Jazushi, Surry Hills

Jazushi is a cozy little Japanese jazz restaurant located a short stroll away from Central Station, towards the Surry Hills side and tonight we are being treated to a feast by DK to celebrate his birthday. He’s kept quiet about the menu he designed for our meal as Jazushi only allows set menu meals for large group bookings.

The restaurant is quite small; our group of 15 takes up much of the centre of the main room of the restaurant which also features a semi-open kitchen with chefs and waitstaff bustling around. It is dimly lit, and they turn the lights down even more for the mood lighting effect as we start on some bottles of Choya, which is a fruity, white Japanese plum wine that goes down very easily.

Choya plum wine, $38 for 700ml bottle

Our first dish is a green tea noodle salad, which comes with mixed lettuce, red onion and is sprinkled with tempura batter crumbs which add a satisfying crunch and a refreshing soy vinaigrette drizzled on top. It’s a great starter, but could do with more of the noodles as there were way more vegies than noodles to go around.

Green tea noodle salad, $14

Then comes the first of many more sushi rolls that will be dished up tonight. The soft shell crab roll is quite well done with crunchy battered soft shell crab and fresh avocado mixed with bubbly roe.

Soft shell crab roll, $16

The spicy tuna inside out roll is next, but while the sashimi is fresh there is barely a hint of spiciness.

Spicy tuna inside out roll, $18

We are much more impressed by the tempura Camembert cheese that follows; the batter is light and crunchy while the cheese encased inside melts in your mouth and goes nicely with the tangy cream sauce that accompanies it.

Camembert cheese tempura with creme teriyaki sauce, $16

Another round of salmon inside out roll sushi with avocado comes and goes; it isn’t remarkable but serves to line our stomachs with more rice. Meanwhile in the background live music has been playing, a guy on a piano and a guy on the guitar playing some jazzy stuff but also covers of older popular songs like Hallelujah and Scar Tissue which sets a nice mood.

Tasmanian salmon inside out roll, $15

Then we’re treated to another flavour hit with the JFC, ‘Jazushi Fried Chicken’ which is pretty much their version of chicken karaage. The JFC is very hot, oily and tasty and comes with plenty of their namban style sauce which is made up of mayo, chives and onions.

Jazushi Fried Chicken with yuzu citrus sauce, $21

Our last savoury dish of the night is the slowcooked pork belly, which is soft and has absorbed much of the soy sauce it has been cooked in, but by this stage we were all quite stuffed and could barely finish the rice that came with the pork.

Kakuni Kurobuta pork belly, $23

Finally we have dessert and we have a choice of chocolate, vanilla or green tea crème brulee. The overwhelming favourite amongst the group was the green tea crème brulee which I ended up choosing. It was delicious after cracking through the caramelised top, although a bit eggy tasting but thankfully the green tea matcha powder was not too bitter. My friend had the chocolate crème brulee and was taken aback by how much it tasted like Coco Pops in crème brulee form!

Green tea crème brulee, $11

It was an enjoyable night, though quite a long dinner with many dishes to get through. It seems like a popular choice for birthday celebrations as the night we were there, another 2 people were also celebrating their birthdays and the perk of being a jazz restaurant is that the band was happy to strike up the birthday song for each of the birthday people throughout the night.

Jazushi 
145 Devonshire Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Phone: (02) 9699 8977

Jazushi on Urbanspoon

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