V-Rating: VVV Last year I was invited to join Book Grub, a Sydney-based book club devoted to books about different countries in Asia. The neat part is that every month we eat at a restaurant that corresponds to the book’s country of origin. This time around we were reading Peter Carey’s Wrong About Japan so naturally we had to find ourselves a suitable Japanese restaurant. Someone in our group suggested ‘that good, inexpensive Japanese place near Circular Quay’. A further email narrowed it down to ‘the one near The Basement?’ But even though a few of us had eaten there, no one could name it.
Once we turned up we realised why the name eluded us: it’s only written in Japanese characters over the door. This is typical of Naniwa-Tei, which has an understated, authentic feel. Glowing red lanterns hang orb-like over the front door and are the only give away as to its location. A narrow wooden staircase leads to the first floor restaurant, and home-cooked smells greet you from the kitchen. I’m always nervous about eating Japanese food in a group situation. Often there are only a few vegetarian options, and they come in small portions. This makes me a tad begrudging towards other diners.
Fortunately, Naniwa-Tei had a good selection of veggie food which the Book Grubbers were happy to sample. Our hands down favourite was the deep fried eggplant in sweet miso sauce. It was served as half a large eggplant still in its skin. The flesh was tender and beautifully cooked in the sauce. We also tried the edamame beans, the miso soup, seaweed salad and agedashi tofu. This came standard with fish flakes on top, but the restaurant was happy to serve these on the side. We rounded off the meal with green tea icecream, which has a lovely creamy, bitter taste. About four hours after arriving we finally left (to the relief of the polite owners who were going through subtle closin’ up the shop routines). The consensus was that Naniwa-Tei scored a 7-8/10. Wrong About Japan fared less well, just scraping in for a 6. Post a comment
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