Kadoya

Kadoya is one of my old favourites, I started going here when I was studying nursing in 2008 and have been going here ever since. Its just a casual wall in the hole spot that I enjoy, great service, quick food, cute location and the menu keeps expanding in weird and wonderful ways.

Finding Elizabeth Street arcade was one of the great mysteries of my life back when I was studying university. I rarely ever went into the city being a southside girl, and I once happened upon this narrow alleyway, where there was an arcade of purikura and claw machines, numerous Japanese restaurants, a Korean restaurant, heaps of fashion shops for Asian only sizes and much much more. When I first went down there, I was randomly exploring the city just as things were shutting down for the evening and I vowed to go back during daylight hours.

ONE DAY, ONE DAY

 Only problem was, with my terrible sense of direction, I didn't find it again for almost another year. I couldn't figure out where I had gone and whenever I spoke to any of my friends about it, the vagueness of the surrounding shops meant that they had no idea what I was talking about. It was my Room of Requirement, I stumbled upon it by accident one day and I vowed I would memorise its location the next time I found it.  

Never gonna forget it ever again

So what are the random things I know about how to get here? Its up the street at the intersection where Borders used to be and where Dymocks still is. It's near Pancake Manor. Its beside Himawari and right across from Madtongsan II. If that still doesn't make sense, keep going down Elizabeth Street until you see the porn shop, when you see it, you're right next to Elizabeth Street Arcade. If you start seeing Korean grocery stores, Madtongsan III and the comic book store, you've gone too far.

The menu keeps changing, they offer specials as well but they always have solid curry, bento boxes, ramen and some different donburis.

Entrees and different rice bowls aka donburi

Wonderful curry

All the bento!

Their ramen

For some bizarre reason, he ordered grape Fanta. It tastes like grape juice, sort of fizzy and utterly disgusting. It's not artificially grape flavoured, it somehow tastes like authentic grape juice and that's just bad.

My Boyfriend ordered the karaage donburi with rice which is really odd cause its much more like a oyakodon. It actually used to be called that on one of the older menus. Its a combination of egg and chicken on top of rice, it is horrifically called the parent and child combo cause eggs and chicken y'know. He found the sauce to be slightly bitter and the rice to be soggy, however I noted that the sauce just had a huge amount of caramelised onion throughout the dish.

I stuck to my old faithful karaage salad don, I've been ordering this so many times it just rattles off the tongue when I order. Its a large bowl of soft medium grain rice, super crunchy chicken karaage, spinach and curly lettuce leaves, Japanese pickles and Japanese kewpie mayo slathered everywhere. Ir's just a wonderful combination at a cheap price. I can't describe the wonderful flavours that party in your mouth when hot fried chicken, Kewpie mayo, a wonderfully sour lime green pickle and slightly squishy sushi rice are encapsulated in one bite. Pure heaven.

I also picked croquettes as a side, they came already covered in tonkatsu sauce although I squeezed a little more out along with some more kewpie mayo from their self serve station. They're served mouth burning hot straight from the deep fryer, they contain a soft potato mash and that's about it. Deliciously plain though.

Kadoya
Atmosphere: 6, small hole in the wall eatery with uncomfortable chairs and not much decoration. The perfect quick eating place!
Service: 7, quick and cheerful, they always look happy to be there and always ensure they recheck your order.
Food: 7, my old faithful for Japanese food, even after all these years, you still rate highly under my eyes.