SA Weekend restaurant review | Ramen & Izakaya Himeji

The search for Adelaide’s best sushi leads to a Japanese restaurant where the pork gyoza is a must, the karaage chicken elite and a sushi selection could fill this review.

The dessert box at Ramen & Izakaya Himeji on Grote St in the city.

This year’s delicious 100 guide is going to look very different. It’s not all about restaurants. Instead, it will be a collection of the best of the things we love to eat – whether from bakeries, burger bars, hawker markets, cafes or, in just a few cases, a restaurant experience.

Ramen & Izakaya Himeji, across from the market in Grote St, is one of these exceptions.

I have come here looking for sushi that goes above and beyond the usual playbook. Such is the consistency of this Japanese all-rounder, however, it could comfortably qualify in three or four categories.

Kudos to owner/chef Shozo Ikeda, for whom the restaurant is a culmination of more than 30 years spent introducing the nuances of Japanese cooking to Adelaide. Himeji is the name of his home town, where he grew up in a hospitality family, and of the first restaurant he ran himself, in North Adelaide.

This was followed by a series of eateries, shops and takeaways before a huge step seven years ago when he took over a property known for its time as Italian high-flyer Auge and spent big on its transformation.

Sushi selection for one at Ramen & Izakaya Himeji, Grote St

Observed from above, the Himeji dining room would be like a giant bento box, with a long, luminous bar down one side, and the rest of the space divided into compartments using sleek black screens.

This evening all these spaces are full, so we are shown to a private dining room at the front, where the table is a normal height but the tatami-style mat on the floor means we (and the staff) must remove our shoes.

Himeji’s full name is slightly misleading. It certainly doesn’t have the feel of your standard “izakaya”, which is usually a small, potentially rowdy bar, though it does have a strong selection of beverages such as sake and sochu, as well as plenty of snacking options.

Original ramen at Himeji Ramen & Izakaya.

If you follow this pathway, be sure to order a serve of the pork gyoza, hand-wrapped parcels of juicy mince in the frailest of coverings, fried until crisp and toasty on the bottom. And do add a dab of the yuzu condiment.

Karaage chicken is also elite, the random chunks of still-moist thigh meat coated in a light, peppery sprinkle that could make cardboard taste half-decent.

Ikeda-san doesn’t cut corners, investing in equipment such as a special machine to make noodles of different thicknesses, depending on the style of ramen. The soup, based on a pork/chicken stock bubbled for eight hours, can be requested at varying strengths and customised with up to 20 toppings. All this effort is vindicated in the gently spicy sekiryu, where the more common slices of pork belly are substituted with sweet/salty pork mince.

Grilled pork belly skewer at Ramen & Izakaya Himeji.

Skewers grilled over premium Japanese charcoal (of course) maintain the standard, particularly the cubes of glazed pork belly, shiitake mushroom caps and chicken mince tsukune. Describing the sushi selection for one in detail could easily fill this review … probably more. Eight different portions of immaculately sliced seafood are draped over little rice plinths and crowned with their own special garnish or condiment.

Wild bluefin tuna from NZ (preferred to local farmed fish) is shown as both the lean, blood-red akami and fattier belly (otoro) that is the coral pink of a strawberry lolly. Kingfish, eel and salmon (again from NZ, and much paler than the fluorescent fish grown in Tassie) are also represented.

Other species are rarely seen in sushi. Mackerel for one. And a piece of yellow whiting that has been aged in ice water, cured briefly and then sandwiched between layers of seaweed for a few hours to add an extra kick of umami. While the accompanying nori rolls and omelette stack seem an afterthought, this aquatic tour de force is a steal at less than $40.

To finish, six different desserts are arranged in a sweet-tooth’s bento box, including peanut butter brulee, mango pudding and a green matcha ice cream so luscious that it almost converted me to liking the flavour.

Not quite a contender, however, for the shortlist of best ice creams in the delicious100 list. The dumplings, the fried chicken and the sushi are a different matter. Which of them will survive the final cut? You’ll find out in October.