Salvage Specialty Coffee - Artarmon

We were heading to a Jap pottery sale on the weekend in the Artarmon area and decided to brunch there too. It was a slightly difficult choice as 2 pretty popular cafes were right next to one another on Wilkes Ave but at the end, we opted for Salvage Specialty Coffee (as it had pretty high ratings on bean hunter :P).

We were seated quickly and served quickly - impressive. Coffee here was likewise impressive. Disappointing that they only have one size of coffee cos I would have loved a large cup of my skim capp.

Food-wise, the blackboard offered lots of temptations. Even though there wasn't tons of options, there were many that we wanted to try. After intense discussions with the waitress and much deliberation, we finally opted for the Sloppy Salv (?? I actually forget the name...) and the Croque Madame (which was a weekend special).

The sloppy salv was a brioche burger containing some really tomatoey and slightly spicey mince bolognese. It reminded hubby of a MOS burger. It was definitely sloppy - pretty much falling apart. But pretty tasty :)

 The Croque Madame was exquisite. A perfectly soft-poached egg with delicious running yolk sat atop my toasty of black forest gypsy ham (super tasty), swiss gruyere, and dijon. The other half of my toasty was topped with creamy delicious bechamel sauce. Loved every bite of this crunchy, soggy, tasty, flavoursome concoction. YUM!

All up, I liked this place. Coffee is good. It's chillaxy. The food is really tasty. Definitely worth a visit if you are nearby.

Ratings:
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 29.5/40

Salvage Specialty Coffee
5 Wilkes Ave
Artarmon, NSW 2064

Genki Ramen - Artarmon

Genki Ramen

Following from the previous post, my partner and I were stuck in Chatswood without a movie to watch. But we really did want to watch it! So what could we do to kill time?

We walked around, browsed, and decided to buy a card game we were introduced to earlier in the week - Monopoly Deal. We bought it from Toys-r-Us for $9.99, only to find it for $2 cheaper at Myer 5 minutes later (so buy it from Myer!!!). We drove out of the carpark (as we're too cheap to pay for parking) and parked on the street. In the car, we played Monopoly Deal for hours! Like seriously - it was sooooo fun! We played until the sun went down and we couldn't tell the colours of the property properly.

When it was fully dark, we decided that we needed to play somewhere other than the car. I had even considered just dining at Maccas (a place I'm trying to boycott for my health's sake) but my partner suggested for us to try and see if Genki Ramen was open (since we were so close).
And it was! (And I bought my cards in with us!)

My partner ordered the Takana fried rice ($11) and I ordered the Tonkatsu Ramen ($11).

Because the fried rice had this chilli vegetable stuff mixed, my partner said that it made the rice a bit soggier than what he likes. The rice was mildly spicy, kind of like really mild kimchi-ish rice. It wasn't overly interesting though. It came with a miso soup which was also pretty ordinary.

Takana Fried Rice with miso soup - $11

My ramen was less thick and less potent compared to Ryo's or Gumshara. It was a lot lighter on the stomach. It wasn't too salty or too flavoursome and possibly lacked a little bit of taste - but it definately wasn't bad. The ramen was a bit soggier than I had expected (or maybe it was because I took too long to eat it) and I would have liked maybe an egg or two :P

Tonkatsu Ramen - $11

And to the possible surprise of waiters and patrons around us, my partner and I continued to play throughout our meal - having fun and being loud and slightly ever so stressed when we're being deal broken :)

Monopoly Deal

Ratings:
Food - 7.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 29/40

Genki Ramen
Wilkes Ave
Artarmon
NSW 2064
Tel: (02) 9410 3777

Sushi-ya (2) - Artarmon

In celebration of Earth Hour, Sushi-Ya plays it part by offering dinner by candle-light. What this meant was a homey casual Japanese dinner with an air of romance (and also slightly bad photos).

the atmosphere

As usual, we are greeted by an awesome little appetiser as we are seated. Tonight, it was a cold mix of vermicelli, jellyfish, chicken and edamame beans in a light soy ish vinegarish dressing. This was tasty, with slightly more chicken flavour than I would have liked, but my partner relished every moment of it.

appetiser

We wanted to order lots and lots of food. However, we were stopped by a smart cluey waiter who told us - "no... too much". Hence, this is what we ended up with on the night.

The Special Sashimi ($30.50) comprised of a fresh plateful of approximately 22pcs of selected sashimi. There was salmon, tuna, kingfish, octopus, clams, squid, scampi, prawns, scallop, and jellyfish. All sashimi variety was very tasty and fresh. My favourite was the scallops - soooo cool and sweet and accompanied with the salty 'pop' of the salmon roe. What I also enjoyed very much was the scampi. This was refreshingly subtly sweet - much like my scallop - but a little mushier than my scallop. The salmon was also much freshness.

Special Sashimi - $30.50

The Sushiya Salad ($14.90) is a mix of sashimi and veges with a sesame mayo dressing. Again, this sashimi was refreshing. The serving was generous but no where near as huge as the one at Sushi Suma. However, my partner commented that it was much tastier and the veges were of much higher quality compared to the larger portion counterpart.

Sushiya Salad - $14.90

We also ordered the soft shell crab ($16.90). This comprised of 4 halfs of a crab, deep fried and served with a huge pool of special, very potent, brown sauce. The soft shell crab was hidden underneath a huge pile of greens - possibly to soak up the oil. The crab itself was tempura crunchy on the outside and had extremely soft and juicy and sweet meat on the inside. It was quite delicious and quenched my cravings for soft-shell crab.

Soft Shell Crab - $16.90

Last but not least, we ordered a spicy ginger pork set ($17.50). The thinly sliced pork belly which was slightly very fatty, stir fried with onions in a spicy ginger sauce and accompanied with a side cabbage salad and a egg-potato salad. The set also came with rice and miso soup. I don't know why, but I think the first time we ate this (possibly around 5-6 years ago), this dish tasted better than it did now. This time, the pork bought with it an extremely subtle (almost missable) ginger and chilli taste and the pork was less tender than it used to be.

Spicy Ginger Pork - $17.50

Overall, Sushi-Ya never disappoints. It's nice and cozy. The food is tasty and fresh. The prices are reasonable and it's casual. It's a good little place to keep around for those nights when were really can't think of where to eat.

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 30.5/40

Sushi-Ya
10 Wilke Ave
Artarmon
NSW 2064
tel: (02) 9411 1377

Sushi-Ya - Artarmon

Again, because of my recent complaints about not going to our "regulars" for lunch or dinner, my partner and I decided to check-in on Sushi-Ya at Artarmon for lunch, one of my previously all-time favourites (mainly because it's decent Jap food for awesomely reasonable prices). Luckily, I was not dissappointed.

Green tea

My partner and I ordered a "Special Lunch Course" ($32.50) and a Combination lunch set with miso soup ($18.80). My partner felt as though he would need rice as well, but because of the friendly advice from the waitress who said it was not necessary, we decided to hold out on it - and lucky for us we did. There was SOOOO much food! It was quite insane for a lunch (AND we had enough for takeaway which would be the normal proportion of my normal lunches LOL).

Anyway - on with the food. As part of the special lunch course, we got an awesome salad. This salad comprised of your normal greens, and lotza seaweed (my favourite) and super delicious potato salad - all drenched with jap vinegary sauce! Mmm... I would have been happy if all I got was this salad! :)

Salad

Agedashi tofu was also part of the lunch special. This was was quite good especially if the tofu was dunked in the sauce. The tofu was nice and silken whilst the the batter did a great job in soaking the sauce leading to a combination of tastey smooth healthy tofu.

Agedashi Tofu

There were also edamame beans. Interestingly, the beans were warm. It was the first time I ate these warm - yet, it was quite good and lightly sprinkled with salt.

Edamame beans

One thing that came with the combination lunch set was the pork katsu and deep fried chicken. I thought that the chicken was awesome! It was so tender!!! My partner disagreed and said he's had better. Nonetheless he conceded that it was OK... The pork katsu caused another source of disagreement. My partner thought that this was probably one of the best pork katsu's he's had - super crispy and crunchy yet not too thick batter and nice tasting pork. What I thought was that the pork was not as tender as I would have liked... you had to chew it! it didn't melt in my mouth!!! (my partner told me that it wasn't supposed to melt in my mouth >.<).

Pork Katsu and Deep fried chicken

Miso soup - came with the combination lunch set. One of my friends told me that no matter where I go, the photo of the miso soup will be the same - and the taste will also be very similar. She was correct. Yet, on a cold day - hot soup is much welcomed.

Miso soup

Another item with the lunch set was the salmon lover's roll. This was super super good!!! Like a california roll (Yummm) with salmon on top (double yummm)!!! Too bad I only managed to eat one of these >.< (yes, I was close to full by now and there's much more food to come).

Salmon Lover's roll

So by this time, our table was filled with food - I could feel the presence of eyes staring at us, wondering why we ordered soooo much food (we didn't know!!! well... I assumed but my partner did not believe me). Nonetheless, the food kept coming.

Next from our awesome special lunch set was the sashimi. There was salmon, tuna and kingfish. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect Sushi-Ya to have good sashimi - but their salmon was excellente~ (surprisingly excellente). Super creamy and super fresh and super fatty and super smooth and super tastey. The tuna and kingfish were average.

Sashimi

Now- a special miso soup to complement a special lunch set. This was definately something special. It was sooooo sweet tasting because of the scampi in the soup. It was amazing! So much better than the normal miso soup. As I drank most of the normal miso soup (stupid me) my partner got most of the this scampi miso soup (*sobz*). But yeh - this was awesome!!! Need to put scampi in all my miso soups from now on!

Scampi miso soup

Out of a choice of soft shell crab or prawn tempura, my partner and I chose the soft shell crab. I know I've said in a recent post that the soft shell crab at Katsura was awesome - this is no less awesomeness!!! Soooo meatily juicy and yet soooo crisp on the legs bit. The crabby sweetness just flowed out. This is enough to bring a smile to anyone's face!

Soft Shell Crab

I told my partner that the special lunch set came with sushi - he did not believe me. It did not seem possible to him that there would be MORE food to come. But it came!!! Assorted sushi-goodness. The scampi one was super sweet, the scallop one was too and my partner said that the eel one was awesomeness!!! All the rest were pretty average. We were definately very full by now.

Assorted Sushi

Last to come from our special lunch course was dessert!!! Mmm... always room for desssert! There was green tea tiramisu and green tea icecream. And omigoshhh, this was deliciousness!!! (even on a full stomach). The green tea tiramisu was very green-tea-y, just right in sweetness, and just right in texture. I'm definately going to try and make this at home (and force my partner to eat it). And the green tea icecream? Just right as well - very green tea flavour, not too sweet, not too creamy, not too ice-y... just right! Mmmm...

Dessert! Green tea tiramisu and green tea icecream

All up, do the maths, and you'll find that our meal came to $50 ish dollars. The meal fed two hungry breakfastless individuals and enough to feed another person (in takeaway). The atmosphere is nice and cosy and the waitresses are nice and friendly. (I must say that she did try to warn us about the amount of food we ordered - we just decided to ignore her advice).

Ratings:
Food - 9
Service - 8
Ambiance - 8
Value for money - 9
Overall - 34/40

Sushi-Ya
10 Wilkes Ave
Artarmon
NSW, 2064
tel: (02) 9411 1377