It’s been a while (I sadly realised) since I’d been to Yakitori Yurippi last. But lucky for me, Chef Tin invited us back to check out his winter menu a few weeks ago and it was truly epic. In fact, I was getting mega cravings for yakitori while preparing this post – hope you’re ready to drool!
You always get a warm greeting (literally and emotionally) when you enter Yurippi. Tin sat us down at the counter so we can watch all the action – here he is in the photo above, working hard on making us some omelette.
We were definitely in for a real treat – Tin had put together a menu of all the Yurippi staples as well as all the winter specials. We started off with Gobou chips which are the Japanese answer to fries (and go perfectly with a cold beer) – Burdock root chips with a light seasoned batter. Let me tell you, these were ridiculously moreish and I would easily snack on them any day. They are similar to potato chips but have more of a starchy flavour. We also had two classic yakitori skewers – chicken and shallot with sweet soy and fatty pork belly with pink salt. Needless to say, both were amazing and we could’ve had 10. 
Next up was another old favourite – the tsukune which is a chicken meatball on a stick with ginger, shallots, garlic and a 63-degree egg in sweet soy sauce. I’m personally not a massive fan of runny egg so this always creeps me out a little – but it does make for some good yolk-porn. You’ll have to follow me on Snapchat to see what I mean – username is talkandspoon!
Now you’re probably thinking…what’s that pink thing on the skewer? Apparently it’s super popular in Japan but it’s literally…mochi and bacon. Yup, the usually sweet flavoured mochi rice ball is wrapped in bacon and it tastes surprisingly good?! Quite salty and chewy, definitely something new for me!
Some other favourites followed (can you believe we’re only halfway through the meal…) including karaage chicken (soy and garlic fried chicken), that cabbage salad that you really need to cut through all the deep fried/grilled food (cabbage with kombu, sesame and garlic) and the Japanese omelette with sake, mirin and dashi broth. Is it weird to say that the omelette was our favourite thing of the night?! Is it also weird to say that the omelette was juicy?! CK and I both concurred that was the correct description for it. It’s incredibly simple (especially as we watched Tin make it in front of us and were like, what – that’s it?) but also incredibly good. Highly recommend this dish! 
Next up we tried some of the new winter menu dishes including the Ochuzake – rice in a chicken stock topped with kombu shallots and an ume shiso sauce. Again, this is incredibly simple but really a winter warmer. Partway between soup and congee, it really hit the spot for us even though we were already really full. We also had a Sashimi grade Hokkaido scallop with kombu butter which was beautiful in texture and taste. You really can taste the difference in good quality seafood, hey!
Another winter warmer is the Oden. It’s such a Japanese classic that you can get it at any Family Mart in Tokyo. This, of course, was heaps better quality and packed full of awesome little things – eggs, daikon, konjac, fishcakes in a soy, dashi and kombu broth. The konjac in particular was new to me – kind of like a yam? It’s the glutenous looking thing with the dark spots on the right of the pot. 
Oh man, CK and I were already so stuffed but Tin persisted in serving us dessert – Yuzu ice cream! – and guess what, we finished it all! You actually really enjoy and need that sweet/sour tanginess of a sorbet after the meal. Plus, the wafers on the side took me straight back to my childhood. Anyone else have those as a kid growing up in Asia?!
I really, really loved my meal at Yurippi and am itching to go back. For those who think Crows Nest is too far away/a bit out of the way – it really isn’t! So make sure you head over soon while the winter dishes are still on the menu.
Yakitori Yurippi
7 Falcon Street
Crows Nest
http://www.yurippi.com.au/
Disclaimer: talk&spoon and CK were invited to dine as guests of Yurippi, with a special huge thank you to Tin for being so generous to us!
