kintaro @ young st., neutral bay

This particular night, we'd had our heart set on going to Ryo's Noodles in North Sydney but after missing a turn and driving  too far forward, we found ourselves in Neutral Bay. There's actually quite a lot of restaurants in Neutral Bay and I guess one of the reasons why we don't go as often as we could is because it's so far away. Well chance had it that we were in the area and took our pick of restaurants to try - being that we were after Japanese noodles, it only made sense that we picked Kintaro Restaurant: a Japanese restaurant serving up home-style Japanese food.

Sometimes I think I should go to restaurants carrying a notepad and pen to write down the name of dishes. This dish had a much fancier name than I'm going to give it - I'm calling it the Baked Eggplant with Miso. Being as it's baked, the skin of the eggplant is way too tough to eat (I tried) but the inside is gloriously soft and melty and very delicious.

Seafood Hotpot which is a decent serving for 2 people. For a cold night, it was great to get some warm soup inside us.

Sukiyaki Don. They actually had Sukiyaki on the menu but given we wanted to try the seafood hotpot also, the Sukiyaki Don was the perfect item to order; this way we got to try both.

There's an extensive menu on offer here; much more so than you would get at an average Japanese restaurant. I find most of the newer Japanese restaurants simply serve up the typical Sashimi, Sushi, Udon, Teriyaki Chicken... definitely not the case here. You'll find some more foreign names popping up across the menu - that's how I came about to order the Baked Eggplant and really, it was a most pleasant surprise.

If you're planning to come here, there's ample parking on the side streets nearby but suggest you make a booking. The restaurant filled up soon after we stepped in. Oh - and it's very toasty inside the restaurant; making it perfect for a cold winter's night!