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277 Carlisle Street, Balaclava, 9525 8886
My score: 3.5/5
Some people shudder when there’s talk about tofu. ‘It’s a shivery, bland excuse for food!’they propound. (Imagine how much worse the trembling and denouncing would be if the stuff wasn’t called ‘tofu’ but was instead known by the less percussive but more descriptive ‘pressed curdled soy bean mash’?) Happily for fans of (and, indeed, future converts to) animal-free protein, there are places that do interesting things with tofu, among them En Izakaya, a casual Japanese eating house in the bagel belt.
There are four tofu dishes worth noting and in an effort to keep the non-vegetarians reading I’ll mention the beef one first. Luscious slivers of wagyu blade are grilled, then layered over wasabi-spiked silken tofu. The tofu (the shivery sort) is cold, the beef is hot and the dish in its entirety is a textural treat of great subtlety. A sculptural vegetarian dish sees deep-fried momen tofu (that is, tofu pressed in cotton) slathered with thick miso sauce. The tofu cubes are interspersed with succulent fried eggplant wedges. It’s my must-order dish here. Tofu dish number three is a ‘spring roll’ of tofu, ricotta and olive that demonstrates east-west nimbleness in a curious but tasty nibble. The final dish in this mini tofu showcase isn’t actually tofu. It’s a salad made with okara, the pulp that’s left over when mashed soy beans are strained to create soy milk. If tofu-phobes want any more ammunition, okara is used for animal feed, kitty litter and in the production of soy wool. Here, the mild, silky mash is tumbled with carrot, sesame seeds and miso mayonnaise to create a gently winning salad.
There’s plenty of soy-bean-free love too. The tuna sashimi with soy and wasabi dressing is simple and perfect. I love the whiting daubed with salted plum paste, then wrapped in shiso leaf and tempura fried. A stacked prawn and eggplant dish is enlivened with the double-citrus whammy of lemon and yuzu. The drinks list is a wieldy document with a decent range of beer, sake and food-friendly wine. Desserts are missable.
En is run by a Japanese-Australian team; the food is authentic when it’s trying to be and fun when it’s not. Sometimes it feels like there’s a disconnect between kitchen and floor though: food can take too long to land. Luckily En is an enjoyable place to hang around, slug Sapporo and celebrate the soy bean – or, in fact, anything.
Click here to visit their website.
First published in The Age, November 14, 2010
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