~ Curious Charlie ~

Gyoza Douraku - Japanese @ Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Gyoza Douraku - Japanese on Bourke St

One late night after cabaret we spontaneously went here, as it happened to be across the road from our dessert place. Service was great, and there was much left to be desired as we just had drinks and pre-dessert entrees. So we'd said we'd be back for their lunch menu.

A few months later we I was back, on a winter day in spring. Arriving around 1.30pm coming in from the rain (that hasn't stopped since I left the house, went to school and then came back to the city) it wasn't that busy though there were a few people around. Umbrella stands, would you stick a mini in it?

I was offered a table though went for the bar stools (rocky, both of them) by the window instead, for better lighting. We ordered one of the three set menus, the $12 one, MoMo. While included:

Miso Soup
Tsukemono (Pickled veggies)
Wafu Salad
Sansyokudon (3 colour rice aka rice with omlette + salmon)*
+ Gyoza (5 Options): Picked the Prawn

There were other slight alterations like soba noodles or steamed rice instead of the 3 colour rice, and 4 other options for the gyoza including miso eggplant & duck.

The tray came around for DIY gyoza sauce: soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, chilli oil, minced garlic and sesame seeds. Soy + Vinegar is the most popular base I'm told. Had moderate communications issues due to accents.

Miso Soup

Wafu Salad

First to arrive was the miso soup and the salad. The salad was great - as in I'd order this on own! ($10, hope it's bigger). Though I would have liked to add prawns. It was quite fresh and light. The Miso was sad, flavoured water it wasn't too strong in flavours and had bits of green and two small cubes of tofu floating in it. It was bland. The Tsukemono (pickled veggies) all four different coloured pieces were lovely with the salad.

On a summer day might it be nice outside? Or is that smoker's zone?

Prawn Gyoza

Soon the Gyoza and Sansyokudon arrived. Disappointing that the rice wasn't actually 3 colours. With that one you had two other options, but waiter no.2 who was great (same guy who served us last time) recommended this one.

I had the Gyoza with a sauce made from soy sauce, vingar, sesame oil and sesame seeds. It was very nice, though it was odd that there was only one big piece of prawn in one of six of the gyozas. I quite liked them and wished they were bigger. :P

Sansyokudon

The Sansyokudon (3 colour rice aka rice with omlette + salmon) was disspointing as there wasn't much flavour there, also the portion of rice to "meat" was off, too much rice, double. If you add your gyoza sauce it's not as bad, but still I didn't finish this.

The entire meal was eaten with chopsticks :P (except the miso) which was different, we're trying new things. At home I love my spork. Service varies, the guy who I think is the manager (or very satified employee) was great, while I didn't really understand the waitress and she was meh. Even if she didn't have an accent.

Will I be back? Probably not. Recommend you try the lunch set? Yes if you wanted to dine here, it's very $$$ at night. I think that gyoza dish alone (same size) was $12 at dinner time. But otherwise no, there are lots of other lunch spots.

Something I loved was one of the pieces they were playing in the background music, ave maria (1853) a wedding and funeral classic. For me it's the later, I'd love this on my funeral playlist. I've never heard a resturant play classical music before or a piece as old and as a classic as this.