Harajaku Gyoza

Harajaku Gyoza, Fortitude Valley

Welcome readers-san!

I'm cutting my own queue here. I have a few more posts before this but thought I should blog about Harajaku Gyoza when it is still 'hot', maybe?

Simco and myself visited this place on Monday at about 6 pm. Well, luckily we were 5 minutes early! No need to wait in the queue, yay!

Harajaku Gyoza is about dumplings and beer. They serve the gyoza (grilled or poached) izakaya-style with side dishes, beer, wine and sake. From Wikipedia, izakaya is a compound word consisting of 'i' = to stay and 'sakaya' = sake shop. Does that mean it is more like a bar then? 

Anyway, Simco ordered a sake. A Japanese waitress came to our corner with a big bottle of sake. Then, she started shouting SAKE! SAKE! SAKE! SAKE! SAKE!            Well, the rest of the workers helped her along ... Oh my! I certainly didn't want the attention of other people looking at our corner. I was giggling away while Simco was trying to keep his cool. :D I haven't tried sake before and I can definitely taste hint of rice wine. 

Sake

We ordered three different types of gyoza (5pcs @ $8):

Poached Chicken Gyoza

Grilled Duck Gyoza

Grilled Pork Gyoza

Grilled is probably better than poached. And you can see here that it can be quite oily with the grilled gyoza. Yes, they were cooked to near perfection, with a crispy base and juicy top. But, the fillings were just all right, nothing fancy ... with hints of spring onions and cabbage (maybe?). 

Btw, they recommend to mix 2 parts of soy sauce, 1 part rice vinegar and chili oil for the dipping sauce. 

We ordered a side dish:

Adegashi Tofu - $7

I do like the tofu and the sweetness of the broth! But, two pieces for the price of $7, I think it's pretty pricey!


Dessert:

Apple Gyoza with vanilla ice cream -$9

We were still pretty hungry after that and we ordered the dessert. It was a good choice. The gyoza was fried until crispy, with the fillings of cinnamon-y, soft, sweet apple. Pretty good!

Well, this place is new but can it retain its customers in the future? I am not sure. It's a good place for some Japanese beers and dumplings BUT those won't make my tummy full. And it's expensive for my budget too ...  

So, I've included my recipe for dumplings below!

I actually made this dumplings months ago so I can't really remember the exact amount of ingredients I added. For this batch, I used pork mince, chopped carrots, dried mushrooms (that have been soaked and diced) and spring onions. Basically, you can add any additional vegetables (cabbage or chives) to your main meat (pork, beef or chicken). 

For flavouring, I added sesame oil, oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper. 

I used the dumpling pastry. It's probably similar to the gyoza pastry. 

Take about 2 tbsp of your mix to the centre of the dumpling pastry.

Fold it into half. You can seal it using water.

Start from one end of the dumpling and try to fold/pleat it close together. Continue until you reach the other end of the dumpling. It takes practice and patience. :) 

I freezed most of the dumplings and I'll usually steam or boil them when I have sudden cravings for dumplings. This is definitely a cheaper alternative.