After my previous post on dinner at the high-end Japanese restaurant Shoya, many people recommended that I try their more affordable but equally delicious lunch menu. So, to take advantage of a quiet day at the office, I joined my friends J and A for the $28 Shoya lunch set.

You get a LOT of food for your money. Our long lunch began with a small dish of pickled vegetables and what I think was slices of eel. Then we dipped our spoons into a ceramic ramekin of the most sexy silken baked savoury egg custard I’ve ever had.

Next up was a cube of chilled bean curd bathed in a soy broth and piled with ginger and spring onions plus a precisely sliced set of sashimi resting on a frozen orange hemisphere (I noticed that the grain on the fish was exactly symmetrical and cut in such a way to reveal in pretty half-moon shapes).

For ‘mains’ we received a large plate of featherlight prawn and vegetable tempura; a small serving of grilled fish and a mini bowl of slithery udon floating with seaweed. Actually, I should clarify – in fact I ate three bowls of udon as J and A were full at this point. Never one to let good food go to waste and having been to the gym that morning, I went to work on the noodles while they watched in amazement and suggested I try competitive eating as an alternative career.

Finally for dessert, a generous scoop of refreshing green tea icecream presented in a pretty leaf-shaped dish.

Having now gone for lunch and barbecue dinner at Shoya, I would definitely recommend lunch as the more wallet-friendly yet still delicious option – plus with that amount of food you’re probably not going to need dinner that night, even if you haven’t eaten three bowls of udon.

Shoya Japanese Restaurant, 25 Market Ln, Melbourne +61 3 9650 0848‎

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