Because I’m a train sort of girl, Kingsford has always been a big mystery to me.
And apparently, I’ve been missing out on a whole range of restaurants, and many different types of grocery stores!
For Good Food Month’s Dinners Under $30, Niji Sushi in Kingsford has created a special banquet menu ($60 for 2 people). Having heard so much about them, I happily dragged Christine from Cooking Crusade along to what looked to be a neo-Japanese dinner.
Can’t wait!
Pesto Edamame
We started with a trio of dishes – Pesto Edamame (pictured above), Sushi Sashimi Comination (pictured below), Kingfish with ponzu dressing.
Sushi and Sashimi Combination
The Pesto Edamame was really cool – the green soy beans popping out of their pods went really well with the light pine nut and basil flavour, and seemed like a really simple way to jazz up the Japanese sushi house staple. The Sushi Sashimi Combination was, well, fresh as expected, and the Kingfish with ponzu dressing was just tart enough to balance out the savoury soy elements and the meatiness of the white fish.
Braised Pork Belly
There’s no one I know who can resist a good pork belly, and the Braised Pork Belly at Niji is first cooked to fall-apart tenderness, and then seared on the outside for a crunch to balance out the melt-in-your-mouth pork belly fat.
Wagyu Beef with herb salt and amayaki sauce
The Wagyu Beef with Herb Salt and Amayaki Sauce I hear is a Niji specialty, and I can see why. Incredibly marbled wagyu beef – a Japanese breed of cow that is famed for its beautiful marbling of fat through the muscle – is simply seared to create a deliciously rich beefy crust, and then served with a choice of herbed salt (I tasted hints of rosemary and thyme), or amayaki sauce, which tasted like a tweaked version of the Malaysian sweet soy sauce that I’m more familiar with.
Tiramisu Mochi
And just when we thought that we couldn’t eat any more, it was time for dessert! A selection of two fusion desserts were served on a platter – Tiramisu Mochi, and Azuki red bean creme brûlée.
Red bean creme brulee
The Tiramisu Mochi carried hints of coffee and cream encased in a delicate, slightly chewy rice flour skin. Not quite tiramisu as I would expect it, but a fun way to present a cross between the two different kinds of sweet treats! The Red Bean Creme Brûlée was less obvious, with a pat of sweet red bean paste baked into the bottom of the custard component, acting as more of a surprise element as you get to the bottom of the pot.
I thought the food had a lot of thought that effort put into it to create a neb-japanese experience, and utilising all the different cultures that are commonly accessible to us. The service too was very friendly, and they did all they could to make us comfortable, including very nicely holding my cold shopping bag of groceries – I had stopped by a Japanese grocer on the way and couldn’t help myself – in their cool room.
This banquet created for Good Food Month was $60 for two, and included a choice of wine, or soft drink. The delicious dishes is also available usually on their a la carte menu.
Niji Sushi
333 Anzac Parade
Kingsford, NSW 2032
Phone: 02 8068 4849
Website: http://www.nijisushi.com.au/
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun, 12:00pm-9:30pm
For more Good Food Month goodness, why not read some of our other reviews? We went to Asia Town to meet some chefs, Night Noodle Markets for some amazing Pinoy skewers, Single Origin for some amazing quinoa and coffee, and the Erko, for some amazing barbecue from their new smoker!
Insatiable Munchies dined as guests of Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Month.
