, they take great pride in making the food look as good as they can. This is what japanese cuisine stands for. None of that fundamental principle was evident in any of the dishes we had on that evening. I don't know what the owner and chefs of Ocha consider 'modern' japanese, but to me the only modern aspect of this restaurant is to bring the typical australian 'laid-back' and lazy attitude into the presentation of their so called japanese dishes. And you pay 40$ for that - are you kidding me?

Overall - the place is highly overrated and underwhelming. Would not go back and would not...