2nd September 2011
Despite it recently losing its hat in the 2012 guide, i still took the 6 of us 6 weeks to get a booking for a Friday night at Ocha in hawthorn. Located on the corner of a busy intersection in suburban hawthorn attached to a pub, it did little to prepare you for the funky but extremely packed and noisy dining room.
Struggling to hear the waiters and even each other at times, the feel was far from the normal tranquil sophisticated setting of normal Japanese restaurants. Having never been to a proper Japanese restaurant such as this i was happy to be guided by others in the selection of dishes. Given the party size we decided to order a variety of dishes and share them between us.
We ordered some warm sake to start (ninja sake) that was very smooth and had good flavour. We would also order some gold leaf cold sake which had a less potent taste.
First to arrive was a dish we didn't order but was served compliments of the house - a small piece of fish marinated in sugar, vinegar and soy sauce. Clean beautiful fish with a subtle but great flavour.
Next up was the Pork and vegetable gyoza. A slightly crisp outside dumpling casing and very good flavour even if the pork flavour was slightly less intense. The next dish was the crunchy prawn balls these were served very hot and with prawn meat packed inside the cornflake type fried outside. Very intense flavours and good contrast in textures. Great dish.
Next up was the Miso soup. This was my lease favourite dish and the flavours did not excite me. However everyone else seemed to enjoy it thoroughly and i will blame this on personal preference rather than any poor quality.
Following this was a selection of sushi and sashimi - consisting of avocado rolls, kingfish, tuna and salmon sushi and a variety of different sashimi. Well presented with a good selection the quality of the fish was great and the flavours were great with a gentle hit of wasabi in the sashimi.
The next section was a selection of tempura dishes, with some vegetable, prawn and nori wrapped crabmeat tempura. Delicious and flavoursome tempura batter combined with quality produce inside. The only issue was that the crabmeat flavour was a little overwhelmed by the tempura.
After much debate we decided that even though there was so many others dishes to try, we would move on to desert. The desert had a distinctly unjapanese feel to them but were no less anticipated for this. From an extensive selection of constant and a wide selection of specials, I choose the raspberry and white chocolate bread and butter pudding with vanilla bean ice cream.
The strong raspberry and white chocolate flavours were an excellent match and the soft slightly spongy pudding was truly excellent.
Other deserts included sticky toffee pudding, passion fruit mousse, green tea and red bean ice cream (only reasonably Japanese desert) and gooey chocolate pudding with chocolate fairy floss and ice cream. All homely delicious deserts and well appreciated.
Quality presentation of food, service and quality food combined with much conversation and fun meant a quality night out. Also excellent value at less than $60 per head. will be interested to see if the Japanese places still with a hat (shoya, Yu-U and Tempura Hajime) can match the meal tonight.
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