Hikaru Japanese Restaurant
134 King Street, Newtown 2042
The promise of Hikaru Japanese Restaurant in Newtown is immense. A quaint courtyard just off the hustle-and-bustle of King Street, with outdoor seating and a large sunlit dining area. The menu is an exciting read not only for it's diverse selection but it's attractive prices as well. Most lunch items range from the $7-10 mark but some, like the vegetable curry, even limbo as low as $6. The first thought to pop in my head was *gasp* could this
possibly be the Inner West equivalent to Neutral Bay's wonderful Kabocha? Grub-for-grub, maybe not, but there may be hope yet.
Ok so the city is crowded, my car is parked a few hundred metres away (a few hundred kilometres in this heat) and time is running out before the lovely City Ranger decorates my windshield with a neatly sealed brown envelope; need to eat, need to eat fast. There's still a smidgen of time left for a sit-down lunch, so we take a seat for a quick meal at Hikaru, a cloud of excitement hanging above our rapidly-perspiring heads. First up: a small but charming plate of assorted sushi, which is tasty, but all too familiar. A wise man once said that sticking together is what good
waffles grains of rice do, well these grains were falling apart like little Johnny's sandcastle that I accidentally kicked down at the beach yesterday, but hell we're not talking about a coveted 5-seat $1000-meal sushi restaurant in Tokyo, and for around $10 or so this did hit the spot.
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| Assorted Sushi: Salmon, Kingfish, Prawn, Inari - mmm! |
When my order of Salmon teriyaki arrived I looked across the table to my partner with a wrinkle of my nose and thought to myself "hmm, something smells a tad fishy". After the imaginary round-of-applause subsided in my brain I started to reason that the appearance-to-taste ratio was just a little off with this one. The salmon itself glistened with a glorious glaze alongside a tantalising spray of toasted sesame seeds, yet the fish tasted...bland. There was no flavour, the glisten of glaze was an elegant facade to a seedy underbelly of lies and deceit. Ok I'm disgusted with myself for being so harsh as we are talking something like $12 for the dish, but I'd definitely try something else next time with an air of caution.
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| Reaching for that bowl of Miso |
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| Salmon Teriyaki: Looks good, doesn't it? |
On the other side of the table sat a gorgeous dish of Gyoza, a Japanese dumpling filled with ground pork and a slew of vegies, and yes we had better luck with this one. Here they are dressed up in Japanese mayonnaise and a soy-based sauce similar to Takoyaki or Yakiniku sauce. They were soft with a slight crunch thanks to the lightly fried base, characteristic of a good Gyoza dumpling.
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| Gyoza: tasty. |
The meal wasn't spectacular, but could it have been attributed to our menu selections? I'm noticing a lot of people ordering sushi and
only sushi, so why am I ordering the salmon? I'm not yet ready to give up hope on Hikaru as it has loads of charm in both it's layout and it's delightfully homestyle feel. We've only run the first 100 metres of a 10 kilometre marathon, so this race is up for grabs. Oh shit, my car!
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| The "inside" of Hikaru, it's like an outdoor courtyard, but, uh, indoors. |
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