Friday, August 20, 2010

Eat Drink Bento

I honestly think I possibly have the most difficult time deciding where I want to eat, if I want to try something new and I'm alone. There's always the temptation to sneak back off to a regular haunt that I'm comfortable with and there are certainly always places, but sometimes I want to save them to go with other people. The more the merrier right?

This was another one of those days in the city, where I'm idling about, indecisive, unsure. When while strolling down Hardware St I spy out of the corner of my eye a tiny little doorway....

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And find a contemporary and surprisingly spacious Japanese restaurant. At 12:30 or so, the place was exceedingly quiet, with just one other table when I went in and with the place being so big, it was quite noticeable.

Regardless, the waitresses were warm, accommodating and allowed me to sit wherever I wanted, so off to the window I went and popped myself down so I could quietly observe the people wandering by.

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As the name suggests, Eat Drink Bento, does bento boxes with one page on the menu dedicated to lunch bento's, which I decided to stick to. Seeing as it was, y'know, lunch and all.

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I decided to get a chai latte as I had been terribly, terribly, terribly craving one, but what was I thinking really. Chai at a Japanese restaurant? Basically, stick with the Japanese are good at and maybe get a tea, the chai had no flavour to it and was all milk. Although to it's credit it was frothed very well.

All the bento's came with a salad, choice of steamed rice or cold soba noodles, miso soup and dessert, a fair smorgasbord!

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Nothing like a hot, steaming miso soup on a miserable day...

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I decided to get the sashimi bento, with a nice little handful of tuna, salmon and another type of fish...Overall the sashimi was good, fresh and tender, although a few of the tuna slices had a little more...I'm not sure what the word is, in beef I would say tendon, but I'm not quite sure what it's called in fish! It did make it a little chewy at bits, but otherwise, enjoyable.

The soba was springy and refreshing, the salad too. Refreshing that is, not springy! I also couldn't help but try on of the gyoza that was served on top. The skin was light and thin, and hardly oily making it quite a treat.

The dessert was a slice of dense chocolate cake, which I only got two bites out of as I was filling up quite a bit and it didn't help the cake was so rich!

For $19.50 (some of the other bentos were a bit cheaper, depending on what you got), I suppose you can get slightly cheaper bentos in the city, but overall (other than a few bits of tuna) the food was good and fresh, felt healthy and was really quite filling, so the value was there. And the service was just impeccable, even as quiet as this lunch service looked to be, waitresses were beaming, polite and even helped pour out the soy sauce over my wasabi.

Just don't get the chai.

Eat Drink Bento
115 Hardware St
Melbourne, 3000

Eat Drink Bento on Urbanspoon



3 comments:

  1. That's a pretty expensive bento; I just had a $15.80 one in Takumi and was deploring how expensive it seemed; I think i've been spoilt by Don Don! Good find nonetheless!

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  2. Mmm, I did think it was fairly pricey myself, but when I lamented this to my boyfriend he did point out I didn't finish everything and I was full. I don't often have bentos in the city so I think I need to go out and compare more! :)

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  3. Hi
    Your images are getting MUCH better...
    Love the clarity...is that the right spelling?????

    And the logo at the bottom...sweety:)

    Have a great day - SP

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