Ramen Kan, Haymarket

Ramen Kan is a little Japanese restaurant tucked away upstairs, accessed by a dodgy looking lift on Hay Street next to Cold Rock. Yes, the lift is a bit dirty-looking and extremely slow and probably needs replacing but don't be put off! Once those lift doors open you will be rewarded with a dining area complete with decorative touches like bamboo and pebbles, and of course fantastic Japanese food.

Soft shell crab salad - $8.90

Ramen Kan offers lunch specials so we opted to have both of those as well as two entrees to share. The first dish to arrive was the soft shell crab salad which had four soft shell crab halves (2 whole crabs) sitting on top of a bountiful cabbage salad with a tangy dressing. The freshly fried crabs had a light batter with a resounding crunch when bitten into.

Salmon salad - $6.90

Musashi Dining Bar, Haymarket

Following our fantastic lunch at Marque and watching Julie and Julia, we finished off our day of all-things-food by having dinner at Musashi. Since they don't take bookings after 6pm, we joined the queue and waited for about 30 minutes before getting a table. Which was good in a way since it gave us time to build up an appetite for the delicious food to come.

Grilled jumbo oysters with bacon, butter, garlic, olive oil and soy sauce - $18.00 for 4

We started our meal with one of the specials for the day: grilled jumbo oysters with bacon, butter, garlic, olive oil and soy sauce. These oysters were huge and were grilled to perfection so that they were almost melt-in-the-mouth. The buttery, garlicky sauce was not too overpowering and I loved the sprinkling of crispy bacon bits and spring onions to add a bit of crunch.

Sashimi (main) - $25.80