Yayoi Garden is a beautiful Japanese Restaurant, their menu is crafted by Yoji Onata who is a Celebrity chef from Aso, Japan. There he crafted his culinary skills and has worked to cultivate and array of techniques. This restaurant is cleanly styled and you feel like you are in Japan and the table was presented and the first dish on show did make you feel like you are in a garden! The amazing Japanese hospitality on display as soon as you step into the restaurant.
The foods capture the essence of traditional Japanese cuisine such as the flavours of soy sauce, miso, beautiful produce, fresh fish and being combined to create beauty. They also change the menu seasonally to keep with the temperature and resources being the freshest available. It also is encouraging for us to definately visit again.
It is a five course menu for $100 and matching wine for $50 or $65 for sake. This is completely reasonable for the food experienced.
We had seen incredible pictures of the food prior to our visit ‘The Garden Platter’had us salivating. We were not disappointed. An arrangement of wagyu tataki, pork belly, temari-sushi, oyster. All put together just like a garden. We loved the seafood tartare capacchio of salmon and kingfish with wasabi-soy olive oil, garnished with seasonal vegetables and garlic chips. Extremely fresh and light start to the menu.
The mains are choices of two; which together we could try everything! The lobster tail with a grilled black cod marinated in Kyoto-style sweet miso paste is quite possibly one of the most delicate meals I’ve had in a long time.
The other option was a premium wagyu with egg plant dengaku and spicy miso. This was also delicately presented and such high quality meat. Another main we tried consisted thin pieces of wagyu on rice and then you pour dashi broth over the top – if you so like, you can also choose unagi(eel) instead.
Finished off by a classic Japanese dessert of coconuts milk matcha ice cream.
A display of Japanese culture and cuisine. A Great Japanese restaurant and we will definately go back.