Ishiya Stonegrill - Melbourne

Ishiya

Having been to Melbourne a few times now, and longingly eyeing this place every time, I was super excited when my friends and I were able to get a table here for dinner, albiet past 8pm and albiet needing to wait even though we had a booking.

cocktails

Drinks were ordered... I don't remember exactly what they were. I think one had grape stuff in it and one had lychee?

Almost everyone on the table also ordered the Wagyu Beef Stonegrill set ($53.90). (There was slight indecision over whether the wagyu OR the wagyu with lobster tail $83.00 should be ordered). This included wagyu beef on a stone grill, 6 pieces of sushi and sashimi, Japanese sauce set, and Teppanyaki Fried Rice. On top of these, we also ordered a few entres.

The Kingfish and Salmon sashimi was surprisingly fresh. Each piece was yummy goodness. Almost as good as sashimi from Wasavie (The casual sister restaurant of Yoshii). And maybe it was because we were hungry, but all of us devoured it wordlessly. Mmm...

Sashimi

Entres which were ordered included the wagyu beef tataki. The sauce looked really watery and comments from my friend surrounded how this dish was just not that great. Maybe it's because when beef is raw, it doesn't really matter how marbled it is because the fat doesn't give off that lovely tasty aroma unless it's melted? Or maybe it's because the sauce was not up to scratch and therefore, makes the dish slightly tasteless.

Wagyu Beef tataki

There was also the Tori no Tatsuta ($7.50) - deep-fried chicken pieces served with tobikko mayo. Comment about this dish? It wasn't hot enough - it was just luke warm.

Tori no Tatsuta - $7.50

A similar story was told for the kushiyaki (ie. Jap style charcoal grill BBQ skewers $2.80 - $4.50 each). I think my friends chose the chicken fillet, pork neck fillet and lamb skewers. Wasn't hot enough for it to be super appetising.

mixed kushiyaki

Also ordered were the scallops baked with cheese in it's shell, and lightly battered deep-fried oysters. Again - served just lukewarm and hence, slightly dissappointing. However, deep fried oysters do taste quite good with green-tea salt :)

baked scallops

Deep-fried oysters with green-tea salt

Now onto the main event of the evening - our wagyu beef stonegrill came with 5 sauces. There was ponzu sauce, garlic sauce, chilli-oil, a peanutty sauce and... soy? (my memory escapes me)

5 sauces

The slab of meat comes sizzling on a 400°C volcanic stone. It's supposed to be healthy as they trim off the fat and no oil is used. What's awesome about it is that the beef can come as over- or under-cooked as you like. What my company and I found useful was to take the beef off the sizzling hot stone and cut it up into slices. Then we cooked each of the slices to our liking. For me, that was medium/medium-rare ish which was justcooked enough for the fat from the wagyu to seep out, and just rare enough for the meat to remain tender and juicy and tasty.

Stone-grilled wagyu beef steak

Mmm... my wagyu beef steak grilled on stone was AWESOME~! My friends might have over-cooked their beef because they thought that it was slightly less awesome. The entres were dissappointing... But to me, the sashimi and the beef made up for it :P

Ratings:
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 8/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 32/40

Ishiya
152 Little Bourke St
Melbourne
VIC 3000
tel: (03) 9650 9510