Edamamé
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Now open again after summer break.
Generally wonderful restaurant with extremely nice food served by pleasant people who enjoy what they do. Rather unusual opening hours. No reservations. |
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15 Holywell Street Useful links: Oxford Restaurants Oxford Hotels Oxford Pubs & Bars Oxford Gig venues Oxford Concert venues Ads by Daily Info:
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The unusual opening hours and different menus on different days makes eating here a bit more complicated than your average restaurant (plus you can't book and may have to share small tables with strangers), but it's a treat well worth trying. You'll have to be a bit more adventurous than usual, so make sure you're not the sort to turn your nose up at Wagamama or Yo! Sushi, which will seem bland and generic in comparison. This place feels far more authentic, cosy, and the bonus is that you feel you're helping local people run their own business (albeit in their front room!). And of course - the food is delicious. So if you're in the Turf Tavern and come over hungry, take a walk down Holywell Street to Edamame. Maybe you'll make a new friend over the katsu.
crouchingbadger, 05/09/08 I feel they should really include rice and/or miso as part of set meals rather than forcing customers to order them separately. The worst part is, they continue charging for each additional bowl as opposed to the okawari practice in many parts of Japan. Kai Hertz, 29/05/08 Good food and great atmosphere but why serve sushi only on a Thursday? This antipodean is used to having sushi for lunch every day and I miss it terribly. Please, please embrace your audience and give 'em what they want. I understand that Oxford is landlocked and sashimi quality tuna/salmon may be hard to come by, but really, this country isn't that big. Scoop, 29/07/07 As proprietors of Edamame we would like to respond to an earlier review (posted on 30/04/07) and explain why it is that we take last orders at 8.30pm in the evenings (Thursdays for our “sushi night”, and Fri/Sat for our “dinner menu”). Peter & Mieko Galpin (proprietors of Edamame), 05/05/07 I haven't actually been though I have tried to! Me and 2 friends rolled up on a Saturday night after hearing great things about it at around half 7 and found it to be totally packed. No probs we thought, we'll grab a drink or two at the Turf or the White Horse and return later when it's quieter. To our astonishment, when we returned at 9pm it was shut! Admittedly I know this was our fault that we didn't check the opening hours but what kind of restaurant shuts at 9pm on a Saturday night?! I will return (earlier) and i'm sure I will enjoy it as I have not seen a poor review yet. 07713 161850, 29/04/07 Once you have established the elusive opening hours of Edamame and secured knowledge of it's location you are on the way to having a decent, tasty Japanese meal at this bijou restaurant. I've dined here at lunch and at dinner and found the lunch experience to be better value for money. However, on both occasions service is efficient, friendly and the food is very tasty. The portions are perfect for the average person, don't be fooled by what's on your plate! By the time you eat all that sticky rice, you really will be full. My favourite dish is the Chikin Karaage, and their namesake - Edamame - are truly delicious and moreish. Some of you may not enojy the thought of sharing a table with strangers. This is how Edamame operates especially at lunchtime because it is so small in there and also it tends to be how noodle bars operate. However I found this not to be a problem at all - if anything this is perhaps a cultural difference that is soon forgotten when you tuck into the delicious food. An absolute gem. I am leaving Oxford soon, and this is one of the places I shall really miss. Mooko, 01/04/07 If you are after ture Japanese food and atmosphere then Edamame is the place to try. The food is wonderful and also at a very good price: meals range from about £22-£30 pounds between two people. For £30 pounds you would get 2 small side dishes, two small bowls of rice, two miso soup, two main dishes, one small sake (150ml). So from this you can see what great value it is. The staff are more than happy to help and always have a smile on their faces. lloydie, 28/01/07 Unlike the other people who have written reviews about this place, I wasn't a fan. Perhaps it's because I'm vegetarian. There was very little on the menu suitable for vegetarians and the meal I had I found to be very, very bland and overpriced. I wouldn't return. Diner, 01/12/06 We love it and go there regularly. Great food, service, quality, price, atmosphere. It is a tiny gem of Oxford and not commercialised like everywhere else in town seems to be. Oxfordgirl, 11/10/06 Had to queue for half an hour on Saturday evening, but it was one of the most enjoyable restaurant visits I can remember. How do they get hold of fresh seaweed in Oxford? Anonymous, 10/10/06 I recently ate at Edamame and having lived in Japan for a year can certify that the food is very authentic and simply fabulous. I would recommend sharing dishes family style in order to have a little bit of everything. I didn't realize how much I had been craving Japanese pickles and takoyaki until they showed up. To me the only disappointment was in the beer selection. The Japanese beer on offer comes in quite small cans and although the setting and style of the food is bar-style Japanese food, the restaurant doesn't encourage you to drink much. But perhaps given that the place is so small and deservedly popular, it's better that way. I can't wait to go back for the sushi night... Lin Mei, 08/06/06 It's not cheap and the portions are too small!!! realcomment, 04/05/06 If Japanese food is what you are after, try Edamame. Clean, well decorated, good portions and prompt service. Unlike some other Japanese restaurants in Oxford, the drinks they advertise they do actually stock and they have proper menus and dedicated sushi nights to guarantee quality. i tell it like it is, 13/04/06 One of my favourite restaurants in Oxford. A true little gem , serving authentic, simple yet delicious Japanese food. It all tastes fresh and - miracle - I somehow always leave feeling perfectly replete yet healthier! I particularly love the Chikin Karaage Teishoku and the Miso Ramen with Chicken (this delicious broth should be available on NHS prescription, it is the ultimate chicken soup for body and soul). The service is always efficient and very friendly and the true "Japanese eating-house" experience means you are "forced" to be sociable and chat to other customers. Some interesting conversations usually follow, some less so but - hey - that is the price of being slighly more adventurous. It's frequented assiduously by Japanese, Korean and other south East Asian students and visitors, which attests to the quality of its offerings. Located on the lesser visited street that is Holywell, Edamame's excellent and totally deserved reputation means that it somehow manages to always be full... Having to queue is the only drawback of this great establishment but it is worth the wait. The owners have managed to bring the taste of Japan to a small corner of Oxford and long may it live! [It's also really cheap!] Pamplemousse, 16/12/05 If your only experiences of oriental food have come through big restaurants, fast-food-style or takeaway outlets, Edamamé’s genuine Japanese home cooking will be a blast of clean, fresh air. Tiny, clean and light, Edamamé’s informal atmosphere is intentional. The restaurant does not take bookings, so you are likely to find yourself sharing tables with other diners in proper noodle-bar style. At lunch they operate a pay-as-you-order system which keeps the diner turnover high, true to the refuelling-stop ethos of restaurants in Japan. All this and more is explained on each table’s display card and/or the menu, which assists you in choosing what and how to eat (eg. do as the Japanese do and order many small dishes to share; most people find a rice and two main dishes are enough for a meal for one; etc.), and the staff (normally the proprietors) are friendly and keen to help. And now: the food. Six of us ate dinner in style, clearing every dish and basket placed in front of us and putting away a flask of sake and a bottle of deliciously sweet plum wine with it. No first trip to the place would be complete without the restaurant’s namesake, the addictive baby green soy beans that you can pop out of their pods and munch whilst deciding on your mains (don’t get distracted!). Veggies tired of getting distinctly fishy dishes when requesting a vegetarian option will be delighted by the menu’s division into the following categories: 1) meat, 2) fish, 3) vegetable dishes with fish stock, 4) vegetarian dishes with no meat or fish content, 5) salads. The vegetarians amongst us sampled the tofu in both steak and deep-fried chunk form, and whilst slightly disturbed by the texture (imagine eating blancmange with chopsticks – quite unlike the rubbery stuff you get in supermarkets), we agreed it was worth a try. The fish-eaters made up the bulk of our order, choosing satsumaage (fishcakes like cocktail sausages in appearance and outer consistency – curiously addictive); samonbatayaki (chunks of salmon in butter); samon teri (delicious fillets in house teriyaki sauce) and the evening’s fish special: fresh salmon, leeks and sticky sushi rice in papery seaweed cones. The meat-eaters made quick work of the deep-fried pork cutlet, pork loin in soy and ginger (‘tender, sweet, delicious…could have eaten a lot more of it’) and the evening’s meat special: rump steak rolled around asparagus and leeks. In addition we shared seasoned potatoes, miso soup and the unmissable vinegary seaweed and cabbage salad and had one rice each, enjoying chopstick-fishing for the grains languishing in our soy and wasabi dipping dishes. In contrast to many other oriental eateries in the city, the portions placed before you at Edamame look tiny, but don’t panic: the sticky white rice is of the sort that fills you up after a couple of mouthfuls, and the small dishes soon add up. We didn’t use any restraint, excusing our indulgence on the grounds that Edamamé don’t do desserts and we’d already had the plum dessert wine with our mains. As a result we spent £17 per head, though you could have eaten well for £10 (rice and other sides start at £1.50, main dishes are £3-£6). The plum wine was reasonable at £12, and had we liked, we could have sampled such intriguing Japanese drinks as calpis chu-hai (yoghurt and vodka) or oyuwari (vodka, hot water and a sour plum). In short, Edamamé have got the whole dining experience down pat, and clearly attract many loyal customers as a result. From the moment you come through the hanging drapes at the door you feel that this is something special and different, and you will leave satisfied that it has been. One last well-kept secret: they also do take-out if you turn up and ask. (Please note that this is a review of a evening dinner session, and that menus vary at lunchtime and on sushi night. See Edamamé’s website for details.) Su Jordan, 03/03/05
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