TasWeekend Indulge: Japanese eatery offers a light touch
Pachinko restaurant’s focus on fresh, light and clean food delivers heavenly dumplings, a range of vegetarian options and a joyful dessert, writes LORETTA LOHBERGER.
Taste Tasmania
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WE arrive in Launceston on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We’re here for a family dinner but we’ve decided to drive up earlier so we can make the most of having a weekend away and check out a restaurant about which we’ve heard good things.
Pachinko, which husband and wife team Jonathan and Ally McCoy opened in January, is housed in a beautiful old shop in the Quadrant mall.
The space is bright and welcoming and we’re soon poring over the menu. There are so many vegetarian choices but, despite the sunshine, it’s cold outside and I’m drawn to the miso ramen. It comes with marinated tofu, enoki and black fungi, radish and a half shoyu egg. It’s a great flavour combination and tastes fresh and healthy.
If I ordered this again, I’d add some extras — another half egg (one is not enough) and some kimchi for an extra kick of flavour.
My husband chooses pork and shiitake wontons and he is in heaven when they arrive. We have a favourite place to eat dumplings in Hobart, which is our benchmark for a good dumpling.
He tells me these wontons are as good as any we’ve had at our hometown favourite, so I know they’re excellent. They come as a plate of five, served with soy and brown butter dressing, chive and fried leek.
My sister, who recommended Pachinko to us and who, we later find out, seems to have eaten her way through most of the menu, has told us about the one and only dessert item — a green tea ice cream sandwich with white chocolate ganache and berry sauce. It’s simple and fun.
It arrives on a yellow plate atop a paper doily with the bright red berry sauce and white chocolate dripping down the side of the matcha parfait.
Jonathan did his apprenticeship in Melbourne and has worked in fine dining restaurants there and in London. He learned about Japanese techniques and ingredients and, while in London, worked at a new Nordic restaurant which he said had a similar approach.
Jonathan and Ally returned to their home of Northern Tasmania five years ago. Opening a restaurant has been a dream of theirs for some time. He says they chose Pachinko — the word for a Japanese mechanical (arcade) game — as the name of their restaurant to reflect the Japanese influence and light-hearted approach.
“We want it to be as unpretentious as possible because we want to appeal to everyone in the community,” Jonathan says. He says the menu has a focus on fresh, light and clean food that features the produce. On Tuesday nights Jonathan gets out the charcoal grill for a special yakitori menu.
He says when Pachinko first opened it did not have a liquor licence. That’s now changed, and Tasmanian beer and wine feature on the drinks list, along with Japanese spirits.
Jonathan says the addition of a drinks menu has also helped bring about a party atmosphere at the end of the week.
For us, Pachinko has lived up to expectations, and we’re pleased we hit the road early enough to get there for lunch. I’m hoping to go back and try some of the other vegetarian options next time I have an excuse to head north.
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