Yakiniku at Takumi

32 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Phone 03 9650 7020

‘Takumi‘ in Japanese literally translates as connoisseur, but to me it now just means a place to find some rather great Japanese food. The restaurant specialises in sumibi yakiniku (smokeless grill), and as mentioned previously, wagyu. So with friend Bria in tow, we decided to see what they did for dinner (see post about the bento lunch here).

They offer a number of set menus and banquets for the indecisive, and shabu shabu, but on this occassion we decided to jump straight into the a la carte.

To start with we chose the salmon carpaccio – slices of raw sashimi salmon marinated with a sweet, citrussy, carrot, onion and soy sauce dressing ($10.80).  It was perfectly balanced with the right amount of acid, which cut through the richness of the fish.

Tsukune, or grilled chicken balls ($6.80) is what I would call good izakaya (pub) fare, and this version did not dissapoint.  Give me a beer and a toothpick, and I’m a happy girl.

The yukke was another interesting choice; finely diced Wagyu beef dressed with a red and green apple sauce ($10.80).  It was a bizarre combination, but the sheer appleness of the sauce (corrected with a squeeze of lemon juice), and the sweetness of the beef, honestly makes for a killer partnership.  I was surprised indeed!

This is the Jo-Rosu, 100g of premium porterhouse Wagyu ($23.80).  As you can see from the marbling, this would turn out to be one tender morsel of beef.  Don’t worry, we were not going to eat this one as sashimi.

The meat is best placed on the grill, but only given a few seconds to grill and render its delicious juices.  Mmm…

We also tried some sausages imported from Japan ($9.80), which, to be honest, did nothing for me, and a mixed vegetable plate ($10.80), which included a good assortment of mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin and red capsicum.

Digression: I just love placing mushrooms on the grill, especially when they release all their mushroomy juices.  I like to pick them up and sip the juices like soup. Mmm again.

And what have we here?

Small baby awabi ($6.80 each), or abalone. They had been seasoned every so slightly with shoyu, and perhaps a little sake?  We let them steam in their shells on top of the grill for a few minutes – delicious.

We also had the requisite rice and miso, the staples of Japanese meals.

To finish we had to try desserts, and Bria had the maccha (green tea) ice cream with a small little pudding/mochi to the side ($4.80).

But I went the big guns with the Japanese parfait ($8.50), a fabulous cocktail glass full of maccha, red bean and black sesame ice creams, an (red bean paste), fresh rockmelon, slutty aerosol whipped cream and a black sesame pudding/mochi of my very own.  Kawaii!