Musashi Japanese Cuisine (North Shore City, New Zealand)

Our quest for finding the best affordable Japanese restaurant have brought us to this place, the Musashi Japanese Cuisine. Located at Milford this was recently discovered by my wife and it was a good one. We came here on a lunch time so we ordered some lunch sets.

Most Japanese places here in Auckland offer lunch sets the difference on this place is that they offer an extensive menu where all of it costs $16.90 from tempura, sashimi, curry, etc. all of them are at the same price. What you will immediately notice once you order them is that the presentation is really well thought of, what you see on the menu is what you get, you won’t even think it is a set lunch. It is understood that presentation is quite important with the Japanese cuisine but what I notice recently specially here in Auckland when it’s a set lunch since its cheap compared to dinner menu the presentation suffers but not in this place.

It was quite busy when we dined in luckily there were spare seats for us. We then ordered our choices and it was good they made it one price for all, one less thing to worry, this means all you have to do is choose a food that you like.

For our orders we got two sets, first one was this Sushi, Sashimi and Tempura Udon Zen basically a Salmon Sashimi, Teriyaki Chicken roll and flame grilled salmon avocado roll and Tempura Udon. This set also comes with a side salad.

The second order was this Ton-Katsu Zen a lunch set made with Crumbed Pork garnished with vegetables served with tartar sauce and otafuku vegetable sauce. It also comes with rice, miso, Kobachi (3 small side dishes) and sushi.

Both sets were good the katsu from the Ton-Katsu Zen set was perfectly fried, not too oily, very moist inside and the thickness was perfect. The kobachi that was served with it was a nice addition, definitely a play with texture and flavour.

Sashimi and sushi was also perfect, it was so fresh and the quality of the salmon used was good. It was seasoned perfectly so no need for any soy sauce just a small dab of wasabi.

We also love the udon, the umami taste was overpowering which was good, this soup dish reminds me of the Marukame Udon back in Hawaii. Noodles were bouncy and the broth was so tasty.

Both sets come with crème brulee desserts but we thought that was not enough for us so we did order some Yukimi Daifuku ($5.90), a macha (Green Tea Powder) bite sized ball of vanilla ice cream wrapped on a thin layer of rice cake.

To finish it all up we had some green tea.

Overall we had a good time here, it exceeded our expectations. We definitely want to go back here and that’s what we promised to ourselves.

Musashi Japanese Cuisine – Milford
Address: 212 Kitchener Rd, Milford, Auckland, New Zealand 0620
Phone: +649 489 5977
Website: http://www.musashirestaurant.co.nz