Xibao Ramen House is a new Japanese restaurant on William Street in Potts Point that serves up a delicious range of Japanese dishes with a difference. While the name suggests that it is a ramen house, there is so much more. There's their famous grilled eel and wagyu sandwich as well as a range of ramen soups and clever ways to serve fried rice. Find out what you have to order when you visit!
Monica and I haven't physically seen each other for 6 weeks so we have so much to catch up on our way to Xibao Ramen House. Do you ever arrive somewhere talking? That was us. It's a Tuesday afternoon at Xibao Ramen House. Xibao is located just near the Coca Cola sign on William Street and has an indoor and outdoor section.
The spring day has a nice breeze to it so we decide to sit outside. They bring us menus but you can also look at the menu which actually has a couple of extra set menus through the QR code and that's the way that you have to order. A couple of items are starred as they are their specialties. Xibao is a person's name and while it is Chinese, the restaurant serves Japanese food and they tell us that the chef has been cooking Japanese food for 40 years.
When the okonomiyaki arrives the first thing I notice is that it's not on a skewer as shown in the photo which is kind of why I ordered it. It ends up being two logs of okonomiyaki, nevertheless tasty with large chunks of cabbage in it with bonito flakes, tangy okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise drizzled on top.
The wagyu unagi eel sandwich was the item that piqued our interest. The sandwich is made of fluffy brioche with thinly sliced wagyu steak and grilled eel with Japanese mustard and eel sauce all wrapped up in crisp nori sheets. On my first bite I'm not sure whether it's sushi or a sandwich but then I love the richness of the eel and wagyu, the spiciness of the mustard sauce and sweetness from the eel glaze. Before I know it I'm wondering out loud if we should order another one. Honestly if it wasn't $25 I would have.
The fried rice is served stuffed inside a whole squid and then grilled. The rice has a nice amount of vegetables, ginger and garlic and serving it in the squid is a clever idea. It's best eaten in one whole bite-any attempts I made to take two bites out of each piece ended in disaster with rice everywhere.
There are two types of broth with their ramen: a vegetarian broth and a pork bone broth and you can choose to have the vegetarian broth with the seafood ramen if you want instead of the pork. We go with the Tonkotsu ramen which is their signature. The broth isn't as collagen rich and thick as others, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing (the very rich broth gives me the meat sweats!). Instead this pork bone broth is good for any sort of weather and you can order it as mild, medium spicy or hot. We order this in hot and it comes with a spicy pork bone broth, two strips of juicy chashu pork belly, a soft boiled egg, black fungus mushrooms, green onion and nori. Plus one giant spoon that could double as a ladle too! The ramen has a good amount of bite to it even while we wait for sharing bowls to arrive. Service is sweet although could be smoother and we find ourselves getting up several times to go into the restaurant to get things.
Monica and I both love grilled eel and the grilled unagi bowl and sandwich were the two things that we really wanted to try. This is a luiscious eel fillet draped over soy rice with two logs of Japanese egg omelette. It also has walnuts and almonds on this dish which actually provide a nice crunch although they're unexpected. This is very moreish with the sweet glazed tender eel and omelette for sweetness.
There's no dessert on the menu but we are far too full to contemplate it!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever get the meat sweats? And would you enjoy a wagyu and eel sandwich?
This meal was independently paid for.
Xibao Ramen House
238 William St, Potts Point NSW 2011
Hours: Monday to Thursday 11 am–3 pm, 5–9 pm
Friday to Sunday 11 am–3 pm, 5–9:30 pm
Phone: (02) 7227 5761
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