Sleepy Hao, Akiraceo Jian and I headed to town for a more decent (Anything better than Sushi King or maybe Sibaraku is considered decent.) Japanese food. Actually, I have nothing to blog anymore, so I dragged these two scapegoats along so that I have more pictures to be used in my post.

I read about this particular restaurant from Yung.’s blog and decided to give it a try. Who knows, I might have another place to have my all time favourite unagis whenever I feel like I want to.

Wa Zen 和膳 Japanese Restaurant, located not too far from Portuguese Hotel, operates quietly in Melaka Raya. It’s relatively easy to find and parking is ample. However, do take note the lane opposite the shop is drawn with yellow lines, so, try not to park there during the day time.

There aren’t many tables in the restaurants. A glance at it, there could be less than 10 tables, with separated cubicles on the left and a private room at the back. Warm lighting and fully air conditioned.

My complain is that, they actually allow their patrons to smoke inside the air conditioned restaurants. Not very wise, I would say. Ample space between each tables and still comfortable to sit in. I think the restaurant is quite popular in town, as we had to wait for a short while before being seated as all tables were occupied. There were a lot of Japanese customers having dinner there too, to my surprise.

Then, I noticed this cat again. Its in every Japanese restaurant, I believe. I seen it here, Sibaraku and also Sushi King. Meow~

Upon seated, hot towels are served to all patrons. However, with three photographers around, hot towels ended up being cold by the time we use it. As usual, pre-packed wooden chopsticks and chilled green tea.

While waiting for our food to arrive, I played with the stuffs available on the table. The Japanese soy sauce, chilies flakes and tooth picks.

For starters, Hao and I had the fresh salmon handroll and soft shell crabs handroll. Taste wise, it was edible but definitely lost out in terms of taste. The seaweed used to wrap around the ingredients were not easy to tear off, making it quite a little troublesome to eat and with all the egg roes falling off. I wonder the seaweed got “stiffed” because of our photo taking time. The waiter did remind us to eat them quickly.

We ordered the sets, which come with a bowl of white rice, salads, steamed eggs, two slices of watermelons and whatever you ordered main dish. It was really disappointing to see a small pool of water after I finished the bowl of salads, which could only mean they didn’t drain the lettuce properly before serving. The steamed egg contained too much water and has lost its texture. A failed cawanmushi.

Hao ordered tori rose katsu set (deep fried pork chop) while Jian ordered teriyaki chicken rice set. I don’t know how it tasted, so let it be.

As for me, definitely and nothing else but unagis. Yummy! I was telling May Gin this early evening that I was having cravings for unagis.

The unagis were much drier compare to many other unagis that I have tried in other Japanese restaurants. However, the taste was there albeit not that strong. The delicate white meat was cooked to perfection, retaining its firm texture and yet soft and smooth enough to glide down my throat. Again, some sweet sauce onto the white rice would be nice, for its too dry, the whole set that is.

In Malacca, there are only a few Japanese restaurants, with Sushi King dominating the market. However, with Wa Zen around, the locals have another options. I would definitely come back again, especially when I feel like having a more proper Japanese food rather than the sucky but still edible Sushi King. There’s another Japanese restaurant that is about to open soon in Dataran Pahlawan, but that will be another post.

Wa Zen Japanese Restaurant
38, Jalan Melaka Raya 15,
Taman Melaka Raya, 75000 Melaka.

06-2823882

Do you know its an achievement to get Carol Tee a.k.a Ellone to treat me (or you) to a decent meal? It took me some betting, persuading, teasing and of course, cheating to get my free meal. However, it was almost more than a year later when she finally treated me.

Sushi Zanmai, highly recommended by Ellone for its relatively cheap sushis and bento sets in her post. Since she would be footing the bill, I went easy on her and suggested this restaurant instead of our pre-agreed Star Hill’s Jogoya.

It’s located somewhere in The Gardens. Yes, it was my first visit to The Gardens, a brief one albeit. I remembered I walked across Little Penang Cafe, the long hallway, upped the escalator and turned right, passing by an Indian restaurant called Cinnamon or something like that. Heh!

Conveyor belt, checked! Chefs making sushi right in front of you, checked! The waiters / waitresses say something in Japanese (Welcome!) whenever a customer walks in, checked! Wasabi, checked! Unagi, checked! Refillable green tea, checked!

Refillable green tea. A little bland though.

My tuna sushi. Well, tasted normal but it was fresh. Too bad they don’t serve my favourite egg mayonnaise sushi. I also took the shrimp sushi because it looked really tempting and delicious. My intuition was right as it was really tasted.

In the middle of the rolled fragrant rice, there’s fresh and juicy prawn in the middle. On the outer layer of the sushi, there’s tiny shredded pieces of unknown stuffs. I suspect that it could be the same ingredient used in the curry chicken rice bibimbab in Sushi Groove.

Carol had noodles with chicken chop and some greens. I don’t know how it tasted, but it ain’t looked appetizing to me.

Carol’s boy friend ordered I-don’t-know-what but it looked colourful.

We shared a plate of salmon sashimi and guo za. The salmon slices were thick, freshed and absolutely delicious after dipping it slightly with the wasabi and soy sauce. The guo za weren’t impressive if you asked me. There were no sliced ginger and vinegar to go along with it. Maybe they did give vinegar, but it probably tasted like soy sauce and I couldn’t differentiate it. The skin was a little too thick to my liking and the fillings weren’t juicy / tasted dry. It was nicely pan fried though.

It won’t be a complete and fulfilling sushi session if there’s no unagi. For that, I ordered their unagi set. For RM25+, I got myself a lot of unagis which made me really happy and grinned from ear to ear. There’s nine pieces of them, nine! Nine!

Unlike most Japanese restaurant, their unagis weren’t as sweet as others, in fact, I tasted a little saltiness in it. Saltiness would go well with white rice compared to sweetness and Sunshi Zanmai’s unagi just hit the right spot.

I wanted to order another set but I would feel bad because Carol would be footing the bill. Too bad I couldn’t do macro and this was the best I could do with my lens. Just look at the white succulent meat coated with thick sweet sauce. Heavenly!

The bill came to RM100+, if I remember correctly. Cheap, but the problem is whether I am willing to drive to Mid Valley after enduring the traffic jam and trouble of finding a parking space. The trouble of switching LRT and KTM stations isn’t very appealing either. I would really love to go back there, but the trouble is how to get there with ease and in peace.