January 2012
1 post
Where can one go for gyoza?
You’re traveling solo? You’re better off without him? Your posse is away? Come dine at Harajuku Gyoza. It’s the happy home for the solo samurai or go-alone geisha. Leave your book at home. No table tucked away in the corner for you. You sit at the bar and watch the yum get made. We bring you dumplings. Your neighbour smiles. You smile across the bar. They smile back. You order...
December 2011
1 post
Gyozafest
Come celebrate the Festive Season at Harajuku Gyoza. We’re cooking a special Christmas treat designed by Ryan Squires: delicious turkey and cranberry gyozas that have been happily hand-wrapped for you. Call them a yum little present to yourself, but hurry in if you’d like to try them. We’ll be closed December 25, 26, 27 and January 1, 2 and 26 but open every other day for lunch and dinner.
November 2011
3 posts
Gyoza - A love worth waiting for.
Thank you thank you Brisbane. We feel so popular. But we must say sorry sorry too. Our faulty air conditioning gave you a warm reception for our first week. You must have felt like our poached pork dumplings at times. Now we have had it fixed you will feel cool over summer like our iced green tea. And sorry sorry too for the queue. Waiting is no fun but we hope your happy face will come back...
When will we see U at Harajuku?
Harajuku Gyoza is finally open. Come in for lunch. Come in for dinner. Gyozas are go. Bring your appetite for gyoza and beer and while you’re at it, bring someone else’s appetite too.
Shiny Happy Gyoza People
We’re close. So close we’re almost jumping out of our carefully crimped gyoza skins. We’re just days out from throwing the restaurant open so keep your eye on that big timber door. Watch it every day, gyoza lovers. Behind that door, shiny, happy gyoza people will be doing all their last minute checks, testing out the cooker, tuning the service, pressing uniforms and folding gyoza. Here’s a pic...
October 2011
1 post
Sorry we're late. We've a lot on our plate.
It’s true, we’re taking longer than expected. But it’s all in the name of getting things right. The good news is we’re back on track to be open in the early weeks of November. Stay tuned to our updates by checking in on our Facebook page, following us on Twitter or visiting harajukugyoza.com for updates in the coming days. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak at some of the plate designs you’ll...
September 2011
2 posts
Gyoza too pretty to eat.
Some super models don’t eat. Some can’t be eaten. This little lovely for example. A gyoza so perfect the paparazzi were called to photograph it for our website. You’ll see much more of this beauty come online soon but for now, just this one tantalizing shot. And while you salivate, spare a thought for the photographic crew. How cruel it was for them to be so close to this achingly gorgeous...
Gyoza on Brunswick Street
The first sign has gone up on the window of Fortitude Valley’s dumpling and beer restaurant, Harajuku Gyoza. It’s right opposite the exit from the Ivory Street tunnel at 394 Brunswick Street. “Opens Mid October” it says. Apologies to those of you whose hunger for hand-made dumplings is growing by the day. It’s almost cruel to make you wait. Just think of it this way: dumplings and beer are not...
August 2011
1 post
Pencils down. Hard hats on.
It’s official. The site for Harajuku Gyoza restaurant and bar is at 394 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley. It’s on a corner near the Judith Wright Centre, and like a minimalist, post-modern stage set it’s been reduced to an empty shell because we’re building it from scratch. (Like our gyoza, also made from scratch with uber fresh ingredients.) Of course we’re well into the design stage of what...
July 2011
3 posts
Secret kitchen business: The gyoza recipe.
The humble gyoza is a fickle dish: subtle kitchen alchemy that turns flour starch and farmyard meats into something wonderful or something woeful. And when a Tokyo gyoza kitchen gets it right, they close ranks and keep their recipe quiet. The cut of pork, the breed of chicken, the seasonality of herbs. We took an Australian celebrity chef over there (we can’t say who just yet, but let’s just...
Feel like a little summin summin?
When the Japanese are done working, they have it all worked out. We’re talking Izakaya, folks. Cosy little bars that serve food to salarymen on their way home from the office. You just sit down at the bar and start ordering. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. You share what arrives, in whatever order it comes and why not? You’ve clocked off. So has the Senior Vice President, who...
Do U do Harajuku?
A gyoza and beer bar. Simple food. Simple pleasures. So why didn’t we just call it “Gyoza and Beer”? We thought about it. We seriously did. Over gyoza and beer in Harajuku. And then another beer. Some more gyoza. And another round of beers. Then we saw this guy walk past us on Omotesandō near Harajuku station. How old was this guy? Sixty? Seventy? It must be something in the water here, we...
June 2011
3 posts
Utsunomiya: Gyoza ground zero.
You don’t do gyoza unless you know your stuff (or stuffing). There’s nothing worse than a dumpling dumbo. Which is why we’ve been researching gyoza for so long. It’s taken us to some pretty strange places. Like the gyoza capital of Japan, Utsunomiya. In this humble city, 120km north of Tokyo, the residents consume more gyoza per capita than anyone else in Japan. This is the gyoza gastronome’s...
You know gyoza?
The little steamed dumplings you sometimes see on sushi trains? They’re the ones that rarely make it far along the track before someone takes the plate. There never seems to be enough of these little dumplings to go around. And they’re rarely made well. Traditionally, the fine pastry wrappers and meaty, fresh porky filling are steamed to melt in your mouth goodness on top but here’s the real...
For the love of gyoza.
Over the coming months, we’ll be doing something extremely unwise. We’ll be opening a restaurant bar called Harajuku Gyoza. A Japanese dumpling bar. Everyone tells us it’s an unwise investment. That we’ll be working too hard for too little. That small businesses are struggling. That the restaurant business is unforgiving. But we’re doing it anyway. Not to prove them wrong (well, kinda). We’re...