Radelaide, where the trains are taxis

Adelaide is not all churches and German sausages and dodgy water, hooray! It is also amazing cheeses and meats and fruits and vegies (and of course wines and Coopers beer), as I discovered to my delight over the past couple of days.

(Well, as I type this I'm laid up feeling incredibly sorry for myself with the flu. Possibly swine flu!!! I had to wear a mask and everything! As I'm not pregnant or asthmatic etc. they didn't push me to have the test at the doctor's, and I just could not face Royal Perth Hospital in the state I'm in, so my particular brand of flu shall remain simply 'ugh'. Perhaps the Adelaide water tastes dodgy as the dams are filled with pigs swimming around!)

Our first meal in Adelaide was chosen due to emptiness of stomach and closeness of location to hotel. It was at "Izakaya Sushi Taxi" on Hindley Street (sorry I don't have more details about this place but I didn't note the address/hours and Google is giving me nothing). I'm not sure why it was called a taxi instead of a train, but I guess our meals had more of a taxi-style delivery as we decided to forgo the sushi train and order off the menu. We both started with some miso soup, and then I chose the "teriyaki chicken mix fry set" bento ($12.90) while my fellow Adelaide visitor went for the "unagi tori karaage set" bento (also $12.90) which I was also eyeing off on the menu.

Teriyaki chicken mix fry set bento ($12.90)

Unagi tori karaage set bento ($12.90)

Both bentos came out with a creamy "crab" salad topped with roe, some garden salad with a big dollop of mayonnaise, a pickled vegetable salad and a little compartment filled with a creamy wasabi dressing.

Overall, the dishes hit the spot and satisfied our hungry bellies but there are a number of things I would have changed if I'd had the chance. For starters, whilst I love eating crab, I'm not so fond of "crab" but I still ate the parts of the "crab" salad covered in roe as I didn't want those tasty eggs to go to waste! At least, I think they were fish eggs and not "fish" eggs, or fish "eggs". Hmm.
The garden salad was nice and refreshing once I had scraped off the huge squirt of mayo - hooray for paper serviettes! Finally, the picked vegetable salad was really nice and tangy, as was the wasabi dipping sauce.

Reports of the unagi and karaage were favourable, and backed up by a reasonably clean dish at the end of the meal! My teriyaki chicken was really nice, with julienned vegetables mixed through the thick flavourful sauce. The three octopus balls included in the "mix fry" part of my bento were a nice fried tasty treat, and were great with the creamy wasabi. The other part of the "mix fry" wasn't quite so nice, consisting of a fried vegetable patty - the pureed potato, diced carrot and peas type of patty that you might find in a vegetarian burger at a roadhouse. Not terribly enticing but I liked the wasabi sauce so much that I ate some of the patty just so I could enjoy some more of the sauce.

So these bentos weren't perfect and I'm not so sure I would choose mine again but they provided a decent feed for $12.90 each and kept us satisfied until our date that night with "The Chef"...