Best Ramen in Tokyo, Japan vlog: Volume 1

Duck paitan ramen from Menya Fukumaru

Menya Fukumaru kitchen

Last February 2020, I went to Tokyo and visited some of the best shops that Tokyo prefecture has to offer. I tried to cover some of what I think is a good introduction to people visiting Japan should try in terms of high-ranking shops if they are pressed for time. There’s a bit of something for everyone here and I hope I did a decent job at giving you a sneak peek.

Master Yamaguchi-san

Shoyu ramen with tamago from Ramen Yamaguchi

I called this video "Volume 1" as I'm hopeful that we can all travel back to Tokyo in the near future and I could create Volumes 2 and so on. I know that there’s a lot of amazing shops in Tokyo but unfortunately, time didn’t allow for me to cover more of them as part of this visit and this Vlog. Enjoy the video guys and I hope this helps plan your next visit to Tokyo!

Youtube video below:

Cafe Paci, Newtown

Cafe Paci has been on my wishlist. I was so stoked that I finally got to visit it along with my good friend and fellow Sydney Food Blogger, Chocolatesuze. It’s located in Newtown and is easily accessible by public transport with lots of street parking in the area as well.

Click on thumbnail above or here for my Youtube video

Scallops, togarashi & sour cream

Tuna tartare

Sourdough pasta with pear and pecorino

Potato dumplings (gnocchi) with XO trout sauce

Fairy bread ice cream with brown butter custard

Chef Pasi Petanen has work at a lot of renowned restaurants in Sydney past such as Automata and ACME. He did a pop a few years back and has now found a permanent location on King Street, Newtown. The cuisine is bit of Finnish and Mexican with touches of Italian, Japanese and a lot more. The food is both innovative and delicious. They also have a wide range of wines to match with their signature dishes.

Click here for my video and more information about the dishes.

Cafe Paci

Sir Manong at Eastern Creek Quarter, A New Filipino Restaurant in Western Sydney

Sir Sisig

I was invited to the latest Filipino restaurant to open in Western Sydney, Sir Manong. It always excites me when a Filipino restaurant opens in Sydney. I love Filipino food and I’m proud of it. Sir Manong is a new venture by the same team behind the successful Burger Point. This restaurant brings a modern interpretation of Filipino home cook meals to the limelight at the new Eastern Creek Quarter.

Bangus A La Pobre

Expect contemporary twists of the classic sisig and a fried chicken with the flavours of adobo. There’s classic fried bangus with salted egg ensalada and more! One thing is for sure, Manong is legit!

Check out my Vlog for more:

Disclaimer: Ramen Raff was invited as a guest of Sir Manong . Sir Manong Location: https://goo.gl/maps/4Cu1P8M2TEoR1kve8

Mashi No Mashi $100 Ramen by Wagyumafia and Amazing Cheap Yakitori in Tokyo

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Mashi no Mashi Ramen is a Jiro style ramen by Wagyumafia. They are open for lunch (check their instagram account for more details). They are also open for dinner for 1 hour from 6pm. The ramen costs ¥10,000. The broth is seasoned with heavy shoyu tare and the base soup is made from beef bones and topped with expensive cuts of Wagyu. 

We also went to an amazing cheap yakitori shop in Hatagaya called Miyazaki Shouten (I highly recommend this shop).

Check out my Vlog for videos and more info! Click here

Mashi no Mashi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mashinomash...

Mashi no Mashi location  https://g.page/mashinomashitokyo?share

Miyazaki Shouten: https://goo.gl/maps/ZK1dRh7FDFqb3sWA9

Hiroshi's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hshimakage/...

Devon Cafe truffle menu, Gram Pancakes Sydney and Bush Redfern: Food Crawl with Chocolatesuze

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I met up with my good friend and OG Sydney Food Blogger Chocolatesuze back on the 13^th of June.  It's truffle season in Sydney around June to August and many restaurants have a special truffle menu on offer. Suze and I normally love to go on food crawls all around Sydney and we seized the Truffle season opportunity to check out Devon North Sydney's truffle menu.

Premium To Go Pancakes from GRAM Sydney 

Double cheese burger from Bush

We also went to Gram (yes Gram from Japan) in Chatswood to buy some takeaway fluffy premium to go pancakes and ended the food crawl with cheeseburgers from Bush in Redfen.

Check out my Vlog for videos and more info! Click here

Devon North Sydney

https://goo.gl/maps/zNMyMoxUwz3L649UA

Gram Chatswood

https://g.page/gramcafe?share

Bush Redfern

https://goo.gl/maps/xzJrCH3uyeintPLh8

Sekka Dining St Leonards

What is up guys?! I apologise for yet again another long hiatus. For those of you that follow me on Instagram, ya’ll know that I have put more attention to my youtube channel recently. Having said that, I really miss expressing in writing my love for good food. Now that dining restrictions in Sydney have mostly been lifted, we can enjoy the food scene once again.

Chef Hide Suzuki

My homie Chef Hide Suzuki (ex Manpuku & Ichibandori) has recently opened a new Japanese restaurant called Sekka Dining at the new St Leonards Square complex. They officially opened on the 16th of June 2020. The shop’s vibe and monochromatic space is very modern. Based on the soft opening menu, Sekka is going for the usual izakaya approach but with a heavy focus on ramen. Hide-san is a ramen master after all, so this is something we would expect out of Sekka. I was lucky enough to be invited to their soft opening by Hide-san himself.

Gyoza

Karaage chicken with yuzukosho mayo

Renkon with mentaiko mayo

There will be a decent range of alcoholic beverages on offer from Asahi on tap, to sake and Japanese whisky. You will also find the usual izakaya fare like karaage chicken, gyoza, edamame, renkon chips (fried lotus root). There will be some specials like smoked salmon wasabi Caesar salad and Mackerel (with rice vinegar, shallots & daikon). I loved the kick from the yuzukosho mayo that comes with the crisped and juicy karaage chicken. The mentaiko mayo that comes with the renkon boasts a very sophisticated umami.

Tonkotsu ramen

Let’s talk about the ramen! So at the moment there will be three types of ramen on offer: Shio ramen, a spicy garlic chives ramen with chintan or light chicken & gyokai blend soup (thanks Taka for the info) and tonkotsu ramen.  Hide makes the most consistently great tasting tonkotsu broths in Sydney. So you can’t go wrong with ordering his thick or paitan tonkotsu ramen where umami packed liquid pork goodness hugs onto every strand of noodles with every slurp.

 

Shio ramen

Hands down, Sekka’s shio ramen is the best shio ramen in Sydney to date in my opinion. It is simple yet refined. Hide-san uses a pork and chicken blend for his chintan broth and a salt based seasoning to flavour the broth. It is clean yet it has complex layers of flavour and umami. The noodles are cooked more soft than usual to match the light broth so don’t be surprised as this is the usual practice even in Japan for light broth ramen. The ajitamago is flavoursome and the chashu is buttery, sweet and packed with umami. It also comes with menma, negi and roasted nori.

It’s not hard to get to as it’s along Pacific Highway and there are bus stops nearby. Sekka is a new and must visit restaurant in Sydney. The ramen alone will have you coming back for more. To Hide-san and the rest of the Sekka Dining team, Omedetou Gozaimasu on your shop opening!

*Ramen Raff was invited by Hide Suzuki as a guest of Sekka Dining.

Sekka Dining

St Leonards Square

480 Pacific Highway

St Leonards, Sydney

www.sekkadining.com.au

Hours:

Mon closed

Tues to Sat 12pm-2:30pm, 5:30pm-10pm

Sun 12pm-3pm, 5:30pm-9pm

Poly, Surry Hills

What is up everyone?! I apologise for the long hiatus in this blog. It’s been a really busy few months. Also, if you don’t know yet, I have started a Youtube channel (link here) and have concentrated on posting vlogs to get it started. If you haven’t yet, please support your boy Raff and subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell to stay up to date with all my up coming videos. Also, the blog just turned 9 years old!

Now, let’s go to the main subject of this blog post. We’re here to talk about a restaurant that I have visited a few weeks ago and has become one of my new favourite restaurants in Sydney. Poly is a modern Australian restaurant and is located on Commonwealth Street (next to Paramount Coffee Project) in Surry Hills. It’s also by the same team behind another favourite restaurant of mine Ester. The space has the same elegant industrial vibe that Ester has. I also love the fact that when you put the two names together, it reads out as “PolyEster” (very witty).

First dish that we had was straight off the bat, AMAZING! I could eat their scarlet prawns, harissa and lardo on toast ($16 per piece) everyday! The combination of the umami packed prawns that had hints of sweetness, the complex spices of harissa and creamy lardo on toast was one of the most delicious things I’ve had.

The most premium way I’ve ever eaten potato chips is at Poly when we had their raw scallop, salted kombu and potato chips ($18). These were plump perfectly cooked scallops sandwiched in housemade potato crisps with salted kombu.

I can see why the fried potato and salted egg sauce ($15) is popular. It was like the most perfect golden hash browns shaped in cubes and elevated with umami from the salted egg sauce. I love the contrast of the textures of being fluffy soft inside and crisped outer layers.

I love the combination of cheese and mushrooms so we ordered the oyster mushrooms, stracciatella with beer and yeast sauce ($26). The oyster mushrooms just went so well with the stretchy stracciatella.

The koji marinated pork chop with corn sauce and smoked onion cream ($58) was easily my highlight of the night. The pork was fatty and tender with smokey notes and was packed with a lot of umami. The sweet and tangy notes from the corn sauce and smoked onion cream went so well with the pork meat. The meat was seasoned well and it came with a nice airy crackling.

The food and service is on par with their sister restaurant Ester. We were too full to try their desserts so we will definitely go back for that!

Poly

Address: 74-76 Commonwealth Street,

Surry Hills, NSW

02 8860 0808

polysurryhills.com.au

Opening hours:

Mon-Fri 5pm-late; Sat & Sun noon-late