Don Dons

Cuisine: Japanese
300 Little Lonsdale St 
Melbourne, VIC 3000

I hadn't been to Don Dons since their move from their modest Swanston St store to their new dwelling just around the corner on Little Lonsdales. It has changed it's look drastically from what was once full of Japanese flavour to a modern stream line canteen feel. 

They have increased the number of seats available looking very clean and simple. Though I do miss the old shabby wooden benches that just seems to give it an extra boost of authenticity. 

Some things that haven't changed is their highly affordable menu (consisting of 11 dishes) and efficient production line allowing to churn our your meal faster than you can pay for it. 

I opted for takeaway in order to bring it Milo at his university. Curry chicken don ($6.90) was slightly saltier than last time but still amazing. They added more veggie into the mix and we really like how they place the rice on one side and majority of the sauce on the other which allows you to mix it together yourself to your own preference. 

Sukiyaki don ($6.30) never disappoints. Love how moist and thinly sliced the beef is and dish is full of flavour. 

Overall

This place is still my favourite for a tasty cheap quick eat that fills you up. The staff are very efficient and churns out consistent food every time.  

Food: 7/10

Service: N/A

Cost: Cheap Eat

Overall dining experience: 7/10

Maguro

Cuisine: Japanese
723 Warrigal Rd
Chadstone, VIC 3148
http://www.maguro.com.au/

A small local shop with simple dining experience and affordable lunch specials, Mama Nomalicious is a frequent goer of this place for lunch so I was excited to give it a try and see what keeps her going back. 

With only 1 hour lunch break, we opted for the lunch specials. I know it is traditional that the fish is a lot larger than the rice in sushi, but this Salmon Sushi Small $9.50 had EXTRA long salmon coupled with extra small amount of rice. I love salmon so can't complain and it was very fresh. 

Pork Katsu Ramen $9.50

Pork katsu was beautiful, thick and crunchy. Ramen was on the softer side topped with bountiful amount of corn, bamboo shoots, naruto, seaweed and spring onions. For the price it is a great cheap eat.

Mama Nomalicious opted for the Prawn Katsu Don $9.50. Prawn Katsu was lightly fried, not overly excessive batter topped with mayo and some salad. 

Overall 
Really fast service and affordable quality food for lunch. Place is kept clean and waiters were friendly. I would come here again for a quick bite. 

Food: 6/10

Service: 4/10

Cost: Cheap Eats

Overall Dining Experience: 6.5/10

Waya Japanese Restaurant

Cuisine: Japanese

100 Kingsway

Glen Waverley, VIC 3150

http://www.waya.com.au/

Replacing the late Fire Wok, Waya is the new addition to the ever changing Kingsway in Glen Waverley. From the outside it looked promising but we were skeptical as prices are on the low side for Japanese food and the menu also is translated into Chinese hinting of the heritage of the owners. 

Inside, the restaurant is well-lit with simple wooden furnishings that give it a clean feel. Further inside there are 7 comfortable booth seats that can accommodate for 6. It gives a more classy atmosphere and some privacy.  

We started with some drinks and cold dishes which were taken down via an iPod ordering system.  

I ordered the Iced Matcha with Vanilla Ice Cream ($5) as I'm a lover of all things green tea. It had a strong green tea flavour but the matcha powder was not fully dissolved creating an unpleasant grainy texture in my mouth. Our friend ordered the Root Beer Float ($4.50). 

Beef Tataki ($9.50) - Beef sashimi with special vinegar sauce and egg yolk

This dish initially arrived with just the beef and no egg yolk. Upon seeing this we thought it was very strange and asked another waitress regarding this issue. She also looked puzzled and went back into the kitchen. A few moments later she came back with a small bowl with the egg yolk. I wonder if they've been serving this dish without egg yolk for the whole week. The beef was sliced evenly but very small. They used red onion instead of the traditional white onion which overwhelmed the entire dish and there was also lack of vinegar sauce.   

Mixed Sashimi ($14) - 15 pieces: 6 salmon, 3 tuna, 3 scallop, 3 surf clam 

Just by looking at the number of pieces in this dish, it seemed great and very affordable with scallops and surf clam which not many places put in their mixed sashimi dishes. When it came out the first thing we noticed was the absence of wasabi! We had to ask for some which seems utterly strange. Salmon and scallop was fresh, and the surf clam had a nice crunch. The tuna on the other hand was disappointing, mushing in our mouths with every bite indicating it's lower quality in comparison to the other sashimi. What makes this dish less affordable than it sounds is the small cuts of fish.

Waya Maki ($12.50) would be our favourite dish of the night. Great portioning of the rice, filling and sauce and presented beautifully. Their house-made wasabi on the side is more watery than stiff with inconsistent portions and coming out in unappetising appearances. It does however have the appropriate punch of flavour. 

Japanese Steamed Egg Limited Availability and not available for take away ($5.50) - Steamed egg with fish cake and mushroom

This is one of their recommended dishes that we found was mediocre. We asked for 2 extra spoons to allow us to share, however they never came so we split it among us and attempted to use chopsticks.  To our surprise, the egg was easily grasped illustrating its stiffness. This is not your traditional Japanese steamed egg lacking many ingredients, but I guess for the price and semi-smooth texture, you get what you pay for. 

Their sushi plates come in portions of 2 but as we had a company of 3, they would not allow us to get 3 sushi so we had to order 2 plates. Upon first glance of the Salmon Sushi ($5/plate), we knew this was going to be a miss. The cutting of the fish was horrendous: 

inconsistent sizes, small and thin slices of salmon coupled with large balls of rice that falls apart upon picking it up. This is a poor mistake for a sushi chef. 

Grilled salmon sushi($5/plate) was better than their non-grilled counterpart. The fish was cut more consistently but did not save themselves in the taste department. What was puzzling was how the plates for the grilled sushi were freezing cold while the normal sushi sat on a warm plate. Either temperature is not ideal for the sushi rice.     

After knowing how fragile the sushi was, we tried to gently pick up the delicate Grilled Scallop Sushi ($5/plate) with our chopsticks. To no prevail, it still fell apart. The scallop was very large and warm in the mouth, however there was no sweet aroma of charred seafood. 

Yakitori Don ($11) was actually not half bad. Chicken skewers was charred nicely lying on top of a bed of rice and small corner of salad. The downside was the lack of sauce to go with the dry rice.  

Tonkatsu Ramen $11 + $1 upsize

The ramen upsize came separate to the original ramen with an extra half an egg which would usually cost $0.50 more. The ramen was so soft and overcooked. We were glad they had the tonkatsu separated from the tasteless noodle soup to allow it to remain crispy longer. But the pork was thin and drying. 

The 6 little octopus balls was fully covered in fish flakes. The takoyaki ($6.50) had a generous amount of octopus inside each individual and the exterior was a decently crisp.

Overall
The ambiance is chill with a hint of finer dining with the comfortable booth seats but the food and service lets them down. Service was slow and our waitress' kept forgetting our requests, water was filled only when asked. The place is likely run by Chinese (as all staff spoke Cantonese) but it has affordable Japanese food which would probably make it popular among students. Just don't expect amazing quality. 

Food: 5.5/10

Service: 3/10 

Cost: Cheap Eat

Overall dining experience: 5/10

Muso Ramen Noodle and Gyoza Bar

Cuisine: Japanese 
Shop 2B/2484 Gold Coast Hwy, Mermaid Beach 
Mermaid Beach, QLD 4218

When waiting for our ride home after dinner from Itoshin, we saw that next door was a ramen place that was fully packed. In our quest to search for the best ramen (outside Japan) we decided to should go to the place, Muso, the next day. 

Inside, we were impressed how clean the place was and a peek into the kitchen you can eye their noodle-making machine that makes their fresh store-made noodles. They have few selection of ramen and 2 rice dishes and gyoza (dumplings). All ramen have a choice of miso/soy for soup base, thin/thick noodles, extra topping (eg minced garlic, pork fat belly are free while others come at an extra cost). You order and pay at the counter then receive a table number with self-serviced lemon water. . 

Muso tonkatsu spicy miso ($14) with extra garlic, thin noodles

When our food arrived we were impressed with the portioning. There were lots of toppings of seaweed and spring onions. The texture of the noodles were on the softer side but that may also be because we ordered thin noodles and I eat very slow allowing more it to absorb the soup base. The soup was exceptionally thick and mildly spicy. Halfway through my bowl we realised we could adjust the thickness of the soup with dashi stock available in a flask on the counter. This made it much more enjoyable without the thick gunky feeling going down my throat. 

Tonkatsu black ($14) miso soup, thin noodles

As was with the tonkatsu spicy miso, the soup was very thick and flavourful. We recommend if you want chewier ramen ask for thick noodles instead of thin. The normal sized bowls were already generous serves but if you extra famished you have the option to upsize to large and order extra noodles.

We ordered the Mini braised pork rice bowl ($4) as it looked interesting on the table next to us. We were told to add their "ramen punch sauce" for extra flavour and mix it in. After mixing in the egg into the rice, it gives an overall wet sticky consistency. The braised pork has a light Chinese char siu flavour and with the small portioning it is a good entree dish. 

Pan fried pork gyoza ($6) was juicy and full of filling with thin skin. Skin was not crispy enough for our preference however the light humble dumpling flavour is delicious. 

Overall 

A laidback atmosphere with friendly staff, you will be enjoy this place even more if you are a fan of rock music as it appears the owner has an appreciation for this genre with Pink Floyd and ACDC posters decorating the walls and rock music playing. It is the richest soup base we've ever and can nearly taste the hours it must have taken to get that flavour intensity. 

Food: 6/10

Service: 6/10 

Cost: Reasonable

Overall dining experience: 7/10

Sushi Ave

Cuisine: Japanese Sushi Train

G21/ 3113 Surfers Paradise Blv 

Surfers Paradise,QLD 4217 

Having eyed this place since day 1 of arriving at Gold Coast, we finally got a meal opportunity to try it for a late pre-flight lunch.

Throughout the trip we experienced many amazing Japanese places as well as a sushi train so we went in with relatively high expectations. The menu is extensive with the usual sushi, handrolls, makis and sashimi. What was different about Sushi Ave is the incorporation of a Western influence in many of their dishes with cheese, mozzarella and asparagus as well as choices of nontraditional combinations such as ebi tempura and avocado sushi or the egg salad ship. 

Their most expensive plate being $4.90, the price is definitely affordable especially so considering their sushi had a healthy proportion of fish to rice. 

Salmon and avocado roll ($3.90) - had relatively large amounts of salmon

Salmon sushi ($3.50) - Salmon was very fresh. Michael loves salmon so much he had 2 plates by himself.

Jellyfish salad ship ($3.90)

Seaweed salad ($3.50) - had a linger of citrus flavour which was appetising

Salmon and vegie rice paper roll ($3.90) - We tried this dish as it was a combination we had never seen before. It was unusual...the mixture of raw salmon with sweet chilli sauce did not match with the sauce overpowering the fish and the raw squishiness of the fish contrasting the crunchy salad was peculiar.

Hotate (scallop) sushi ($4.50) - Having tried many other places in the Gold Coast with fresher and sweeter scallops, this one in comparison was average. But for the price of it is definitely a wallet friendly plate.

Wagyu beef sushi ($4.50) - Beef was very tender with a fragrant smoky taste, topped with what appears to be BBQ sauce, it vaguely reminded me of Hungry Jacks burger patties.

Aburi salmon sushi ($4.50) - After ordering the aburi salmon, we saw the sushi chef displace a plate of salmon sushi off the train and smoked it before our eyes. He topped it off with the same sauce as the wagyu sushi. The sauce was overpowering and did not do the fresh piece of salmon justice. This version appears to accommodate to the western pallet more than for our craving for traditional Japanese.

Tuna sushi ($3.90) – Tuna is not my favourite fish, however when it is extremely fresh I love it. In this case the tuna was not the freshest I have had and gave me a lingering ‘fishy’ taste in my mouth. Michael thought it was not bad but agreed that we have had fresher tuna.

Agedashi tofu ($4.90) - The tofu had a slightly sour taste in my mouth while Milo could not pick up the same. The sauce was diluted with no taste. 

Ebi fry and avocado roll ($4.90) - With a small dollop of mayo on the side, the prawn was not crispy at all probably due to the fact that it probably made a few too many rounds on the sushi train.

Nontraditional Japanese desserts such as rocky road and jello made its way around as well as mochi, however we decided against dessert. 

Overall

This Westernised sushi train has a large variety on their menu at affordable prices. Their fishes are generally fresh. Would recommend this place for an affordable treat of sushi train that delivers fresh fish and interesting combinations. 

Food: 5/10
Service: 6.5/10 
Cost: Cheap Eat
Overall dining experience: 7/10