Maki Maki Japanese Cafe & Takeaway

I love Japanese food, it's one of my top most favourite cuisines in the whole wide world. :) And I'm very blessed to be born in Singapore where a favourite cuisine of Singaporeans is Japanese. So the supermarkets often stock sashimi, sushi and other Japanese food like unagi (eel) which is pretty affordable, although not as cheap as Japan.

Unfortunately, Japanese food in Adelaide is not so cheap and affordable as Singapore. So I do have major cravings now and then, and I'm quite glad that I've found this eatery tucked away in Gawler place. It is pretty secluded and I daresay I would not have known about this place, if not for a friend's recommendation. :) I remember the first time I tried to find this place, I got lost. -_- Even Google maps did not know where Parc Arcade was, can you believe it!? I can't. Haha. So yes, I walked for a good 10 minutes before I found this place. :( A pretty good tip to find this place is to walk in from North Terrace, and soon after you turn into Gawler Place, you will see Parc Arcade. :) Walk in and you will spy Maki Maki on the left.

I think one reason why this place remains relatively unknown is because it's situated in a place where not many people go to. Although it's pretty near to Rundle Mall but I don't go to Parc Arcade at all, and that's probably why the food prices here are cheaper than the other sushi places nearby. :) A bowl of udon costs roughly from $8 - $12, and that is relatively cheap compared to Maru near Flinders Medical Centre, where one bowl starts from $14.

Maki Maki is a nondescript place, it's not heavily furnished with Japanese decorations, it is simple and the colours of the walk-in eatery is mostly red and white. I've went twice so far, and only for their udon! I love their udon noodles. Chewy yet firm and very yummy to slurp it up. The soup comes steaming hot, so hot that if you are hungry, you have to be very careful not to burn your tongue! I did that once, and I was left with a scalding burnt tongue at the end of my meal. =.= It was definitely not pleasant but that goes to show how good their udon soup was - too good that I could not wait for the soup to cool down before chowing it down.

The first time I went, I had their Crispy Chicken Udon.

Crispy Chicken Udon

I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived because as you can see, it actually has spinach leaves inside. This is uncommonly seen in udon and it is, secretly, a gripe that I have with udon soup: too little vegetables. The only vegetables commonly seen in udon is usually kelp and seaweed and it is only 1-2 pieces. Haha. So the dietitan in me was pleased with this bowl of what seemed to have more vegetables than usual-udon noodles. :) The soup was delicious, love the noodles, spinach, seaweed and kelp inside. The chicken was actually quite tender too. But one thing I didn't like about this was that the chicken (deep-fried) was put into the soup. So the oil from the chicken actually seeped into the soup. -_- And I didn't like that oily taste from the soup, plus the chicken which was suppose to be crispy became soggy instead. :(

It would have been much better if the fried food was kept separate from the soup. So that it will really be Crispy Chicken (+) Udon. Haha. 

So with that in mind, I went back to Maki Maki for a 2nd trial, which was about a week later (yet another testament to how delicious the udon noodles are). This time, I decided to try a different variety of udon and so I ordered the infamous Tempura Udon. Now, for those who are fans of Japanese cuisine like me, you would know that there are 3 foods that a Japanese chef should not get wrong: sushi rice, tempura and udon. It is actually the mark of a Japanese chef to be able to cook all these 3 well enough as they are pretty simple yet very easy to get them wrong too. So if either of the 3 foods taste bad in any Japanese restaurant, well, I don't have much faith in trying out the other dishes then. :)

So I had high hopes for this dish, seeing that the udon met my standards. And I specially told the cashier that I would like my tempura separated from my udon soup, please (as I would really want to eat my udon soup as it is - free from any oily taste).

Tempura Udon 

And so it arrived. I was pretty happy with the presentation. Glistening udon soup with spinach leaves & two fried prawns (Note: This is not tempura) on the side. I was pretty puzzled by the round fried thing though, had no idea what it was. 

Thought it looked suspiciously like a prawn vada (a Indian fried dough snack with prawn shells) and tasted like one too. It was not too bad, really. So I happily ate it and I left the fried prawn for last and attacked my udon noodles first, being careful not to scald my tongue like last time. And I'm happy to say that the udon soup noodles tasted as good as the one I had last time. :)  

The big puzzle was, the "tempura" prawns that seemed more like fried ebi instead than tempura. And it didn't taste like tempura batter at all. Which was a big disappointment as it doesn't matter how fresh the prawns are, once the batter is off, it throws the whole balance of the dish. :(   

Summary

Not too happy with the tempura dish and most likely won't order the Tempura udon again. I would most probably give the Crispy Chicken Udon another go and order the Crispy Chicken separately from the Udon, because I really like the udon noodles, soup and the chicken, just not together. I've read from the other reviews that the bento sets are pretty decent too, especially the sashimi and unagi set. This place does hold potential with its decent food and affordable prices - but don't expect it to have the same food standards as Wasai or Sushi Train. 

Food: 3.5 / 5

Service: 4 / 5 (Friendly and helpful staff)

Value: 4 / 5

Ambience: 2.5 / 5

Maki Maki Japanese Cafe
Parc Arcade, Gawler Place, Rundle Mall, SA 5000
(08) 8231 9334