Izakaya Jiro

This place is in Glenferrie and it is about a ten minute walk from Swinburne main campus. I have heard many good things about them so I wanted try them for a healthy meat free lunch. It was really warm day so a light lunch was also warranted.

Izakaya Jiro had been mentioned a few times in The Age Good Food Guide.

Here the place was clean and had that cute Japanese décor. It is renowned for their skewers but since it was lunchtime there were none. Rather there were the bento boxes which I love. I get to try everything all at the one price.

The service was very attentive but the female manager although friendly did not smile one bit. But she did offer me free tea which was a bonus. And this was the good Japanese green tea which is supposed to be cleansing. Nowadays no other Japanese place offers this: you usually would need to pay.

The bento was sufficient for $15.80 This was a vegetarian bento and I loved their organic tofu which was silky and fresh. I also loved the sweet sauce that went with it. It went well with my rice.

The vegetarian sushi tasted like it was mass produced. The rice was the wrong one and it was a little bit dry. But the tempura was great though. Not too oily. If you didn't eat it whilst it was hot then it would get soggy. Unlike what one reviewer mentioned on Zomato, the tempura was not bland at all.

I also loved the homemade miso soup with the big piece of seaweed. That was nice.

The pumpkin parcel was also lovely and so was the seaweed.

Rating: 15/20- would come again. And it would be good if they had some sort of foodie/dinner events for everyone to try Japan's regional delicacies.

What would be nice is that they have a proper tip jar not just a plate. I thought that a customer had left behind her change when I saw the change on the plate at the cashier.