Monday, 11/2/2008. SRM and I had lunch at Kome. I ordered the large teriyaki chicken bento (AU$8.90).

SRM ordered the combination bento – with your rice, salad and miso soup, you can choose any two out of teriyaki chicken/katsu chicken/karaage chicken/teriyaki fish (the last time I had this it cost AU$9.90. Not sure if the price has gone up since then). He chose teriyaki fish and chicken katsu.

You get a huge amount of chicken in a large serve!

I think I’ll have to try this combo of teriyaki fish and chicken katsu sometime! Two kinds of batter, two kinds of *white* meat – yum – though I reckon the katsu might have a little too much BBQ sauce on it, and the fish too little teriyaki sauce!

Tuesday, 12/02/2008. Chad and I gave Tastings Coffee House (108 Rokeby Road, Subiaco) a try for the first time. We’ve walked past many a time on our way to the post office, or to Perth Noodle Wok, or on a number of lunch time shopping excursions. We were terribly tempted by the hot food on offer – hot chips that looked golden and fresh and absolutely beautiful, homemade pizza loaded with toppings, a selection of pies and quiches, a bain marie tray full of homemade fried rice… but we decided to be good and have rolls made up instead. Chad chose a sunflower seed brown bread roll with chicken, avocado, cheese and salad.

I had a white roll with chicken, salad and sundried tomatoes. I can’t remember how much the rolls cost, but together with drinks (flavoured mineral water for Chad, juice for me) it came to around AU$12.50 each. They were very generous with the sandwich fillings, and it was nice to have someone else make a sandwich for us – I think we’re a little over that aspect of MYO. Let’s face it, I’m totally lazy and would rather pay a buck or two extra and have someone make me a delicious generously-filled sandwich than make it myself! Chad is totally in love with the sunflower seed bread and has since returned for another chicken, avocado, cheese and salad sunflower seed brown roll.

Wednesday, 13/02/2008. The whole time I’ve worked in Subiaco since March last year I’ve been aware of Edo Japanese BBQ Restaurant (320 Barker Road – off Rokeby Road) but have never tried it. I think it was our increasing boredom with all our usual haunts that finally motivated us to give Edo a go. This was my teriyaki chicken donburi (AU$5.90). The chunks of chicken were quite succulent, but there were a few negative points about the meal – 1) there were a few bits of chewy gristle which should’ve been trimmed from the chicken during preparation, 2) the chicken skin was more white than brown like the rest of the chicken – it had an unappetising puffy pale appearance and hadn’t really absorbed the sauce, which suggested it hadn’t been marinated for very long, if at all, 3) the sauce was surprisingly bland (probably the worst of the negative points) and 4) I’m not sure if the cabbage was supposed to be pickled or just steamed plain – either way it didn’t have much flavour, which was really disappointing as I usually really enjoy eating cabbage dishes. A cheap lunch, but not as tasty as I’d hoped. For cheap takeaway teriyaki chicken in Subiaco, I think Nippon Fare is a better choice.

Thursday, 14/02/2008. Good old Toraya Sushi (Shop 8 Subiaco Square, 29 Station Street), my favourite place to dine in for Japanese lunch on a work day. I had my current favourite combo of sushi and salad with a large icy cold glass of 100% orange juice.

I decided for a change to have the teriyaki chicken sushi (AU$4.00) with avocado instead of cucumber. It was really tasty, each slice the perfect size for popping whole into my mouth, with an excellent chicken to rice ratio. I think I still prefer cucumber though. :)

As you can see, I am completely addicted to this cooked tuna salad (AU$6.00). There’s nothing really special about the salad itself – it’s just lettuce, tomato, capsicum and cucumber. But the tuna has been blended with finely chopped onion and a touch of mayo, and is really delicious (of course, if you’re not a tuna fan, I don’t expect you’d like it). What’s lovely about the tuna is that it tastes predominantly of tuna. It’s tuna enhanced with the flavours of onion and mayo, rather than tuna that tastes mostly of those additional flavours. And the soy/sesame oil and garlic dressing goes really well with the tuna – though it can get a little salty at the end when all I have left is the final blob of tuna sitting in a pool of dressing. :)

Friday, 15/02/2008. I had lunch at Toraya Sushi again the very next day – with my younger sister Juji. We both had karaage donburi (AU$9.00).

Juji chose to have her karaage donburi topped with regular mayonaise.

I had my karaage donburi topped with chilli mayonaise – of course! We both proclaimed our fried chicken, rice and mayo lunches – “delicious!”