Eating our way through the port city to The Modern Eatery, Fremantle

If there's a certain cuisine that I will happily refer to as one of my favourites, it's definitely Japanese. But here in Perth I have to admit there's not many that have blown me away or left me feeling excited by the food. But when I saw new Fremantle hotspot The Modern Eatery start to pop up in my instagram feed, I was curious over whether a place that plated such tantalising food would actually deliver in the flavour department.

With a focus on aburi sushi (my favourite kind), it was like a welcoming beacon, pulling me in with it's allure. Aburi sushi utilises nigiri sushi blocks, topped with seafood that is kept raw then torched lightly to infuse that buttery smokey flavour from direct flame.

Finding the time to get to Freo proved a little more difficult than it should have since my schedule has been a bit crazy lately! But when my boy asked me to keep a Sunday free for him to take me out on an 'adventure', I soon found myself in the port city to my surprise!

We had such a lovely day, wandering through the various lanes and alleys, munching on apple pie donuts from The Banker, goat curry arepa from the markets and more (all delicious things - especially that arepa, which is a Venezuelan dish made with cornbread). Eventually we decided to sit down and have a proper meal, and that's when inspiration struck me - The Modern Eatery. Trust my boy to know the key to a perfect day out for me involves lots and lots of food.

Arriving at the restaurant we managed to snag a table in the corner and were presented with menus not long after. It was relatively busy and there weren't many staff working, so there was quite a wait for food - but the service staff remained friendly, and we were happy to relax while waiting on what I hoped would be some truly delicious Japanese food.

We decide to order a craft roll since they sound really impressive. The kamikaze roll ($12.00) catches our eye with it's ebi (prawn) tempura, shredded crab meat and avocado, topped with tobiko, aburi sauce and masago.

The roll is delicious. Four slices jam packed with flavour and different layers of texture. The torch on the rice is excellent, changing the taste profile in a really addictive manner - it's definitely memorable. The tempura inside is light and perfectly crisp; the avocado creamy and sweet. 

It's a well seasoned and well balanced dish; and a nice evolution from your classic 'California' roll. But at $3 per slice? I think the pricing was just a little too high in my opinion considering when you compare it to a similar style of sushi and Aisuru and for four pieces their cost is generally more around the $10 mark. 

The other dish we ordered was the signature combo ($23.00) which is comprised of one piece of aburi salmon nigiri, one piece of aburi tuna nigiri, 1 piece of aburi hotate nigiri, two pieces of salmon oshi and two pieces of ebi oshi.

As much as I enjoyed the kamikaze roll, the oshi pieces in this combo were absolute standouts. I love that creamy torched sauce on top on the sweet slices of fish; the rice just lightly sweetened to welcome the meat on top. It's a real standout way to showcase fresh seafood and this simplistic but delicious style of Japanese food preparation. The other nigiri options on the plate are all tasty too, particularly the hotate (scallop) which is sweet and slightly firm.

Well we may have only had just a taste of The Modern Eatery, but what we ate was really enjoyable and well prepared. It's not the cheapest of Japanese venues around, however the flavours manage to impress in a way that has me looking forward to a return trip soon for more sushi goodness.