Shimbashi Soba & Sake Bar - Collingwood — Restaurant in Melbourne

As excited as I was to try this place, I struggled to eat whats on my plate, and my partner was utterly disappointed.

I ordered the karaage soba set. Most confusing set I've ever had at a Japanese restaurant.

Quality My biggest issue is the poor quality. I tried the soba the moment it arrived, but it was already caked up. The tuna sashimi was dry and unfresh. I was only served 20 grams of broccolini, but it was so old and dry, I couldn't even finish it (taste didn't help). Seaweed and raw sliced cabbage was uninspired and unseasoned, pure bland. While I know multigrain rice is dry by default, it did not help that everything else is dry, and bland. Because of all this, the miso soup was the best thing

Flavour The palate is extremely conflicting and bland. I'm not sure why the multigrain rice is in the set, since the flavour is so overpoweringly nutty, you can barely taste soba after. The broccolini's sesame taste is the same, and does not belong on the same tray as things like sashimi and cold soba. Because the other sides are bland and uninspired, they did not do anything for flavour. After I've tasted the rice, I couldnt taste anything else after. Chicken was mid, I can easily find a better karaage.

Service person in charge taking our order was fine. The other girl serving us however, not too sure what she's thinking. She was serving a large tray with one hand, and instead of coming around me, she wanted to put it down between me and my partner. We were seated on tall seats by the windows, I had to lean 50 degrees away so that she could put it down. Having worked in F&B, it's like one of the first thing I was taught not to do when serving.

My partner's warm soba tempura set tempura was ok, but soba broth was SO SALTY. The random strip of yuzu also assaulted her tastebuds, like biting into a star anise. She didn't finish and she cried later because she's always wanted to try this place for a very long time.

Price At around 35 dollars per item, it's not exactly fine dining, but at a premium, like other upscale Japanese place. However, at that price you would expect more than bland uninspired dishes with poor quality and unfresh.

Unfortunately it's clear this place cared more for aesthetics and NOT flavour, quality, and freshness. I would recommend this place for instagram, and decent ambience, and...

I offer some Japanese for dinner. Its been a while since I've been to Shimbashi so it was time to order again.

I ordered Agedashi Tofu which was silken tofu in a yummy sauce.

My karaage chicken box was very good minus the cartilage that I got 3 times. I understand that some people like cartilage but I don't, and I wasn't expecting this in my Japanese food.

My miso soup was excellent, full of seaweed and a fresh miso flavour.

The salmon sashimi was very delicious but not the best I've had.

The vegan tempura soba was crispy, the vegetables were crunchy and the batter could have been thinner, but overall it wss very good.

And finally the vegan cheesecake was absolutely amazing, it was light and the accompanying berry sauce was not sugary sweet. This was perfect.

Overall this was very good. I'd like to go back to dine on when we can as it may be an improved experience.

Previous review - January 2018 My partner and I called in her for dinner as we’ve been to the sister restaurant in the city. The service was excellent from our trainee waiter, well done.

The food was superb, just delicious. We started w gyoza dumplings and these were the best that I’ve ever eaten. Then we tried some octopus balls for our second entree and they were really good.

Then onto mains, we both ordered a Shimbashi Special Box because we both wanted to try a range of different food. And OMGosh hahaha we hit the jackpot!! Yahoooo hahaha

Everything was soooo tasty and fresh and it all worked perfectly well. And by the time we finished I was absolutely stuffed, so I ended up walking half way home hahaha

I ordered a tasting Choya (like Sake) and I was given 3 drinks. I had 3 flavours which were the Gold Choya, a Uji Choya and my favourite which was the Shiso Choya. Thank you to the waiter who gave me the drinks w the names handwritten for me. That was really kind.

Overall this place was excellent, and definitely...

Had a very conflicted experience in store today. I came in today as I was really craving for soba noodles. Decided to go for the option with larger soba portion (+$6), and when it arrived it certainly was a large portion.

However, the disappointment was with the dipping sauce. The dipping sauce is equally important as the noodles for the key essence of cold soba. The dipping sauce portion first arrived was never enough for the noodles. When I’m almost done with the sauce, I asked the waitress if it was possible to get more. Not to my surprise was that there would be an extra cost for it, at which that point I asked the staff if she thought the original serve of sauce would be enough for the noodles? She agreed that it wouldn’t be enough.

In the end, I proceeded for the extra sauce. The extra sauce which arrived was not the same portion, maybe half of the original? And it was just the dipping sauce, none of the wasabi, shallots of the original were provided too.

When I paid for the bill, only I’ve realised that the extra dipping sauce costs a whopping $8. Yes, the sauce costs more than the extra soba noodles. To me, this sounds like the owners created a problem to sell the solution.

I’ve been here a few times, but this might be my last visit as this experience does not sit well with me. I can always understand restaurants charging extras, but in this context, it’s too absurd. The extra portion of soba + dipping sauce comes in a total of $14, which at that point I’d rather get a whole meal...