J Café / Sushi Burger
I used to work in the city, but after changing jobs last year, I’m stuck in St Kilda. The pocket of St Kilda where I work is not pretty. For one, there’s elephant sized dog poo everywhere, and there’s also the occasional person squatting in the gutter and taking a piss (yes that really happened, it was DURING THE DAY for goodness sake, and she was female. Super classy.). To make things even worse, the food options are severely limited. Argh! It really makes me pine for the city!
When I worked in the city, one place I used to visit at lunch time was Sushi Burger. Depending on your opinion, J Café/ Sushi Burger is either a bit of frivolous awesomeness, or a food abomination. Alastair and I fall into the first camp!
So what’s a sushi burger? It’s basically a sushi type filling sandwiched between two “buns” of sushi rice and wrapped in seaweed. Awesomeness or abomination? You decide!
On our last visit there, Alastair had a special sushi burger box ($17.50). There is a choice of meal and a choice of sushi burger. He chose the ebi for his meal (deep fried prawns) and for the sushi burger he had the spicy raw salmon.
The deep fried prawns were covered in panko and deep fried. He also received salad, rather a lot of mayo, mashed potato and a slice of orange. He offered to give me a prawn, but I declined even though they looked REALLY good! That’s love, I tell you.
I had a special noodle and sushi burger set ($17.50). For my noodles, I choose the buta soboro ramen – noodles in a soy based soup and topped with seasoned ground pork. I also had the spicy raw salmon sushi burger.
The sushi burgers were great – the “burger” filling were cubes of raw salmon seasoned with a small amount of chilli along with a bit of lettuce. It’s always a bit hard to bite through the seaweed that’s wrapped around the rice though.
My ramen noodles weren’t bad, but I found the pork topping too sweet. It really distracted me from the dish and it would’ve been better to be more savoury. Possibly too much mirin? It really was sweet – it was so strange.
I also ordered a green tea smoothie. It was a bit expensive at $5.80. I saw them make it, and it was basically just a thin milkshake with a couple of spoons of green tea powder.
No visit to Sushi Burger is complete without eating a daifuku ($3/$3.50) – they make them on the premises and they’re rather good. The green tea and cream ones are particularly fab, though on this occasion we had a plain red bean one. I actually asked for black sesame, but it was lost in translation. Never mind – I love mochi, no matter what the filling!
I like Sushi Burger – it’s a bit silly, relatively inexpensive, and aside from my too sweet ramen, the food tastes good. Go for the sushi burgers, the daifuku, but not a green tea smoothie!
(Note: if you eat in there is a minimum charge of $12 per person.)
For more posts, see these blogs:
J Café / Sushi Burger
167 Exhibition Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: 03 9650 9877
Web: sushiburger.com.au
[googleMap name=”J Cafe / Sushi Burger” width=”600″ height=”300″ directions_to=”false”]167 Exhibition Street, Melbourne[/googleMap]
penny aka jeroxie
September 16, 2010 @ 10:42 pm
South Melbourne is quite a miserable space for food too…
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:08 pm
At least you have the market! Wanna swap?
Hannah
September 16, 2010 @ 10:51 pm
1. My brother’s old place was one street over from a Sushi Burger, and I STILL didn’t make it there. TRAVESTY! Can we make this our pre-Costco fuel? 😀
2. I read your first paragraph as “elephant shaped dog poo” and I thought “holy bucket, St Kilda’s got some talented canines!”
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:08 pm
When you come to visit, you better bring your eating pants! The eating list just keeps growing 😀
mademoiselle délicieuse
September 16, 2010 @ 10:54 pm
I loved Sushi Burger when I was last in Melbourne! I’ve since recommended it to other people as well =p
And St Kilda, well… I wandered through on a weekday around 9-10am and saw a girl off her face. She kept dropping one shoe out of her hands and had to keep bending down to pick it up. She was wearing a rather short skirt (even though it was July and freezing!) and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Some cops picked her up a little later. Ahhh, St Kilda!
(PS. Thanks for the link!)
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:09 pm
Haha, yes that sounds like the St Kilda I know!
Celeste @ Berrytravels
September 16, 2010 @ 11:12 pm
I really like Sushi Burger, but I personally think the prices are too high for what it is, esp for the sushi burgers themselves!
The black sesame milkshake is nice too , and their hamburg curry is yummmm! I really like the place. But my wallet disagrees. Haha.
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:12 pm
Haha, yes I do know what you mean about the prices being high for what they are. It is a bit more expensive than other cheapy Japanese places – but they don’t have sushi burgers! 😀
Conor @ HoldtheBeef
September 17, 2010 @ 1:48 am
You are awesome. I remember reading about this place a while ago but then forgot all about it, and now after reading this I have put it on The List for January. I want it to be January right now.
I’m also feeling like I missed out the few times I’ve been to St Kilda. I didn’t see any poo or weeing.
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:12 pm
Oh Conor, you definitely missed out if you didn’t see any poo or wees in St Kilda. Maybe next time you visit, you’ll be able to tick that off the list. 😉
Allan
September 17, 2010 @ 11:40 pm
ah mochi, i should go try them.
Have you tried the ones in japan / taiwan? they are awesome!!!
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:15 pm
I haven’t been to Taiwan, but when we were in Japan last year I ate SO MUCH MOCHI. So delicious!
Iron Chef Shellie
September 18, 2010 @ 8:17 pm
GROSS – re the woman having a pee in the gutter
AWESOME – love the idea of a sushi burger! mmmm daifuku
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:17 pm
Sushi burgers are awesome 😀 You can even get one with a meat pattie inside!
Tammy
September 19, 2010 @ 3:26 am
Have never had a sushi burger but am certain, I would enjoy it. About where you work – ewww. Your vivid descriptions definitely took us there.
Agnes
September 19, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
Haha, sorry to pass on the mental images of where I work! 🙂
Ourfoodtales
September 25, 2010 @ 9:02 am
thanks for the link!
ooo I must try that deep fried prawn!
amy
May 23, 2011 @ 9:47 pm
Wish I can have one RIGHT NOW!!
cheers for the link!