Chuuka is a restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try for a while now. Sitting at the end of Jones Bay Wharf overlooking the harbour, the modern Asian menu is a melting pot of Japanese and Chinese flavours.
The space is split across two levels, with dark furnishings and a dedicated raw fish bar.
We start with some mocktails. The melon mocktail is a creamy, cooling drink with flavours of rockmelon, pineapple and coconut. The other is a classic citrus and soda combination.
This is no ordinary sashimi platter. There are five different styles of sashimi, each with their own flavour profile and method of curing/cooking. There’s simple, melt-in-the-mouth salmon sashimi, kingfish sashimi with fermented chilli paste and seared tuna with a sweet sauce. On the other side of the platter are scallops immersed in a bright, sweet-sour dressing and individual saucers of diced, marinated sashimi cubes.
These plump pipis are bathed in a luscious nori butter sauce with crispy seaweed and a hint of chilli. It’s pebbled with squares of thin, puffed bread, which is an unusual addition but a great way to soak up all of the sweet pipi juices.
This modern take on a traditional noodle stir fry was a bit small for our liking. While the rolled rice noodles were silky and fun to eat, we felt like there could have been a little more of everything. Despite the size, I really liked the mix of textures provided by the meaty mushrooms and raw shaved asparagus.
This is a modern take on sweet and sour pork, featuring thick, juicy nuggets of chicken coated in a sticky, sweet, citrusy sauce. The yuzu helps cut through the richness of the thick batter, and fat pieces of dried chilli add zing.
This seemingly simple dish allows the fish to be the star of the show. The toothfish is cooked to perfection, with a deep, golden char from the miso glaze.
Chuuka’s mapo tofu is complex and addictively hot. I love the different dimensions of tofu in this dish. There’s wobbly silken tofu, spongey fried tofu, dried tofu sheets and firm tofu cut up into tiny cubes. The dish is speckled with rubbles of pork mince and soybeans. The fiery, red sauce is perfect for spooning on top of rice.
Dessert time! We share two desserts, starting with this chocolate and matcha one. It’s a pretty ensemble of roasty genmaicha ice cream and matcha mousse atop a bed of chocolate crumbs and chocolate soil. It’s a great dessert.
The next dessert is a play on bubble tea (my favourite!). Thin wafers break apart to reveal a nest of purple yam ice cream, blueberries and plump tapioca pearls. It’s brought together with a floral green tea syrup and is a refreshing, creamy dessert.
Maddie Loves Food 