Gaku Robata Grill — Restaurant in Sydney

The advent of truffle season has seen truffle-enhanced dishes pop-up all-over town. Gaku Robata Grill won my business for two reasons. The first was a clever picture of their Truffle Tamagoyaki ($32), where five generous portions of Japanese free-range egg omelette are dusted with a generous amount of fluffy, shaved black truffle. The second reason for my visit was they finally got the Council seal of approval for their robata grill after my initial review, so I was keen to give it a whirl.

From the sake of the month list, we begin our drinking adventure with Tsukino Katsura ($25/300ml), an unpasteurised sparkling sake, that is rather delightful. Think salt spray and lightly fermented yoghurt, with a fresh fruity finish. By contrast the Kuromatsu Senjo ($36/180ml) is a faintly sweet, clean junmai daiginjo sake that’s perfect for gentler dishes like the well-presented Scampi ($28). In this dish a trio of pale pink shellfish rest on bed of crushed ice, their delicate, creamy flesh insulated from the cold by their own carapaces. It’s topped with bright orange kombu (seaweed) cured sea urchin and served with a chunky aroma sauce that surprises me by being more strongly flavoured than Japanese sauces usually are.

If you ask me, the best dish on the short-run truffle menu is the Truffle Hiramasa Kingfish ($18) served with an intriguing puddle of smoked soy cream. You get a big earthy hit from the fungus, without losing the flavour of the fish, even against the cream. The daily menu also includes limited season seafood, like Tasmanian uni, served as a Sea Urchin Hand Roll ($15/each) in crisp nori sheets that you roll up at the table for a creamy, briny flavour explosion cleaned up by house-pickled ginger.

For a spot of fun, the Foie Gras ‘Monaka’ ($12/each) is served in branded paper bags in a basket passed over the bar from the kitchen. It’s a play on the Japanese sweet called monaka that sandwiches a sweet filling between two crisp wafers made from mochi. Chef Harunobu Inukai has replaced the azuki bean jam with saikyo miso (sweet, less salty miso) marinated foie gras and apple balsamic. It’s fun, tasty, and bound to make you smile.

And finally, from the robata grill I claimed to be here to try, we order Saikyo Yaki ($26). This charry toothfish collar is a rich and fatty piece of deep ocean fish, with the rich intensity cut quite nicely by lime and Brussels sprouts.

While the dessert menu’s Yaki Imu ($10) is sorely tempting after watching documentaries where the street sellers sing about their roasted sweet potatoes, we’re off to a film so don’t have the fifteen minutes making time to spare. Luckily the sweet soy brushed Yaki Onigiri ($6/each) or grilled rice cakes, slathered with whipped grade A5 wagyu fat, function as Japanese crumpet-like desserts anyway!

Gaku Robata Grill might be tiny, but it punches way above its size, and, while the menu is pricy, it’s otherwise...

First visit for lunch.

I had their Duck Yuzu ramen for lunch. It was certainly unusual and I liked it. But it’s not so good that I want to have it again soon.

3/5

Second visit for dinner.

The food quality was exceptional especially the quality of their sashimi. It’s top grade and super fresh but you do pay for the quality. This is Sydney!

The Edamame was good but not exceptional. The Agedashi Tofu with White Bait & Zucchini Flower Tempura was excellent! The batter was light and none oily. I must comment on the broth of Agedashi Tofu, it has a unique taste unlike many other Japanese joints , it the best I have tasted and I want more!

The Karaage Chicken is tasty but its marinate is probably slightly too heavy for my taste. It was very well cooked and the skin was very crispy but my favourite is somewhere else.

4/5

Third visit for dinner.

The Sashimi Plate For Two was just as stunning and fresh as our first visit - excellent!

The Yaki Onigiri - Rice Ball (rice cake is more accurate?) brushed with sweet soy and chargrilled until crispy on the top and soft on the bottom. Delicious with great texture! The whipped wagyu fat tasted like a very delicate dollop of cheese, it was light and melt in your mouth - it certainly showcase the chef's creativity, excellent!

The grilled zucchini with wasabi dressing and buttermilk was tasty too but less impressive, it's probably sprinkled with too much fried shallots for my taste.

The Acqua Pazza featured a very fresh fist of the day - John Dory and clams. It was a beautiful dish. It looks like a bowl of Japanese version of bouillabaisse but the leading flavour is butter rather that tomatoes and saffron. I love the flavours but I thought the butter was perhaps too strong and I would like to be able to taste more seafood in the broth.

Our last dish Free Range Pork Rack was the most disappointing and the only dish we didn't like in our three visits.

The pork was tender and juicy but only lightly chargrilled to keep it tender. It was sweet tasting probably due to the Shio-Koji marinates. It's crying out for some contrasting flavours but it was covered with a mushy black garlic paste which was also sweet tasting and slightly odd (unpleasant), it's probably also mixed with bread crumbs? It desperately needed some crunchy texture - perhaps some kind of crackling if not some burnt texture from the chargrilled. Instead, we have a piece of high quality pork that tasted quite boring, slightly odd and one note - sweet.

2/5 for the pork rack and 4/5...

We arrived at 6:30pm, most of the seats were on the long counter, and there was a separate table for group booking. The 2 main chefs were behind the counter with most of other junior staff doing the works. Seats were not cramped, unlike most tiny Japanese restaurants. The decor was unusually not wholly Japanese which was normally full of "timber" everywhere but this place had a lot of exposed bricks which went very well with the timber decor, it was really a very comfortable environment. The waiting staff were all females, they were efficient and courteous. We ordered Gobo chips (excellent, fibrey texture, with very thin batter, so tasty), Foie Gras Monaka (we had no idea it was presented in the form of a "bun " inside a nice paper bag, we thought it was amuse-bouche and put it aside, it was very light and the bun was crispy, not overpowering in taste), Unagi (the presentation was already spectacular, the eel was so fresh, unlike those pre-grilled ones in other places that tasted soft and horrible), terriyaki quail (the size was generous, the meat texture was so tender and "young", and the glaze on the body brought out more flavours of the flesh), beef tongue (this was not done like Chinese beef tongue, it was super tender, no visible horrible tongue surface you can see and it was super tasty), the special Kingfish "suki" sushi (freshness of the fish will drive you crazy and the serving size was generous). We had the Sohana sake (180mlx2) which was medium dry and good to go with lighter style food more. When we finished each dish, we were struggling whether to put the empty plate or bowl on the counter top or leave it in our serving area for the waitresses to collect, sometimes no one collected and sometimes it will be collected, hope the empty plates and bowls will be collected quicker. The toilet was outside in a very dark public area, may be issue for some people that didn't feel comfortable to go to that kind of toilet. At 7:30pm, we were reminded gently that we needed to vacate the space by 8pm, we were thinking of having some desserts but gave up the idea because we didn't want to rush, I think the restaurant can't do much on that because they need to maximise revenue from every space, we normally will not go to places with such a short eating window but we fully enjoyed the whole night. The cost per person was...