Situated near the food court on the top level of Market City is this cosy and cheap Japanese Italian fusion restaurant; Poporo Takeru. It has been around for the longest time, admittedly something I always walk past so I was quite interested in what it had to offer.
Right next door is Takumi, famous for being the cheapest sushi train in Sydney at $3 a plate ($2.50 for students). I'll definitely get around to that sometime as well, as I'm told it's actually amazing!
It's so great how the menu's and all the lunch and dinner specials are conveniently advertised at the shop front, nooo pressure!
Hehe you can see over at Takumi
On the late Friday night that we popped by for dinner, it was really busy! It took a while to get the attention of the waitresses running around, but in the end I would say they were still really nice and friendly. Some of them weren't that great at English though… I have an example about that later.
The restaurant is quite small with much of the space being taken up by a number of huge cushioned booths. So my boyfriend and I were seated at this 2 seater window seat. That's probably a bad description. But looky looky!!!
THIS VIEW
Mhmm not complaining at all
Poporo is really cheap and their lunch and dinner bento's featuring a bit of everything are a pretty good deal. To add, their menu is super extensive! So many choices!
In order to try as much of the menu as I wanted we decided to order 4 x half-sized dishes. They cost half the price for supposedly half the portion (awesome idea), but some of these items are honestly portioned just right. Super happy with these!
Also while there are no condiments on the table besides salt and pepper, with every meal the waitresses carry out the recommended condiment in mini sized bottles. So so cute.
Kaisen Don (fresh salmon on rice w/ mayonnaise) $7.90
- Fran doesn't like mayo but I do so we requested it on the side and whoa they gave us the hugest dollop!!!!
- This was REALLY good, can't fault the salmon at all. It tasted fresh and in the best possible way, fatty
- Yeah we flicked that little spoonful of wasabi away, we don't want you 😂
Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) curry $6.90
- That poor presentation hahahaha omg no words
- But at least it was warm and tasty!
Mentaiko (spicy cod roe) spaghetti $6.50
- My favourite! 😍
- I love creamy pasta dishes so much so this was a winner!
- Tbh kind of salty but still my favourite~
- It was paired with pepper and tabasco sauce on the side, which went really well
Shio corn butter ramen $5.90
- This was also delicious, super warm and hearty but as a lover of corn butter, the lack of corn and butter was a let-down 😭
- I love those huge ladle-like ramen spoons omg hahhaha
Extremely satisfied with dinner we were going to go else where for dessert until we realised it was getting quite late. Fran had a craving for fried ice cream which we spotted on the menu earlier, except it was listed as "Fried green tea ice cream" AND FOR SOME WEIRD UNKNOWN CRAZY WHACK reason he doesn't like green tea ice cream 😱
We called over a waitress and asked if we could get the fried ice cream with vanilla ice cream and she was all confused, so we repeated a few times… then she was like yes yes and hurried off.
A couple of minutes later, out comes this….
And we were like oh NO.
But maybe it's vanilla ice cream on the inside...
So we ate it...
And indeed it was filled with green tea ice cream.
Sorry about this bad messy picture.
Fried green tea ice cream $4.20
- Not even good green tea ice cream too. It was watery and icy soft serve consistency and tasted like nothing
- The coating was strange and thick and bread-like. It tasted like it had been fried in the same oil as the pork cutlets or something
- But the corn flakes was a nice touch, we love corn flakes :)
Overall we really loved the food and definitely would come back again but the dessert was such a big let-down! I'm really looking forward to coming back for the mentaiko spaghetti though 💕
TL;DR:
Price: Cheaaappp
Quality: Very decent
Service: Friendly but limited English
Ambience: Busy! Cosy space
Poporo Takeru
Top Floor 9-13 Hay St,
Sydney NSW 2000
