Kura, Haymarket

Isn't it funny how for x number of years you can walk past a noodle shop without ever seeing it enter your field of vision. When you do finally notice, you stare at the menu, you peer inside curiously, you make plans to eat there, and finally you head for a table, you have a great meal, and you wonder how you could've ever been so blind.



Kura is my case in point. It's located on one of the busiest intersections of Chinatown: opposite Market City, on the way to George Street, across the road from the Dom Nang Asian grocer, right next to the crazy Blue Star hairdressing salon, and I never noticed it until earlier this year.

Sure I'd somewhat noticed the Asian students eating with faces almost pressed against the glass, but it never occured to me to pay closer attention to what they were eating. They weren't from the House of Guangzhou next door (which I still haven't visited). This was a cosy Japanese noodle bar. And I mean cosy.



Seating fourteen people at a stretch, Kura is endearingly reminiscent of the claustrophobic functionalism that is the Japanese way of life. A melodic chorus of welcoming Irrashaimases brings a smile to the face as you desperately inhale to suck your stomach in, clumsily manouevring yourself into an impossibly squashed table setting.

One benchtop lines the crazily narrow kitchen, another faces a wall adorned with a giant pair of silver fish cut-outs. The two tiny tables are prime seating here, although it's a little unnerving having passersby stare at you and your meal from the other side of the glass (guilty as charged).

A wisp of a waitress suddenly appears with laminated menus as she merrily rattles off the contents of today's ever-changing lunchset. All the menu options come with handy pictures, although the range of choice is dangerous for the indecisive diner.

All up I've eaten here four times now and only just posting now. I have been a lazy foodblogger.


Miso soup and green tea


Today's Lunch Set $8.50
Pork with seaweed and pickled ginger on rice;
udon noodles with seaweed;
and miso soup.


Udon noodle soup with seaweed


Another Day's Lunch Set $8.50
Chicken cutlet on udon noodle soup;
vegetable tempura on rice with pickled ginger and seaweed;
and miso soup.

I've eaten Today's Lunch Set twice now. The chicken cutlet day was definitely the winner, a thick juicy fillet of chicken crumbed and fried, atop a mass of slippery udon noodles in soup.

The pork was also tasty, soft and ribboned with just enough fat for flavour. Whichever dish is featured for the day, the generous portion of noodles and rice should be enough to satiate even the keenest carboholic at lunchtime.


Combination sashimi set $9.80
Tuna, kingfish and salmon sashimi;
salad; miso and rice

Sashimi was a little disappointing. Whether it was just my luck to get the scraggly end bits of fish, the salmon slices were almost torn in two although the kingfish was pleasingly tasty.


Combination sushi set $9.80
7 pieces of sushi (salmon, tuna, kingfish, squid, prawn,
octopus and unagi eel) with 6 cucumber hosomaki rolls
and served with miso.
See also picture at the start of this post

The combination sushi, on the other hand, is always visually spectacular. A colourful spectrum of seafood is showcased on ivory beds of rice. Six guards of hosomaki keep a watchful eye as a mound of gari and wasabi invite mischief in the corner. Yep, this is food porn baby. Let's get it on...


Prawn, octopus and unagi eel nigiri


Tamago nigiri


Kura Japanese Dining & Take Away
Shop 3, 76 Ultimo Road, Haymarket, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9212 5661

Open Mon - Sat 11am-10.30pm,
Sun 11am-9.30pm

They also have another outlet a few streets away
Kura III (not sure what happened to the second one)
Shop 1, 6 Dixon Street, Haymarket, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9268 0016