Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Sakae- Yakiniku House


Sakae Yakiniku House is similar to Sakae dining bar (and they're only a short distance away from each other) but still different in that there's also Korean food on the many and that they have the option of BBQ. The strange thing about it (apart from the name), is that unlike almost every other restaurant in Eastwood, it isn't situated on ground level. Then, when you go up the quiet flight of stairs, the first thing you see are big (and slightly mysterious...) wooden doors. And the inside is so dark that it's difficult to tell whether they're open or not. But the inside is really pretty- definitely very 'restaurant' style!

We walked in to notice that we're the first ones there- which is sort of surprising considering it was almost 1 o clock in the afternoon. The waiter takes us to a table turns on the light on the rangehood-like-thing. It's so cool! We were given a heap of menus to choose from- a lunch menu, a normal menu, a BBQ menu, an all-you can eat ment etc. etc. but of course, we took the most economical option and went for the lunch menu. For $16.80, we got a three course meal- and appetiser and main (which we could choose from the menu) and dessert and a pot of green tea!

Complimentary Radishes

The complimentary radishes were one of the highlights of this meal. If they were on the menu as a dish, we'd probably order it. They are slightly cooked and covered in a really light sauce. They aren't very flavourful (there was still a strong radish taste) but tasted great!


Beef Takati

We ordered the Beef Takati as we had no idea what it was and I thought it'd be fun to try. Turns out, it was raw beef in a sauce which was a bit like soy sauce and vinegar mixed together. It was scary eating raw beef (you know, food poisoning etc. etc.) -it tasted okay but we definitely wouldn't order this again.


Jap Chae $5.80

The Jap Chae was really really small- even for an appetiser. I guess it was kinda expected for $5.80 -at a restaurant. The noodles were okay-but they weren't any better than the $5 jap chae I get from the food court....for a much larger dish.

Seafood Pancake $9.80
The seafood pancake was smaller than we had anticipated but tasted pretty good. It was different to the one we had before at a Korean restaurant- it was smaller in size but notably thicker. It wasn't as good as the one we had before, but was still good and we'd probably order it again, although it's quite expensive for such a small serving. There wasn't much seafood in it except for calamari which was really chewy and probably would have tasted better without it.

Miso Soup

I'm guessing that is came with the meal? It doesn't say so on the lunch menu but it ended up on our table. It was again, average, although all miso soup tastes pretty much the same to me.


Sashimi Salad Don

The sashimi salad rice was a big disappointment. The rice is hot- it had steam coming out of it. And the sashimi? Well- all you can see in the photo was all there was. Sharing this between the three of us, we each got about 2 or 3 pieces of sashimi each (and they were SMALL pieces). And since the rice was hot, the sashimi warmed up really quickly. And warm sashimi does not taste good at all. And i don't think it's healthy either! There was no dressing, but it did come with a sauce which didn't really go well with it and was hot (spicy hot that is). Without the sauce, the salad tasted flavourless but with the sauce, it just didn't taste quite right.
Green Tea Ice Cream
The most akward part of the meal is after we finish the mains- not knowing whether we're supposed to notify the waiters that we've finished our meal (and are ready for dessert) or if we're supposed to wait until they come. After a long wait, and reluctance from both me and my sister to ask the waiters (yes, we're both really shy people), my mum asks the waiter for the dessert.

The dessert comes, and we're surprised that there was not one, but three servings! We later realise that it states on the menu that there is one for each person on the table. The dessert is green tea ice cream- one of my favourite ice cream flavours, as I rarely ever have it (in fact, it's been ages- years since I last had it). Of course, the quality isn't all that great but any ice cream makes me happy! Only problem is that it melted really quickly, especially since it was already a hot day. My mum complained that it was a little bitter, but me and my sister don't notice it (as usual, our tastes are not as sensitive as our parents).
The meal did not actually fill us up much (we were planning where to eat next...) but that wasn't surprising considering we only ordered one meal and two appetisers for three people but that was about all we could fit into our budget. We realised that we should have gone for two meals as it would have ended up costing around the same (except that we really wanted to try the seafood pancake) but the decor was really pretty so it was kinda worth it.

Sakae Yakiniku House

Level 1, 6 Hillview Road
Eastwood NSW 2122
Phone (02) 9874 2277

Sakae Yakiniku House on Urbanspoon

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't believe I haven't been to Eastwood after all these years living in Sydney. it's always nice to read the review and find a reason for me to visit the suburb. Love the seafood pancake!

Von said...

Hi Ellie! Really? =O There's so much good food there!

Cheri said...

Too bad it didn't taste as good as it looks, because all that food looks pretty tasty. :) I've never had green tea icecream before but now I want to try it.

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