Izakaya Gaku in Five Dock is a Japanese restaurant that served melt in the mouth wagyu Kamameshi, a traditional Japanese rice and meat or seafood dish. There's also juicy chicken karaage, perfectly charred yakitori and matcha warabi mochi for dessert. Save this for your next Sydney food adventure!
It's a Friday night and I arrive to Izakaya Gaku in Five Dock very late, a combination of an accident ahead of me causing massive delays and also well, confusion (and a little accidental detour via the Westconnex). Sophia and Janice are already sitting down at the table leafing through the menu. Thankfully, they've already ordered a couple of dishes because one of them takes 20 minutes to make and it is the dish that Izakaya Gaku is known for: kamemeshi is a traditional Japanese dish made with seasoned rice and meat or seafood on top cooked in a cast iron pot. You can add soup on at the end which is extra or you can have it as it is.
They hand me the menu asking, "Is there anything else you want to order?" That's a dangerous question in the hands of a glutton like myself. "How about this? And this? Or this?" I say pointing to 3 different things. Ordering is all done via an app on your phone. Service is friendly but staff are very busy without a lot of eye contact so you do have to wait awhile for service. The duo behind Izakaya Gaku are chefs Shimon Hanakura and Haru Inukai who also have Gaku Robata in Darlinghurst.
The pick of the tables are the Japanese kotatsu tables and these can be booked online. These are like sunken booths with a recess for legs. We are at a regular table for 2 with one extra chair added. It's an awkward table as every time somebody walks past they bump my chair which just happens constantly throughout the meal.
The food all arrives at once, which requires a bit of juggling. The first items to arrive are the yakitori skewers: chicken meatball or Sukunai, chicken thigh and pork belly all brushed with a delicious sweet-and-salty yakitori sauce. The pork belly is luscious and delicious but the pick is really the chicken meatball or tsukune. The chicken thigh is nice but perhaps not quite as exciting as the other two.
Then comes to scallop teriyaki skewer with a lovely char from the charcoal and a dab of XO mayonnaise in the centre. The scallops are served with the frills on and are tender and perfectly cooked
Just call me basic when it comes to chicken karaage and the karaage here is one of my favourites. The serve has five balls of the juiciest fried chicken thigh with "magic salt", mayonnaise and lemon. The balls are sizable and this keeps the meat super juicy. This is a definite must order especially with that amazing magic salt.
One of the things that I really enjoyed eating when I lived in Japan is gobo or burdock root. It's often used in salads with mayonnaise and it has a really lovely bitey texture to it. Here it's given a similar treatment but the mayonnaise is a spicy soy mayonnaise which gives it even more flavour. It's so moreish that I think that it's an unexpected favourite.
I also love Japanese potato salad mainly because of the mashed potato element to it. This one is slightly different. Instead of having a lot of mashed potato it's very large chunks of potato with a blanket of cheese on top and a soy umami egg. I think the potato chunks are a little too large for easy eating but it does taste nice.
The main event arrives and it's the kamameshi that comes with a 3 minute hourglass. There are 7 varieties including lobster, oyster and eel or unagi. Sophia and Janice were tossing up whether to get chicken, salmon or the Wagyu beef and they went with the latter which is an excellent choice as the Wagyu is just so ridiculously tender. It's such a pleasure to eat it and this rice is perfectly seasoned all over with the sauce. The koshihikari rice is a premium 100% short grain rice from Nagano in Japan. You can order a teapot of umami broth to go with it which is nice but I actually prefer a stronger flavour with just the rice, sauce and meat which is somewhat diluted with the broth.
The signature Gaku ramen is topped with gobo or burdock root tempura and slices of char siu in a light tonkotsu broth. I'm not sure if it was because it took us a while to get to it as we were eating other things but the noodles are a bit soft and water-logged although the flavour is good. I wish I had tried this when it first hit the table.
It's time for dessert and there are two on the menu: the first is a matcha warabi mochi with vanilla ice cream and salted caramel sauce on top. Warabi mochi has a different texture from other mochi as it is made with bracken root and it's clear and more jelly like and served in cubes dusted with matcha powder.
We also try the baked sweet potato topped with hojicha ice cream. In Japan whole roasted sweet potatoes are a popular snack. This takes me back to when I lived in Japan and I would hear the sweet potato van driving around during winter like Mr Whippy does in summer announcing "Yakiimo". I don't mind this but I think that this is slightly less sweet than the mochi and I ate this second so I would recommend trying this first and then the mochi. We also really like the combination of the hojicha ice cream and the warabi mochi together.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried kamameshi before? Do you enjoy eating at izakayas?
Izakaya Gaku
175 First Ave, Five Dock NSW 2046
Phone: 0416 574 465
Dinner: Tue to Sun 5pm-8:30pm
Lunch: Sat & Sun 12pm-2pm
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