Melbourne Izakaya fever - an evening @ Izakaya Den

After a great time at an event run by the Hive (www.thehive.org.au) last night where the founder of Lonely Planet, Tony Wheeler, was speaking (he signed my Central Asia lonely planet book!!), I went to check out Izakaya Den - a relatively new addition to the Izakaya scene in Melbourne.

A short prelude

When explaining the concept of "Izakaya", I usually describe it as: a japanese "pub" style venue where you can have sake/drinks with your friends and colleagues (very popular with business men in Japan) and order lots of small plates to share (similar to Spanish tapas). The usual orders may include chicken skewers (yakitori), bite-sized seafood delights (e.g. squid, baby octopus), agedashi tofu, beef tataki (slices of slightly seared beef), sushi/sashmi, small serving of tempura or lightly battered vegetables, etc. Beverage-wise may include beer, sake, umeshu (japanese plum (ume) liquor), shochu (distilled from barley, sweet potato or rice).... My favourite is chuhai - which is pretty much like a cocktail - shochu and carbonated water with lemon/grape/apple/etc flavours.

As I had studied Japanese throughout high school and uni, I had known about the concept of Izakaya, and have also been to a variety of Izakayas in Japan (a must-try experience for every visitor to Japan!)

Up to a few years ago, I was only aware of a handful of Izakayas in Melbourne - my favourite being Izakaya Chuji on Lonsdale St (I love their yukke - i.e. raw beef with egg dish - it's addictively delicious!) This year, I discovered that Izakaya Hachibei had replaced Korean bbq restaurant Kimchi Grandma on Bourke St across from my gym. Hachibei is a convenient and reasonable venue when I am looking for a bit of izakaya love - my favourite being their ox tongue specials dish. Approximately $30-40 will give you a hearty meal there. (By the way, for office people looking for a cheap-ish authentic Japanese place for lunch - Izakaya Hachibei do really reasonably priced lunches - e.g. ladies lunch for $10-$12 which will get a mini don or mini chirashi sushi with a mini bowl of udon; guys can feel free to choose what they want in their $10 bento box lunch sets.) I also went to Shogun Izakaya the other night, an izakaya which prides itself for its yakitori / other grilled skewer dishes. It's a place that attracts diverse crowds - students, Japanese, Aussies, other cultures. Reasonably priced (we spent less than $25pp for the meal), the food is tasty enough but nothing out of the box to report.

So yes, the concept of Izakayas is apparently hitting up a storm in Melbourne - see recent article in the Epicure.


Izakaya Den

The facts:

• Located in the basement, entrance next to the Postal cafe on Russell St, near the corner of Little Collins St.

• Run by the people from Verge (great fusion food venue on Flinders Lane) - we saw Simon Denton running the show with expert professionalism; and my friend also introduced me to Taka, who apparently is a partner in the business and used to work at Verge

The place:

A long and narrow dining room with high-ceiling; mainly black, brown and grey colour scheme (if i remember correctly). Huge mirror at one end which lengthens and "opens up" the space. If you are dining with one or two other friends, the long counter where you can see the kitchen in action would be great fun. Otherwise, there's tall square tables with high seats which would be ideal for an intimate dinner for 3-4.

My friend describes it as "very New York".

The food:

There were two of us last night, and our choices for the evening were as follows:

• Miso soup to start: I was pleasantly surprised with the big piece of crab claw that came inside the soup bowl. The soup was hearty and flavoursome - it's a totally different level from the $3 msg-flavoured miso soup you would get from some other places.
• Deep fried lamb cutlets with red miso sauce on very crispy lettuce: delicious, but the meat was slightly too fatty for my liking.
  
• Ox tongue with finely-chopped shallots/sesame/garlic dressing: very tasty - ox tongue slices cooked to the right level of tenderness vs chewiness, carefully balanced by the freshness of the dressing
  
• Pork belly kushi-yaki (i.e. pork belly skewers): large wedges of pork belly meat, nicely salted, succulent
  
• Lightly seared tuna tataki highlighted by an alternate of horseradish cream and a tangy sauce (i can't work out what's in the tangy orange colored sauce, but it reminds me of the special recipe sauce which J-Cafe places in its spicy salmon sushi burgers...)

The miso soup and ox tongue were our favourites, followed by the tuna tataki. The flavours for each dish were very intense. The meats were all cooked to perfection - it's not easy to grill meats to such succulency/juiciness and at the same time ensure it has adequate flavour without the need for a heavy sauce over the top (e.g. the pork belly). But I must say that both the lamb cutlet and pork belly meat were a bit fatty for my liking - but i guess that's the nature of the meat. I'll need to try some of the non-meat heavy dishes to comment further, but all in all, the food was top notch.

We didn't try any of the huge variety of sake and imported beverages this time, since we both had work to do that night, but definitely will be wanting to try some sake next time (which appears to be served in science laboratory like glassware from what I saw on other tables).

The service:
Professional, efficient, polite staff. No complaints at all.

Value for money: Servings are modest, but typical of izakayas anyway. Expect to spend at least $40-50 for a decent meal (excluding drinks).

The verdict: Being an obsessive Japan and Japanese food fan, I am a little biased. But this place doesn't remind me of Japan. It reminds me of, well, Melbourne. Yes, it has very heavy Japanese slants, and great elements of a Japanese izakaya, but it's very much a fusion venue at its heart. A great new concept. Hip with an air of understated sophistication. The food is great. Another place to pop on my regulars list.

Food 7.5/10
Ambience 7.5/10
Service 7.5/10
Total: 22.5/30