Alas, time conspired against us. Whilst Kathleen was in town, she wanted to visit Mamasita – highly recommended by many Melburnian friends. When Mamasita had a table free, there was little point in accompanying given that there was a film we had to see at the Melbourne Recital Centre all the way down in Southbank.
As Tristan and I marched to tram stop, we passed Izakaya Hachibeh. I suggested we try it out – it seemed to get a decent write-up on Mel: Hot or Not and didn’t seem too busy. Turned out this wasn’t too bad an idea! The food we sampled was fantastic.
Mandatory ordering for us was the yukke. Holy cow, this was even better than Izakaya Chuji’s rendition. The serving was larger and the marinade was tastier. Fresh, simple flavours and easily enough for two to share.
Sadly, the asari butter – pipis in a miso and butter soup was a less inspired choice. The pipis were fairly small overcooked from being in the too hot soup for too long and it wasn’t exciting. My fault for choosing – I had hoped it would resemble a dish of the same name at an old Japanese restaurant I used to haunt back in uni days where the pipis were gently sauteed in butter sauce rather than drowned in scalding broth. Please excuse the photo below – trying to get the pipis in the soup wasn’t all that exciting looking.
As a main, we both shared the chef’s selection of sushi and sashimi. Cannot utter a word of complaint against this. Easily enough for two and ridiculously fresh – seeing the pattern here? My photo really doesn’t do it justice.
Perhaps not quite as trendy a choice as Mamasita, and yes, there are more popular izakaya in Melbourne at the moment, but don’t neglect this joint. I’m eager to test out more of their izakaya-type items. After reading Joyce’s post as mentioned above, I’m actually keen to see what their ‘lady’ set lunches consist of! Service was friendly and lightning-fast – all this plus drinks cost us just a little over $50 and then it was run run run to see Buster Keaton’s The General at the opposite end of the city.