Izakaya Jiro Grill & Sake Bar

 We have behaved lately and not gone out as much because we are saving money for our next holiday, but on Tuesday I really wanted Japanese for dinner so we went to Samurai but it was closed for renovations. There was another Japanese restaurant called  Izakaya Jiro and on urbanspoon it had 89% so that was good enough for us to give it a go. It is  more expensive than Samurai but was still good. The serving sizes weren't as big but i think they went for the higher quality than quantity.

 

 

  It is a big place but from the front it looks really small, the decor is lovely and it has a good selection of beers, wines and sake.

 

 For starters we ordered the lotus root chips and they were crispy and lightly salted, they are probably the best i have ever had.  Our friends ordered a selection of skewers because the sounded different. They ordered some vegetarian and beef. some vegetarian dumplings and some other random dishes

For my main dish i ordered the Beef Yokisoba, it has egg noodles, beef, a selection of vegetables and Katsuobushi (fish flakes). The beef just melted in your mouth and the sauces tasted really good but it was not big enough for me.

Kim ordered the tempura udon and it had the usual udon noodles, tempura battered prawns and mixed vegetables. She said it was very good and plenty of food for her. 

I was still hungry after so we ordered desert. We ordered strawberry mochi, we always enjoy mochi and it was fresh. The skin was not hard and was not easy to take a photo because of how white it was but it was a tasty desert and a great way to finish the meal. 

The food was good and the staff are friendly but it was expensive. It is good to try somewhere different for a change.

Thank you Kathy for the pics as my phone had died again.

If you like the pics please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading.

kind E-gards

Dale Stewart

Hophaus

Hophaus

Unless you know what you are looking at you will miss it, we walked walked past the shopping center. It is upstairs in South bank Promenade. 

We walked in and it was pretty quiet and that suited us as we just wanted to have some beer and relax. We ordered the tasting paddle, 4 beers and a pulled pork roll for $19, that is cheap here. It was a beautiful afternoon so we sat outside and watched the boats go past. It is always busy in the area,  lots of cyclist and runners as well.

I love tasting paddles because you can get a variety of beers and not have to drink that much,  The  Pulled Pork roll was amazing, not too sweet and just fell apart. it also had crackling on top and that was a good topping. Overall it was a great experience and top value. It is a lovely restaurant / bar and i would definitely come back again,

Thank you for reading.

Kind E-gards

Dale Stewart

Chuckle Park Bar and Cafe'

Chuckle Park Bar and Cafe' 

It reminds me of an American style bar, It could be me really? As you enter you see a row of tables and chairs. It probably fits 20 / 30 people so it fills up quickly. We arrived and it was empty about 30 min later it was packed.  Sunday was a perfect day to sit back have a few drinks and enjoy the weather.

In the city it is really hard to decide what to eat and where to go. According to urban spoon we have over 1700 cafe's / Restaurants  in the CBD which is crazy. You can spend hours looking and trying to decide. We walked past this place and thought why not? It also has $11 Pulled Pork rolls so another great reason.

You order at the caravan and it has a selection of beers, wines, ciders and can make cocktails. The prices are very reasonable as well.
 To drink i had a Mountain Goat Fancy Pants Ale, it was very light, fruity but had a slight bitter after taste but was still perfect for a sunny afternoon.

I ordered the $11 Pulled pork roll and it was really tasty, not too sweet but cooked well. Not dry and just fell apart.

We really enjoyed this little place and would probably come back.

Have you been here? What do you think?

If you like my pics or blog please vote from the banner on the top.

Kind E-Gards

Dale Stewart  

Hammer & Tong

Hammer & Tong

Fitzroy is an amazing suburb is has Gelato Messina, N2 Extreme Gelato and plenty of different types of foods like greek, mexican, vegetarian, asian and it has plenty of bars and pubs. It is also known for the graffiti in the side streets. I can't draw a stick figure let alone anything fancy, you can spend hours just looking at the artwork.

I Had been here a few times before, i had breakfast and one night we found out they did dinner. It is another smallish cafe'. They use Duke's coffee and it is always consistent and tasty so we decided to go for dinner. When we sat down the waitress told us it is more Tapas style so small portions for sharing and we don't mind sharing we normally do. Some things are hard to share like burgers but you have to try it anyway.

It has a great wine selection, they do cocktails, beers, ciders and the coffees.

Kim had a Golden Gaytime Milkshake and it is caramel milkshake with vanilla ice cream and honeycomb biscuits. If you have never heard of them check it out Here 

I had an Ethopian filter, light and fruity and thats what i love about Melbourne. The quality of the coffee available and how light and fruity it is.

For the first item we chose was the smoked duck and potato with chicken crackling and caviar. It was very smooth, sweet, creamy. The chicken was crispy. The flavours worked together and was a nice way to start a meal.

The next item was the soft shell crab burger. You really need 1 between 2 people, i thought they were going to be a few small ones not one bigger one being tapas style. It was super crispy and really tasty.

The third item was the potted prawns, fennel and charcoal bread. the bread was crispy and the prawns tasted quite sweet and fresh.

We chose the lebanese eggplant paneer curry with angel hair chilli and salad. It was not really spicy but it was tasty and looked really good. The eggplant was not over cooked and the tofu was good.

and finally our favorite thing twice cooked crispy pork with blood orange and star anise jus.,It had brussel sprouts with kale chips. Like with all the other food it was tender not overdone yet the skin was cooked to perfection, so crispy and the kale chips are so different and random. We loved the meals here and the staff are amazing. We will come back again for a meal.
It was a lovely night.

Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart