Rising Sun Workshop, Newtown - Ramen, Coffee, Motorcycles and More

The wait is over! Newtown's favourite communal workshop and eatery Rising Sun Workshop is back and opening this Monday, 20 June 2016! Bigger, more awesome and at a permanent location! After over a year and 8 months ago since their pop-up closed, Nick Smith (owner and head chef) and team will re-open at a newly transformed warehouse/garage on Whateley St.

The new space has a mixture of Scandanavian and industrial interior. There's communal tables, bar seatings and a lot of beautiful natural lighting upstairs. Downstairs, there's a few seatings for two and and a long counter seating where you can watch all the kitchen action. Along with the bigger shop comes a menu with more choices than their pop-up. Their menu is Pan Asian based with a majority of Japanese-inspired dishes. The breakfast selection includes Hokkaido milk bun dishes, a vegan furikake rice dish, a Bangkok inspired pork belly & egg dish and a breakfast ramen. Nick's famous ramen offerings are back for lunch with the addition of a kids bowl ramen ($6 with a choice of 2 toppings) and some side snacks like gyozas. For dinner, they will be serving up kushiyaki dishes and some Japanese inspired drinking snacks. There will be a wide range of booze for dinner too. I was invited to their soft launch to have a sneak peek at their lunch menu. 

Carrot cake

Their resident baker Dimity Genaus is behind all their amazing baked goods available for breakfast and lunch. I tried their carrot cake ($7.50) and was blown away! It had a divine burnt butter cream cheese icing, it wasn't dry and had a good amount of walnuts throughout the cake.   

Flat white

Sesame and honey milkshake

Then there's Dan Cesarano who is the expert coffee dude that calls the shots when it comes to their coffee and beverages. They use a blend custom made by Single O Roasters called The Workshop blend. It's perfect for a flat white. Beautiful notes of milk chocolate, caramel and spice punches through the milk. They also have this awesome large serving of sesame and honey milkshake ($7)

The Light

First dish I tried was The Light ($17) ramen. It's a shio (salt) based double soup broth with springy ramen noodles, kurobuta belly chashu, menma, pickled mushroom, greens (kale in this case), green onion, and the best ajitama (marinated soft-boiled egg) I've had in Sydney. The perfect ajitama was super flavoursome and the yolk was runny. The shio tare has been tweaked and made the broth extra special. So besides the notes of chicken and fish, you also get hints of smoky and crisped flavours with some umami in the light broth. It's a good thing the broth is light because the big slab of chashu is fatty, rich and flavoursome! The light ramen is a perfectly balanced bowl of ramen. This has gotta be the best shio-based ramen I've had in Sydney to date.

The Dark

The Dark ($17) is also back! It's a shoyu (soy) based ramen with a chicken and pork broth. Toppings include kurobuta belly chashu, menma, black fungus, pickled shroom, onsen egg, green onion and nori. 

Gyozas

Gyozas ($6-8) are awesome with ramen! Though I prefer more ginger in my gyoza fillings, these were still packed with flavour and it had good caramelised crust. The dipping sauce was on point. 

Pork Banh Mi

Another guest says his Banh Mi was great. It had grilled kurobuta pork belly, pigs head and lime terrine, patê, pickles, corriander, chilli and mayo ($12).

Smoked eggplant omelette

Their smoked eggplant omelette ($8) dish was sensational! Super smokey with corriander and pickled chilli. You need to order this!

I can't wait to go back to try their dinner offerings which includes a range of kushiyaki (dubbed as "sundown sticks") choices like chicken wings, pork belly, and octopus. Also, word is that there will be some secret surprises coming up for dinner in the near future.

Ramen Raff was invited by Rising Sun Workshop as a guest. 

Rising Sun Workshop

1C Whateley Street

Newtown NSW

Website: http://www.risingsunworkshop.com

Eatery hours:

Breakfast and Lunch open 7 days from 8am to 4pm

Dinner Thurs-Sat 6pm to 10pm