Before I visited Japan last year I was never a big fan of tuna, preferring salmon instead. And then I tried otoro, the incredibly fatty belly of tuna and I was hooked! Word on the street (ie the wonderful world of Instagram) brought me to Toriciya, a tiny Japanese restaurant in Cammeray known for their yakitori but also said to have the glorious otoro.

The O-toro Sushi and Sashimi ($13 each) is amazing and melt in the mouth rich. It’s buttery, fatty and pretty damn awesome that a piece of fish can taste this good! It’s exxy but once you’ve tried it you will have dreams about it. We ordered 2 more rounds because hey, life’s too short for regrets 😛


The Charcoal grilled extra large clam ($12/2 pieces) is freaking massive! I was worried the clam would be chewy but it is beautifully tender.


The Kingfish and jalapeno carpaccio ($18) sets our tastebuds alight, the yuzu soy dressing has the perfect sweet/salty balance for the delicate slices of kingfish and the zing from the jalapeno has us fighting over the last piece.


We rub our hands with glee when the plate of Tasmanian Long Spine Sea Urchin ($28) arrives. Some of the pieces of sea urchin are a little smooshy in appearance but still fresh and tasty nonetheless. Grab a sheet of dried seaweed, add a piece of sea urchin and a dab of wasabi, roll the whole shebang up and BOOM! FLAVOUR EXPLOSION! Sea urchin is a bit of an acquired taste, it’s super briny and can be weirdly creamy at first so if it’s your first time trying it there’s also sea urchin sushi ($8/piece).


The Grilled Armorhead Head ($10) might be a little confronting in presentation especially with that eye staring right at you but dig around the bones and you’ll be rewarded with flesh that’s fatty and smokey and oh so tasty.


Our last dish is the Homemade Crab Cream Croquettes ($15/2 pieces), the mashed potato innards are fluffy but they are extremely filling and we may have had to admit defeat barely halfway through because I knew dessert was a must!


I absolutely love anything Genmaicha- green tea combined with roasted brown rice and the Roasted Green Tea Ice Cream ($4) just has this depth in flavour that lingers on the palate and has you reaching for more! It’s slightly nutty, sweet with a teensy edge of bitterness.


The food and service at Toriciya was seriously amazing, the restaurant is quite small so make sure you have a booking because we saw quite a few people being turned away. Public transport in the area is a bit meh but there’s heaps of street parking and they’ve also opened a sister restaurant En Toriciya in Crows Nest which I’m keen to visit!

Toriciya
18 Cammeray Road,
Cammeray
NSW

Trading Hours:
Tue – Sun: 6pm – 10pm

EDIT: CLOSED

Ever since I went to the famed Boiling Crab in LA I’ve wished there were more crab boil joints in Sydney. I love House of Crabs but I was super excited to hear about O Crab opening in Chatswood and dragged the boy and bonus addition of Baz (HEY BAZ!) for lunch on their opening day.


But first some complimentary house made bread with a houmous and olive oil dip.


The O Crab Seafood Chowder (Lunch special $10), arrives piping hot with a jumble of mussels, prawns and cubes of salmon lurking in the depths. The broth is rich, creamy and just perfect for this cold snap Sydney has been experiencing recently. We tear off chunks of the crusty bread bowl to dip into the broth, fighting over the remnants and wish that it was a never ending bowl.


I’m always keen for Buffalo Chicken Wings ($10) and while the meat was tasty enough they were a tad dry and I was sad that they weren’t covered in the usual sticky buffalo sauce or that there wasn’t ranch or blue cheese sauce to dunk into.


And then a bucket of cutlery and bibs are placed on our table and we smile knowing that soon it will be HAMMER TIME!


It’s all about the crabs! So pick your crab of choice- Blue Swimmer ($25/crab), Snow Crab ($25/cluster) or Mud Crab (Market price, atm it’s $95/crab) and then pick your sauce of either Ultimate Original Old Bay, Garlic Butter, Justin’s Special Chilli or you can have it Steamed Natural which comes with ponzu dip. The crabs come out in plastic bags and you can dump the contents onto the butchers paper lined tables but we chose to keep them enclosed so we didn’t lose any of the precious sauce.


The kitchen sent us out a complimentary bag of Snow Crab in Justin’s Special Chilli Sauce, we’re not sure if it’s because we’re their first customers on opening day or if it was a mistake but woohoo free crab! Our hearts sing with happiness when we tear open the bag and thwacked at the legs with our hammers before extricating the sweet sweet flesh. The chilli sauce isn’t off the scale burning but just the right amount to set your lips a-tingle. And that crab meat! It’s just so beautiful, so perfect and fresh!


I was super happy that the Blue Swimmer Crab in Justin’s Special Chilli Sauce was pretty fleshy as blue swimmers can usually be a pain to eat but these guys were awesome and made working for your food that much more rewarding.


The Snow Crab in Garlic Butter is fan fricken tastic, as is anything in garlic butter really and we couldn’t help but dunk everything in sight into the rich garlic butter. This was insanely tasty and it is just so satisfying seeing if you can manage to get the flesh from an entire crab leg all in one juicy piece!


We also had Prawns in Old Bay (500g/$30) and as much as I liked the tangy sauce, the prawns didn’t quite stack up as well against the beautiful fresh crabs.


Oh and we also ordered a side of Shoestring Fries ($7) and even though they look more like normal fries we’re happy that they’re golden and crunchy and perfect for swiping at the garlic butter sauce.


O Crab has a pretty tasty looking list of cocktails on the menu and one side of the restaurant looks set up as the perfect location for after work drinks. I will definitely be back because I want to try the rest of their menu which runs from burgers to ribs and mussels and crab rolls!


There’s not much signage to the restaurant but basically if you’re coming from Chatswood station, turn left and left again at The Steam Engine coffee joint, make your way past the queues at Tim Ho Wan, down Railway Street past ‘Eat Street’ where Mamak is, cross the lights and look for a brown horse on the right. O Crab is located in the building and up the stairs to the left of the horse!

O Crab
Suite 2/9 Railway St
Chatswood
NSW

Trading Hours:
Mon: Closed
Tues – Thurs: 11am – 3pm, 6pm – late
Fri – Sun: 11am – late

EDIT: CLOSED

With all the burger joints popping up you would think I’d be sick of burgers by now but nay. I love a good burger! So when Dr Faustus (380 Cleveland St, Surry Hills) opened just a short walk away from work I knew I had to check them out. The Dr Faustus burger ($15) has a ridiculously juicy patty made of chuck and brisket, secret sauce, melty American cheese, pickles and housed in a fluffy milk bun. I wasn’t a fan of the sad bits of lettuce hiding on the bottom but this was easily extracted and discarded but I loved the super generous pile of golden fries and barely managed to make a dent in them.


The Our Way BLT ($14) is quite a sight, the triple decker sandwich is stacked high and skewered together with a pickle. The BLT isn’t quite what we were expecting though, the bacon isn’t in rasher form but minced instead with onion and foie gras “smear” and the overall taste and mouth-feel made me feel like I was kinda eating a super rich pork floss sandwich? My visit was about a month ago and I’ve seen other pics where you get a wedge of lettuce on the side but ours came with crispy fries which was good for us because we love our deep fried carbs.


I didn’t know what a Welsh Rarebit ($13) was and blindly ordered this without googling but basically it’s bread covered in sauce and cheese. The Dr Faustus version has a rich Guinness béchamel sauce, melty aged cheddar and Worcestershire sauce and I added an egg ($3) because hey, I love eggs. I got a tad angry when I was cutting into the bread and the paper beneath disintegrated and mixed with my food so in the end I just picked up a slice and munched away haha I’m all class.


The Taco Salad ($15) is presented in a tall hipster jar and Caitlin is instructed to shake it so all the ingredients mix and get coated with the chipotle dressing. Interactive lunch! The jar contained ground chicken, crisp romain lettuce leaves, olives, corn kernels, tomato, avocado and came with a cup of tortilla chips to scoop everything up. As much as I loved the presentation of the salad I reckon it would’ve been best if they’d also given us a plate so we could tip out the contents when we got to the bottom of the jar cos it was pretty impossible to get at the remnants.


We also scored a complimentary serve of Zucchini fritters ($9) that was a special of the week thanks to the benefits of following restaurants on Instagram woohoo! I’d had visions of a flat type of fritter but instead they were round and reminded me of falafels with a crunchy exterior and soft fluffy innards.


Dr Faustus has a whole range of Cereal Milk drinks ($9) from Nutri Grain to Milo and Coco Pops but because I have to watch how much dairy I ingest I opt instead for the Robert Allenby, an iced coffee with a citrus twist. On another visit I try the Arnold Palmer which has equal parts of house made iced tea and lemonade and is super refreshing.


How awesome is the fit out? The space used to be a pharmacy and the boys have kept the storage cabinets intact. They also get a supply of my fave donuts from Glazed so I forsee many a visit back!

Dr. Faustus
380 Cleveland St,
Surry Hills, NSW 2010

Trading Hours:
Mon – Sun: 9am – 3pm