Shoya..

It was a place that I wanted to try out for ages. Finally i went there and tried it out with a few friends on a Saturday lunch. It's Shoya Japanese restaurant located at 25 Market Lane, between Russell and Exhibition Street, Little Bourke and Bourke Street. The restaurant also has a review in the Gourmet Traveller 2009 Restaurant Guide. I've made a booking before that. So the moment that I arrived the restaurant with my friends, we were being greeted at the door.

It took me a while to make up my mind and decided to go for UME lunch set, $32.

Firstly, I had the entree salad dish. It was delicious, with eel and some pickles. It made me felt anxious to know how are the rest of the dishes.

Next up, it was steamed egg custard. There was so many ingredients in there. Again, I'm happy with it.

Some more entree dishes. The tofu was served cold and with lots of ginger on it. Not my cup of tea there. Love the spinach salad though.

Beautifully decorated sashimi. Definately a piece of art. But when i ate it, it was not as good as it looked. I think it was due to the white fish which was chewy. I'm a fan of sashimi, but this wasn't the best one.

Prawn and vegetables tempura. It was fried to perfection. It didn't feel oily at all and it tasted good with the sauce.

Grilled eel. One of my favourites in japanese cruisine. It was cooked nicely, but the taste was rather average.

By the time we had main course which is teriyaki beef with fried rice, I was all full. However, the beef tasted really good, the sauce was awesome and the beef was cooked just right. Don't think the fried rice was any good at all though. Maybe just the different ingredients being used.

Finally dessert to finish the huge lunch we had. Green tea ice cream. It was really good! I wonder if it's homemade. It was a good way to end the lovely meal. There was good and bad, but overall I was happy with the whole lunch for about 2 hours there. Great service too. Definately will recommend for the lunch menu there!