Heading
into the CBD, I wanted a quick, light dinner before my flight back to Melbs.
Ichi-Ban
Boshi is apparently a place that serves nice Japanese food at a reasonable
price. It was recommended by some
Sydney-siders, who in turn recommended it to the Lawyer. They all liked the food there, so without
further ado, we went there for dinner.
I-BB
is located upstairs in this small shopping complex. It was mid-week, and just gone 6pm and I was
surprised to see how full it was and the number of people who were waiting for a table. It’s
not exactly a restaurant as such – more of a cordoned-off area.
There
was a slight vibe that I picked up from the staff who, while nice and well
intentioned, were a bit frazzled. After taking
a while to flag down a waitress, we placed our order of two entrees and a main.
The
two entrees came out at different times, but were served in a reasonable
timeframe. The first was the seaweed
salad. A perfunctory amount of seaweed,
and the rest of the salad was some crisp veg matter – cucumber, butter lettuce. I did like the aromatic sesame oil-based
dressing.
The
okonomiyaki was okay. A thick-ish
pancake but it a bit doughy/heavy in texture.
I prefer ones that are more veg (grated yam, cabbage, onion) and less
flour in the ingredients. A moderate
amount of pickled veg, seaweed and bonito flakes. It was fine but nothing exceptional.
Then
we waited for the main – a ramen. Ramen’s
aren’t that difficult to make, so we wondered where ours had got to. We asked the waitress who seemed
confused. She went to the kitchen, and
they were confused. They realised that
the order had gone missing. The waitress
was apologetic and said it’d be ready soon. More time passed, and I wasn’t getting
happy. We flagged the waitress again and
explained that I had a plane to catch, and was the ramen coming soon (by this
time we had waited over 20 minutes for it).
She checked with the kitchen and
said that they were about to start making it and it’d be ready “soon”. There was nothing in the waitress or the
kitchen that gave me the impression that they were indeed going to make it
soon. I cancelled the order and we left.
Verdict
Food
– 7
Service
– 5
Ambience
– 7
Price
– 7
Overall
While
I only sampled two dishes, the food was okay – nothing exceptional. As with other reviews on Urbanspoon, I’m not
sure what’s so special about the food here, and I certainly don’t understand
why so many people were queuing up to eat here.
As
I said, the staff are nice, but frazzled.
Not sure how they cope when it gets busier.
Surely,
there are other Japanese places that are better in the city?
Address
Ichi-Ban
Boshi
Level
2, 500 George St
Sydney NSW 2000
Sydney NSW 2000
Telephone:
02 9262 7677
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