izakaya hachibeh melbourne

Hello dear readers, hello dear friends! I have been super slack on posting this as these pics were taken last FRIDAY! almost 1 whole week ago. EEP! Nevertheless, let me take you on a culinary journey to Japan...again. If you love Japanese Cuisine as much as I, then we will get along and I don't have to teach you some respect using my fisticuffs. Last Friday my friend Travis wanted to go out for Japanese, but the place we went last time (Yu-u) was booked out so it became time to source out a new unfarmiliar place to eat. I did a little research during the day and stumbled across this place which sounded fun: Izakaya Hachibeh (on Bourke St). Izakaya is like pub/snack food in Japan, so here they market it as Japanese Tapas Bar. The menu I saw online had over 100 different food items, not to mention pages of Sake menus all in Japanese. I knew from then on that this place would be cool. So we went. And here is how the night played out..

Upon walking into the restaurant we were greeted with "IRASSHAIMASEEEE!" which i haven't heard since I was in Japan. It's the greeting shopkeepers bellow when you enter their establishment. I was absolutely tickled pink. I quickly realised that everyone working there was actually Japanese, so then I was doing the whole "Oh my god, I want to make friends with that guy, oh my god that guy looks like a DRAGON!!!!" thing. You know. I was almost too distracted to even look at the menu.

We started out with some $8 Kirin Ichiban (#1) Beers, which came with awesome Japanese ceramic cups. My growling stomach finally forced me to sit still and focus my eyes on the menu:


It took us a while to realise that the menu was Japanese style in its backwardness, ie. you start reading from the last page and work backwards. We opened the menu normally and were blown away by the 8 pages of alcoholic drinks pages, then we came to dessert, then to main... then I realised and we all flipped to the last page (first page). The menu was cool, It had food in groups like "hot small dishes", "cold small dishes", "fried small dishes" and "raw food" etc etc. It also listed each item in English and Japanese :D I was having fun reading it out.


It took us soooo long to decide what to have. Everyone changed their minds at least 5 times, it was great! One minute it was like "Ok, I'm getting a stuffed eggplant and maybe gyoza. No wait... I'll get some YAKITORI... and gyoza, and...okonomiyaki too? Too much? hmmm....". Classic! In the end we got a lot of small dishes (no sushi though) and pretty much shared it all around...

Takoyaki - pan fried octopus balls. Like, batter balls with a bit of tentacle in the middle :P Really yummy from here!!

Okonomiyaki - Wasn't the best but still nice. I seriously will die if I don't find a place that does Hiroshima style...

Roo got this Pork/rice dish and he loooved the pickled ginger. I must admit I piled that stuff on everything in Japan, it's on every table like a condiment.

Potato Croquettes. They weren't as awesome as I thought they would be, but nice.

Yakitori!! Chicken in a sort of teriyaki flavour marinade grilled to perfection

Gyoza - ok if you've never had gyoza... just get out. just leave. Nah these are great. One of my favourite snacks :) The filling was green!! I think perhaps they had blended spinach added to the mix...?

Tori Karaage - Japanese style fried chicken. Reallllly nice. Not as nice as at Tomodachi or Ajisen Ramen though. They were unreal!! Especially cos Tomodachi gives you this mustard mayo :D

Ebi Dumplings. (Prawn dumplings). These I thought would be pork and prawn, but they were pure seafood so Trav and I didn't dig them as much as we hoped.

Stevenz giving me the shifty eye. I was trying to capture the cool bar

Stevenzzz enjoying his ceramic cup

Oh yes, dessert!! We were so full so we shared! Trav picked this Black Sesame Ice Cream. It was fucking delicious. I want to get a tub for home :D

And Roo and I picked this Japanese pancake with red bean filling, and vanilla ice cream. Also amazing. One of my favourite sweets in Japppp

As we left I waved to the chef and said "Gochi so sama deshita!" which is like a thankyou to the chef for the delicious meal and he looked like he took a bullet - he did not expect that from me! And he was shouting out stuff in Japanese, with a big grin on his face, which I didn't catch but I felt chuffed anyway :) Outside I convinced Roo and stevenz to take a "get rad" pic out the front where we are getting rad in mid air. Here is the first failed attempt. I was looking for all the coins that flew out of my pocket as i jumped, and the boys got embarrassed and started to walk off...

Then we noticed we had attracted the attention of people inside the restaurant who wanted in a photo:

And we tried it again but Natalie was too quick with the button this time! We are all about to spring! And that lady is posing too but the flash blurs her face, haha

So with about 4 failed "get rad" pics we moved on to my friend Seona's birthday drinks at Bridie O'Reilly's Irish Pub. I was seriously on a high. Stevenz rally likes glo mesh by the way:

And I tried my first Guiness ever. I pushed aside my childhood fear of it from the one time i took a sip and concluded it tasted like liquidised burnt toast. I actually liked it, but after 1 pot I was so full i wanted to sleep it off.

Oh man, I was so sick. I had a cold and soon after drinking this beer I was ready to go home to bed! I thought I'd have another to be socialll but my friend brought me back a PINT of guiness, and I only got down about 3 or 4 fingers in the end. I seriously felt like i had just eaten another huge dinner..... that guiness is thick man. jeez. Anyway that's not the whole point. The point is that the Japanese restaurant is amazing and cool and cheap and fun! DO TRYYY! (I hope Dilmah Tea company dont sue me for always saying that!!)