Sushiki Pyrmont

Sydney is seeing a lot of fusion foods these days, but fusion is not new. In fact, fusion foods might go back much further than you think.

Japanese cuisine now owns tempura, that lightly floured ethereally battered and fried food. Yet the concept of battered fried food was originally western, brought to Japan by the seafaring Portugese as far back as five centuries ago. And the rest is history!

I only initially knew about Sushiki, a Japanese restaurant in Pyrmont, once I stumbled upon their Tiktok account while browsing. What immediately caught my eye when checking their menu out was that they had a Tempura Don ($20).

Feast your eyes on the assortment of Vegetables and the huge piece of Prawn that have been perfectly deep-fried in Sushiki‘s tempura batter. The various Tempura-based items sit on a base of white rice that has been seasoned with Tentsuyu, the traditional sweet soy-based tempura dipping sauce. The flavour of the sweet soy-based tempura sauce just compliments the Tempura items so well and at the same time, imparts flavour into the white rice so that each spoonful is always a delicious one.

In the Tempura Don here, there was lotus root, sweet potato, eggplant, zucchini, seaweed, and a huge piece of prawn so you have a lot of varying textures as you eat. Every Vegetable-based Tempura item was cooked to perfection and the Prawn Tempura remained crispy, sweet and juicy.

I love the broken tenkasu bits that fall on the rice resulting in a textural bite every time you have a spoonful of rice with the Tempura items. Overall, this was a well-made Tempura Don and one l would go back for.

On a side note, order the Gyozas at Sushiki Pyrmont as they come with the crispy-laced bottom made from a starch solution which was surprising to me when l had a plate of the Prawn Gyozas. Other Japanese fare on the menu includes assorted sushi as the restaurant name suggests, sashimi, don buri rice bowls with miso soup, katsu and teriyaki meals.