Okami Japanese Restaurant
147 Station Street Fairfield
(Visited December ’18)
It was mid-December, and KK was the name of the game! Yes siree folks, the 2018 Christmas shin-dig with us girls had arrived and we were nice and early in December for a catch up, even managing to book the place weeks in advance! Why, I never!
The place you ask? It was Okami in Fairfield, an all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant. The massive drawcard for this place on Station Street, was not just it’s visible location, but the fact that it was $32.80 for everything…
Like, ALL YOU CAN EAT.
Why do we get so excited when we hear those four words, why? I mean, there is only so much we CAN eat, and yet the thought of unlimited food, without limitations…
As a species, we are awfully simple, and awfully stupid.
So let’s see how many courses we got through, shall we?
We were there for the 7:30 session. We started off getting some drinks of which was the classic Umeshu, Japanese Plum Wine.
With an actual plum inside! We all dabbled in this, and it was that kind of sickly sweet type of alcohol that still went to our heads.
Here are the dishes we went for, and shared between us all:
Edamame Beans… I learnt how to eat them that night.. you take the long bean between your teeth, pull the little beans out and suck.
We also had prawn and vegetable gyozas… mmm so good.
Vegetable spring rolls.
Potato croquettes.
There was also the octopus balls… oh God no. They are the round balls in the spring rolls photo, and let me tell you I had NONE of those. I can’t even look at them without – ugh.
Those were our starters.
For mains, we got the chicken katsu, along with the sides of fried rice and steamed rice (latter dishes not pictured).
My friend also got the sushi and sashimi platter… here is a photo for the sake of looking at food.
My personal faves? The gyozas, and the chicken katsu. So yummy and crunchy.
It was a great night, what with KKs happening, festive paper flying over the table as we unwrapped presents, and lots of girly squeals and laughter.
What the hell. We would do dessert too.
There wasn’t a whole lot on the menu for the sweet stuff, just ice cream flavours… and I didn’t want the green tea or black sesame variety, so I went for plain old vanilla.
Just like my adjectives there, it was fairly plain and old, nothing really amazing to be honest. I ate it but it was clear that although they knew how to do their Japanese dishes… the desserts didn’t have any wow factor.
We all paid the bill, not split though (see note below) and headed on out to fill up Station Street with much more festive love and laughter.
Food: 7.5/10. Most of the dishes were yum, but the ice cream was meh.
Coffee: N/A.
Ambience: Noisy, busy! It was a Saturday night in December, so close to Christmas… can you imagine? Lost of groups getting together for pre-Christmas shin-digs, friends, families… the lot.
People: Like I said, the lot. Older people, younger people, and everyone in between.
Staff: Really friendly. Our waiter was lovely and tended to all our very pressing questions about like, how many pieces of gyoza do you get in a serve? What exactly is in an octopus ball? And do you split the bill? (See below!)
Price: So as I already mentioned, $32.80, all you can eat! Not including drinks, my plum wine was $9 for a 900ml glass. These are likely to have changed since our outing there, so check their website, or call, to avoid disappointment at the counter.
Advice: So, going by my many clues to split bills… there are no split bills! Half of us took a walk before dessert time to find an ATM on Station Street so we could all pay together… so really, if you are going in a group and there isn’t one person shouting, make sure you have $$$ on you.
Also, book ahead, especially for busy times and days. Our session was booked a whole month in advance… be prepared!
In a nutshell: I quite liked the vibe and atmosphere of this Japanese restaurant. I enjoy the premise of little meals where you can have a bit of this, and a bit of that… you get to try everything, and with company. I would go for more katsu (tummy rumbling just thinking about it) and gyoza, mmm, love me some gyoza!
So, I guess the only main thing to note is that when you go, like their name loosely translates… be hungry like a wolf.