A group of about 12 friends headed to Shiro Japanese one Friday night after work. It's a relatively new establishment located in the heart of Perth's CBD area. It sits nicely in Central Park near Commonwealth Bank and has a rather nice view of the park.
The size of the group meant that we had the more private room upstairs, where the restaurant has two long tables, allowing it to accommodate two large groups. The decor of Shiro Japanese is modern, simplistic and clean-cut. I would have, however, preferred that the lighting wasn't so cold and almost the blue fluorescent druggie lighting. It does nothing for the ambiance.
The menu of Shiro Japanese was rather extensive filled with amazing sounding tapas style dishes and for those that are hungry a more filling portion of mains. They also have a decent list of Japanese beers, sake, shochu, umeshu as well as having cocktails and a short but sweet list of wines.
For a Friday filling, I ended up having my favourite Japanese drink, sake, the Hakushika Hana Kohaku Sake. A lovely sweet-ish sake, with a hint of flower aroma. It was rather lovely and perfect for sipping whilst enjoying your meal. It came in a charming decanter like jug with ice being separated from the sake, which is a brilliant idea. I truly hate it when my sake isn't cold enough and when it gets diluted.
The extensive menu made it so hard to chose. So I opted to share a few plates with a few friends. It's the way really. You get to really taste and understand the menu and try bits and pieces of its dishes, whilst not over-indulging. Almost like a degustation.
Firstly, I ordered the agedashi tofu, because I believe you can judge an authenticity of a Japanese restaurant by the way they treat tofu. The tofu should be silky, smooth and almost creamy like and should just melt in your mouth. It requires skill to make it flavoursome without losing it's texture. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the three, tiny sliced tofu pieces (it's not enough a proper block of tofu, it looked like it was cut several times) that came to the table. Although the batter that came with was light, the tofu itself was a little grainy and the sauce was rather clammy and there were blobs of the sauce. I realise that the sauce in agedashi tofu is thick and sticky, but it should not be in blobs and should definitely be smooth. A little disappointment with the whole dish. Ohnamiya Japanese in Nedlands, still makes one of the best agedashi tofu.
The next dish, however, was an improvement. We ordered 8 pieces of salmon sashimi, which were delicately slice and well presented on a slab plate. The salmon was fresh, juicy and the wasabi with soy sauce was the perfect addition. Having said that at $3 a piece, I'm not sure if it is worth it.
We also ordered the tuna tataki (pictured below). The tuna was fresh and perfectly seared. The wasabi ponzu sauce that accompanied the dish was the perfect match with the tuna. The fresh bed of salad provided that added crunchy texture to the dish. I will be having this again when I go back.
M also ordered the Salmon salad (pictured above). Again, the salmon was fresh, and was accompanied by the lightly sour taste of the miso yogurt sauce, which surprisingly went well with the salad and the salmon. I'm not sure if I am a fan of the sauce though.
The soft shell crab (above) was the next on our menu that night. It came with large pieces of meaty soft shell crab accompanied by this amazing crispy spinach, providing a slightly different texture to the soft shell crab. The salad, also had sweet, juicy watermelon, which worked so well and provided this added flavour of sweetness to salty. Then to top it all off there was the balsamic reduction and wasabi soy sauce. I just have to say, the combination of flavours, sweet, sour, salty and the mix of texture of the watermelon, the spinach and the soft shell crab was fantastic. It was a twist on the good old soft shell crab. It definitely used the principles of Japanese cuisine; exploring and harmonising different texture of foods and flavours.
Of course, a visit to Shiro would not have been complete if we did not order their sushi. We decided to order the Rolls Royce sushi, which contained lettuce, crab stick, cucumber topped with diced prawn tempura, unagi, cucumber, onion and tiered with apple sauce, teriyaki sauce and mayo sauce. It definitely was a luxurious sushi roll, and you can really appreciate the complexities of making it. However, I felt as though the Japanese mayonnaise, despite it being one of my favourites, seemed to drown out the other components of the sushi. Nevertheless, it was delicious and left you wanting more.
Of course, dinner has not ended without dessert. Most Japanese places are not well renowned for their dessert, and Shiro like most others only offer green tea ice cream, black sesame ice cream and a third choice, banana maki with yuzi sorbert. The green tea ice cream was creamy and smooth and the taste of quality matcha was very much evident. The black sesame ice cream (one of my favourite types of ice cream) was accompanied by a small amount of red bean paste which offset the not so sweet of the black sesame. Again, the ice cream was creamy and smooth. The banana maki with yuzi sorbet - we didn't exactly get told that the yuzi sorbet was not available so the boys got green tea ice cream instead - which I thought was a little rude that they weren't told. Apparently the dish wasn't too bad, and the pastry of the banana maki wasn't too thick, but was apparently, very much like spring roll.
Overall, Shiro Japanese offers a different type of Japanese cuisine. It uses the principles of Japanese cooking by exploring textures and tastes, but I believe they still need to perfect the simple Japanese technical of care and delicacy as well. The prices are also rather high for the portion that you get, and in some instances for the quality that you get (like the agedashi tofu).The service at Shiro was also very poor, M did not get her banana maki because it was sold out and was not informed of this until we asked why we didn't get an extra banana maki. Basically they either forgot her order or were rude enough to not tell us. The service was also very slow with no explanations as to where our dishes were. I think a few times they even forgot that we ordered additional meals. To top it all off, no offers of water were made to the table, only to select few. I would have thought it's part of the service, when asking for drinks to ask whether the whole table woud like water. Shiro, for a restaurant that doesn't want to be classed as casual dining needs to work on their service, because without good service it really can ruin a perfectly fine evening.
The next dish, however, was an improvement. We ordered 8 pieces of salmon sashimi, which were delicately slice and well presented on a slab plate. The salmon was fresh, juicy and the wasabi with soy sauce was the perfect addition. Having said that at $3 a piece, I'm not sure if it is worth it.
We also ordered the tuna tataki (pictured below). The tuna was fresh and perfectly seared. The wasabi ponzu sauce that accompanied the dish was the perfect match with the tuna. The fresh bed of salad provided that added crunchy texture to the dish. I will be having this again when I go back.
M also ordered the Salmon salad (pictured above). Again, the salmon was fresh, and was accompanied by the lightly sour taste of the miso yogurt sauce, which surprisingly went well with the salad and the salmon. I'm not sure if I am a fan of the sauce though.
The soft shell crab (above) was the next on our menu that night. It came with large pieces of meaty soft shell crab accompanied by this amazing crispy spinach, providing a slightly different texture to the soft shell crab. The salad, also had sweet, juicy watermelon, which worked so well and provided this added flavour of sweetness to salty. Then to top it all off there was the balsamic reduction and wasabi soy sauce. I just have to say, the combination of flavours, sweet, sour, salty and the mix of texture of the watermelon, the spinach and the soft shell crab was fantastic. It was a twist on the good old soft shell crab. It definitely used the principles of Japanese cuisine; exploring and harmonising different texture of foods and flavours.
Of course, a visit to Shiro would not have been complete if we did not order their sushi. We decided to order the Rolls Royce sushi, which contained lettuce, crab stick, cucumber topped with diced prawn tempura, unagi, cucumber, onion and tiered with apple sauce, teriyaki sauce and mayo sauce. It definitely was a luxurious sushi roll, and you can really appreciate the complexities of making it. However, I felt as though the Japanese mayonnaise, despite it being one of my favourites, seemed to drown out the other components of the sushi. Nevertheless, it was delicious and left you wanting more.
Of course, dinner has not ended without dessert. Most Japanese places are not well renowned for their dessert, and Shiro like most others only offer green tea ice cream, black sesame ice cream and a third choice, banana maki with yuzi sorbert. The green tea ice cream was creamy and smooth and the taste of quality matcha was very much evident. The black sesame ice cream (one of my favourite types of ice cream) was accompanied by a small amount of red bean paste which offset the not so sweet of the black sesame. Again, the ice cream was creamy and smooth. The banana maki with yuzi sorbet - we didn't exactly get told that the yuzi sorbet was not available so the boys got green tea ice cream instead - which I thought was a little rude that they weren't told. Apparently the dish wasn't too bad, and the pastry of the banana maki wasn't too thick, but was apparently, very much like spring roll.
Overall, Shiro Japanese offers a different type of Japanese cuisine. It uses the principles of Japanese cooking by exploring textures and tastes, but I believe they still need to perfect the simple Japanese technical of care and delicacy as well. The prices are also rather high for the portion that you get, and in some instances for the quality that you get (like the agedashi tofu).The service at Shiro was also very poor, M did not get her banana maki because it was sold out and was not informed of this until we asked why we didn't get an extra banana maki. Basically they either forgot her order or were rude enough to not tell us. The service was also very slow with no explanations as to where our dishes were. I think a few times they even forgot that we ordered additional meals. To top it all off, no offers of water were made to the table, only to select few. I would have thought it's part of the service, when asking for drinks to ask whether the whole table woud like water. Shiro, for a restaurant that doesn't want to be classed as casual dining needs to work on their service, because without good service it really can ruin a perfectly fine evening.
