There seems to be a Japanese restaurant in every street in Sydney. But in most cases they're not authentic Japanese. There have been a number of times when friends and I have walked into a authentic looking Japanese restaurant and realize the people that own/run the restaurant are not Japanese at all. Thus we've made it our goal to find the best authentic Japanese restaurants in Sydney. Today I'll be reviewing 1 of the most authentic restaurant and/or izakaya (Japanese style pubs that serve food. Most popular for after-work gatherings.) in Sydney.
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| Front view of Daruma Restaurant (1) |
Daruma
Daruma is an Izakaya style restaurant situated minutes walk from Central station. It's location is at a very convenient area of Sydney, but the restaurant itself is inside a plaza, thus it may be difficult to find among the city's hundreds of buildings.
Daruma serves various Japanese dishes from karage (fried boneless chicken) to ramen.
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| My meal : Hamburg Curry & Gyoza |
We've visited Daruma twice as a group and both occasions had great food for a fraction of a price of a large pizza. During our first visit we all tried various types of Japanese curry. They offered chicken curry, pork katsu curry, hamburg curry, tempura curry, etc. Name the type of curry and I'm pretty sure they had it. I tried the hamburg-curry, which I earlier posted my own recipe of, and a side of gyoza (dumplings). The between ordering and receiving is next to none. Food got out to us within 10-15 minutes of ordering. I was surprised when I first got my meal at the size of the serving. It was a pretty hefty size compared to the mere $15 or so I paid for, which was great. The gyoza were crunchy on the outside and moist and juicy on the inside. They weren't too salty which I loved as I find salty filling quiet unappetising. Ohh and did I point out that side are all $3 each. CHEAP! The hamburg curry was delicious. The hamburg itself was moist and not too salty. The down side for me was the curry. I like my curry with a bit of bite, but this one was very mild, hardly any spice to it. But overall a great meal. One thing I was most happy about was that water was free. hehehe life a poor university student. --"
As Daruma is an izakaya style restaurant, various alcoholic drinks are available. But during this visit we didn't order any. Good girl right? hahaha
We loved our last experience at Daruma that we decided to dine there again, but this time we had a good reason for going, Anna won 3rd prize at the Japanese Speech Contest.
So this time, we all decided that we'd try their 'famous' shabu shabu. There were a good number of people there that night that had the same thing as us, I guess that's why it took much longer to receive our meal.
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| Shabu Shabu |
So shabu shabu is basically, a Japanese variant of a hot pot were diners cook their own thinly sliced meat and vegetables in the hot broth. This is usually eaten in a group, so the price is much dearer than other dishes.
We ordered the shabu shabu with 2 large plates of pork, 1 large plate of chicken, 1 plate of mixed vegetables and 6 serves of rice (Shabu shabu was shared between 6 people). Altogether it got to about $90, but this included various alcoholic drinks we also ordered. So we all paid about $15 each.
For the price, the food was definitely filling. Once the first batch of meat and vegetables had been cooked, another batch had to be added to the broth before we could continue eating. The food was delicious and good food for value.
Overall if you are a typical university student, like me, looking for great Japanese food but on a budget, Daruma is definitely the place for you.
Location: ✰✰✰
Japanese Authenticity: ✰✰✰✰✰
Taste: ✰✰✰✰
Cost: ✰✰✰✰
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