Ichi-ban Boshi, Sydney (NSW) by Bureaucrat

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

Telephone: 02 9262 7677