Harada: Lunch

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I have made no secret of my partiality towards Harada. It is truly the best Japanese omasake experience I have had to date, and well-compensated for the loss of the Mino omasake, which had been a family favourite for years: I reviewed it shortly after the inception of this blog in 2015, and again in 2018.

This time, I went to Harada for a casual lunch - the short but sweet lunch menu consists entirely of different kinds of ramen, with one small dish option, being gyoza. The dinner at Harada might be fancy af, the lunch is well within the cheap eats territory.

Gyoza, $6
 The well-coloured bottom shows that the gyoza is pan-fried. It is on the soft side, very flavourful and juicy. The rich porky goodness makes it a perfectly respectable dumpling.

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen
The majority of the small ramen menu consist of chicken-broth ramen, and this is the only exception. The tonkotsu ramen (being pork bone broth) is very rich and silky in texture. It comes with a generous serving of pork. The egg at Harada is slightly more cooked than the very soft soy eggs from other ramen joints. The best addition to the ramens which is not found elsewhere is micro-greens: a delicately generous bunch of mini-sprouts cut through the saltiness and grease to provide a herby, grassy respite.

Salt Koji Ramen
The salt koji ramen is a combination of chicken and seafood broth. You can certainly taste the seefood - it is ever so slightly fishy, but not in a bad way: in a "you chose to have seafood, here's seafood" kind of way. The chicken breast is beautifully poached so that the fibres are not stringy  at all; and I was surprised and delighted by the clams at the bottom of the bowl. This just goes to show the authenticity and honesty with which chef Harada approaches his cooking: real ingredients, real skills.

Oh - all the ramen are at an affordable and well-worth-it $16 each.

Score: 4 / 5 
Cost: $20pp
Address: 18a Wentworth Street, Glebe, NSW
Website:  https://www.harada.net.au/

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