ICHIRAKU CANTEEN — Restaurant in Sydney

Date/time of visit: 12 May 2022 @ 8:00pm (approx) Dat/time of visit: 17 May 2022 @ 8:20pm (approx) (yes, 2 visits within 5 days)

Yebisu Bar & Grill felt like an upmarket izakaya. The decor was modern; the atmosphere was good. It was not dark and dingy (like some izakaya's I've visited in Japan...and Melbourne).

The first thing that should be noted is the price of the food. One piece of salmon nigiri would be approximately 3x the price of your average sushi train. However, there is a quality difference. The quality of the salmon nigiri at Yebisu Bar & Grill was excellent, much higher than your average sushi train. It was delicate, and fresh, and had good fattiness (and this isn't the fatty salmon that I'm talking about). My partner prefers the fatty salmon and she was more than happy with the fattiness of the standard salmon (so, we didn't end up ordering the fatty salmon from here). We tried a lot of dishes and were happy with everything. Yes, the price for our first visit did add up - $159 but we had 21 items off the menu with the two most expensive items from that dinner being the Soba Noodle with tempura ($18.80) and Takoyaki beef curry cheese fondue ($14.80). My partner tricked me into getting the takoyaki (because I normally don't this dish elsewhere) and this particular takoyaki had great batter, cooked evenly and was served with a delicious beef curry cheese fondue. I was happy with takoyaki (but it's still not my personal favourite dish for my tastes :-) ). We enjoyed the meal so much that we decided to make a return visit 5 days later, prior to departing Sydney. Other highlights from the menu, for us, were the kranskys; the kushiyaki (my partner preferred the chicken with teriyaki, while my favourite was the chicken with curry salt). Ordering was via iPad device on each table. Service was good; dishes arrived in a timely manner; staff were friendly and some were chatty if asked questions (I asked about the music playing in the background because that was also pleasant and enjoyable and I was hoping to find it available somewhere). Payment by card attracts a surcharge; for our card it was 1.3% which might be a little high in comparison to other venues for that particular card.

So, when you visit, just be aware prices are higher than normal. The quality is higher than normal. The price to quality ratio might be a little off; however, based on our two visits, the prices deserve to be higher than your standard izakaya or sushi train. We were happy because it's rare to find such good quality in Australia (next best on the east coast of Australia, that we've found, would be in Launceston, Tasmania) and this was a nice treat during our...

This is 2nd outlet of the popular Yebisu Izakaya restaurant on the George Street. I love the original outlet with their happy beer and sake sessions in the evening accompanied by their very good kushi-yaki meat skewers. In this 2nd outlet, I mostly visit for weekday's lunches and they have very good value lunch sets and daily specials (very recommended). I have tried many of the regular staples like the eel rice box, wagyu steak sets but I would recommend you to try their "rare items" like their pork shoga-yaki (ginger pork) set and omu-rice set. These items along with beef hamburg set are the staple of lunch meal for Japanese salary-men and are very rare to be included in any Japanese restaurant in Australia or at least, very rare to be prepared at THIS GOOD level.

Food quality: 3/5 Value: 4/5 Ambience / Service: 5/5

Please note that this outlet is similar to their closest competitor Yayoi group in that they're using tablet computer system of food/drink ordering so it is very fast and efficient. The place has good spaces and not squeezy. A rare Japanese food gem smack in the middle of Sydney Chinatown.

Additional Note / Edit: The place recently changed their lunch menu items and they removed the favorite items I mentioned above ton shogayaki and omuraisu. I have tried a few items from the new menu like the poke bowl and BBQ Pork Bowl sets and they're quite good but not as good as the items from old lunch menu. The BBQ Pork sauce is too heavy, sweet and sticky for my liking and the Ginger Pork (shogayaki) in the old lunch menu has better, subtler and more umami-based taste. Please bring the old lunch menu back for your loyal customers.

I also tried their BBQ and skewer dishes at dinner recently and found the dishes were a mixed-bag. The wagyu skewers and mini-grill were good quality but the pork-belly skewers and the BBQ king fish w/ miso were a bit let-down due to being too dry and not tasty enough. The omu-rice were also not good since the rice texture was a bit rough / dried.

In light of the new dishes I've tried, I reduce their rating from 5-stars to 3-stars for...

A pretty popular and large Japanese bistro in Chinatown with cool open air setting and sushi counter. Came with a large group and was served pretty promptly but was surprised with a 10% Sunday surcharge however, which is not disclosed on their booking website. Overall, wide variety of Japanese cuisine but VERY EXPENSIVE and not good value for money. Definitely better places to go.

Deluxe sashimi plate Freshness: S, 8/10 Variety: S+, 8.5/10. Lean tuna, salmon, kingfish, bonito, octopus, squid and scallop. Nothing special however Value: A, 7/10. $63 for 32 pieces is not horrible but not good either

Tonkotsu ramen Broth: A+, 7.5/10. Decent but not very rich and a bit thin Noodles: S, 8/10 Chashu: S, 8/10 Toppings: A, 7/10. Standard Value: C, 5/10 $26.

Curry beef udon Flavour: S+, 8.5/10. Classic slightly sweet Japanese curry flavour. Done well. Udon: S+, 8.5/10 Beef: A+, 7.5/10. Not much of it but was generally tasty. Value: B, 6/10. $26. Whilst it's good, still not very worth

BBQ Squid Flavour: A, 7/10. Nothing special Texture: A, 7/10. Still quite chewy Value: B, 6/10. $23

Grilled fish head Flavour: S, 8/10. Charred and a bit salty Texture: S, 8/10. Tender Value: SS, 9/10. $10 (50% today)

Prawn tempura Flavour: S, 8/10 Texture: S+, 8.5/10. Value: B, 6/10. $27.5 for 4

Karaage Flavour: S, 8/10 Texture: S+, 8.5/10. Crunchy but stil moist. Not the best but still decent Value: A, 7/10. $18.5

Ox tongue skewers Flavour: S, 8/10 Texture: S+, 8.5/10. Definitely one of the most tender I've had Value: C, $9.7/skewer! Very expensive

Chicken thigh yakitori Flavour: S, 8/10. Sauce is good Texture: A, 7/10. Chicken is a little tough Value: B, 6/10. $6.4/skewer

Pork belly Flavour: S+, 8.5/10. A bit juicier than the other skewers Texture: S, 8/10. Soft but a little crunchy Value: B, 6/10. $7.5 per skewer

Today's yakitori (5pieces): A, 7/10. $30, so it comes out to be about $6/skewer with a decent variety. In retrospect, would have ordered more of these

Orion beer tower (2L): S, 8/10. $45 for 2L is...