Tombo Den restaurant review 2024

Tombo Den is everything you’d expect from a Chris Lucas restaurant, with some unexpected snack mash-ups that’ll have you rushing back for another bite.

Here’s your Tombo Den bingo card, let’s play.

Designer handbag whacked on the table. Ice bucket of Chablis. Fruity cocktail squishy with Lego block jelly. Ravishingly tall AFL footballers. Club trash ooncing through the speakers.

A mammoth menu impossible to stomach in one visit. Sexy sounding ingredients that make no sense (what the heck is ramen salt?) Not a spare seat in the house. Bingo!

The ingredients for a new Chris Lucas restaurant seem textbook by now: an upbeat vibe, supermodel-status hotties, and trendy food and drinks to boot.

With ten in the Lucas Restaurants pen, and three more on the way, the hospo mogul has had plenty of time since Chin Chin to perfect the recipe.

He’s currently on a restaurant opening spree, very soon opening the long-awaited Batard on Bourke Street in late November.

The duck hamburg is an upper-middle bogan riff on Tokyo’s tsukune. Picture: Michael Pham.

Tombo Den, formerly the ‘Unnamed Lucas Project next to Hawker Hall’, has been a long-held passion project that’s flipped a bit since 2021 before finding its feet as an lively izakaya.

Think Japanese restaurant and sake bar inspired by Lucas’s time in Tokyo in the 90s.

Or for the Lucas literate, Kisume for the Chin Chin crowd.

Downstairs stretches a long counter for the sushi savours and cocktail curious, while upstairs plays host to individual tables and a private dining room.

It doesn’t surprise me this place is jammed on a Wednesday, a week or so after opening. It’s always the way with Lucas restaurants.

Thankfully, for most part, it lives up to expectations.

Head chef Dan Chan (Singapore’s Yardbird) and Carlos Lopez (ex-Kisume sushi master) slice and dice their way through the raw and rolled, hibachi-sizzled world of modern Japanese eats-— crafting a menu so large you couldn’t possibly try it all in one go.

Get your mouth around these corn fritters. Picture: Michael Pham.

Grill-kissed edamame ($9.50) makes a good thinking snack while you read through the mass of raw fish, share options and drinks before getting to the actual food menu.

Once there, try the duck hamburg ($24.50); an upper-middle bogan riff on Tokyo’s tsukune chicken meatball snack which traditionally involves whisking a club of cooked mince into a pool of egg yolk and tare (soy, sake and sugar).

At Tombo, a posh hamburger patty is crowned in a frizz of fresh spring onion, tare and a glossy yolk for a DIY job. Damn that’s a good burger: all fatty, flavoursome and charcoal smooched.

You’ll be able to satisfy your sushi cravings. Picture: Michael Pham.

Fritters, or corn studded grenades, ($11.50 for two) riff on the savoury okonomiyaki pancake exploding in freshness with every bite; the BBQ sauce and bonito flakes add dimension.

Other crowd pleasers include the fried chicken, pork gyozas and sushi rolling Victoria and New Zealand’s finest fish (tuna, salmon, kingfish; plus mushies and avo for the vegos!)

For those pushing the boat out, a lone toro, or salmon belly, nigiri ($16.50 each) is 30-seconds of eating pleasure that’ll brighten your day, while the indecisive can settle for a daily changing platter mixed with nigiri, sashimi, crispy rice and maki for $33.50.

You’re at a high-risk of over ordering at Tombo.

We did, and it was a never-ending procession of food; slightly helped by large waits between courses, influenced more by the full house than deliberate meal pacing.

The soy-glazed beef rib ($58.50) was underwhelming.

The beef rib wasn’t exciting as other small dishes. Picture: Michael Pham.

Served with lettuce cups and radishes for a DIY san choy bao action, the overall flavour was ho-hum compared to everything else we’d eaten. It needed a sauce to seal the deal.

As for those ramen fries ($12.50), there was no flavour resemblance to the soupy comforter.

Next time I’ll order less food, as this is a snacks-first affair, followed by a serve of strawberry and ice-magic matcha sundae ($16.50) that’s really worth sticking around for.

Or maybe I’ll let cocktails, sake, beer and wine fill the hunger gaps downstairs, with a side or sushi or sashimi.

That’s another thing about Lucas venues, there really is something for all walks, tastes and occasions. A real ‘choose your own adventure’ restaurant.

Add that to the bingo card.

Tombo Den is Kisume for the Chin Chin crowd.