Suzuran

1025 Burke Rd

Camberwell

03 9882 2349

Located on a fairly quiet strip of Burke Rd, the store is inconspicuous yet is almost always flocking with people. It is a retail offshoot of parent importer / distributor company Japan Food Trading, offering largely made-in-Japan Japanese ingredients ? quality soy sauce, sushi making material, green tea powder (to make your own green tea ice cream cake), kilogram bags of ginger (*ahem, so we eat a lot of ginger?) and a large range of snacks, drinks and frozen goods.

Their biggest drawcard however is in the other half of the store ? the takeaway sushi bar where they make their own sushi with the freshest local sashimi.

I personally think they have strange opening hours closing around 6pm most days, which would practically be the busiest time of day. No doubt as a consequence of this, the queue in the preceding 1 hour before closure becomes increasingly long as punters try to get hold of dinner. So note to all readers: PRE-ORDER your sushi over the phone!

Unagi Maki – Covered in a light but sweet glaze of soy sauce, the soft creamy texture of the grilled unagi is extremely lick-a-licious. The ratio of rice-to-filling is good. I like the attention to details, unlike most places the cucumber is finely sliced giving a subtler crunch so as to not overshadow the subtleties of the unagi. Albeit, there is the haphazard sprinkle of roe to add a tinsy-bit of sea-rawness.

Deluxe Inari and California ? The fresh, supple slices of sea-fresh salmon sitting alongside the subtle aromas of egg are a perfect marriage with the creaminess of Japanese mayonnaise, avocado and crab. These guys have seriously upped the ante for ‘take-away’ California rolls. The inari is a little less impressive for me ? somewhat ‘blah’. Pockets of juicy inari filled with rice, lots of mayonnaise and selection of prawn, high mountain ferns and roe.

Black sesame and red bean mochi – every bite is full of the toasted aromas of black sesame crunch, and subtle sweetness of red bean filling. Sorry, forgot to take a photo.

Rating: quite easily Yummy+1. Very fresh, value for money and definitely worth the long queues ? the perfect lazy dinner / lunch. I was completely stuffed after 2 boxes of sushi ? clearly it is quite hard to not be greedy.

Anyways, final reminder: please pre-order!

You may also like: Kenzan at GPO, Koko, Al’s cooking: Green tea ice cream cake, DonToo.