A craving for a simple but delish Wagyu burger led us to Takumi (we didn't have the burger as it is only offered during lunch, however we settled for an equally sumptuous dinner after the boy read good reviews on The Age).
Takumi
32 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Trivia: Takumi means connoisseur in Japanese (taken from their menu)
Started off with a glass of plum wine on the rocks. Nothing special but yummy nevertheless.
Special dipping sauces (L-R): Citrus sauce for seafood, BBQ sauce (specially made in-house) for Wagyu beef cuts, and sesame oil with salt for vegetables and Ox tongue.
Underneath this is where all the magic happens.
Entree #1- Salmon carpaccio. This is so good it deserves two pictures! The salmon literally melts in your mouth. The sauce it comes with is the perfect accompaniment to this dish.
Entree #2- Takumi's special. Wagyu eye fillet with diced onion on top, and garnishing on the side. If I'm not mistaken I think the garnishing consisted of spring onions and fried shallots. We thought this dish was pretty ordinary.
We were given this piece of fat to rub on the grille prior to grilling the meat, seafood and vegetables. This was used in place of butter, perhaps to give it a bit more flavour?
Jo-tan (Premium Ox Tongue)- 70g. This dish was out of this world. I highly recommend you order this if you pay Takumi a visit (which you should!). According to our knowledgeable waitress that night, they serve wagyu beef cuts in two kinds. One kind is the normal wagyu beef cut (with less marbling) and the other kind- which they call 'premium', has more marbling. Obviously we opted for Premium cuts that night :D. Lightly salted and given a squeeze of lemon prior to grilling, this was the best ox tongue I've ever had...EVER.
Harami (tender meat)- 100g. Cut a bit thicker than the premium porterhouse, this tasted a bit more like your normal steak pieces.
Jo-Rosu (Premium porterhouse)- 100g. Thinly sliced and left to cook on the grille for a short time to ensure it wasn't overcooked, this cut was juicy and you could taste the marbling on the beef which gave it that extra bit of tenderness and juiciness.
Mmmm, waiting for our food to cook.
Fresh salmon. Very fresh and juicy.
My abalone- which turned out very yum after a short stint on the grille.
Cooking the abalone with vegetables- capsicum, eggplant, pumpkin, zucchini and mushrooms. The eggplant, pumpkin and mushrooms were awesome. Such fresh, natural flavours.
Bubbling mushies! I like cooking them this way round so you can actually drink the juice when you bite into them.
And of course, no Japanese meal is ever complete without the obligatory maccha (greentea) and azuki (red bean) ice-cream (too bad they didn't have black sesame ice-cream the day we went). We opted for the Japanese parfait to share- this came with two scoops of ice-cream of your choice and we picked the black sesame pudding to go into it as well. The parfait was a beautiful mixture of wafer, rockmelon, ice-cream, black sesame pudding and cornflakes.
To get your Wagyu beef fix, definitely head to Takumi. Prices are really reasonable as well, with the bill coming to $135 for two people.
Coming up later this month: The Press Club!
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