Shichirin Japanese BBQ Restaurant is my go to restaurant in Petaling Jaya whenever I need my fix of casual Japanese food. It’s a Japanese BBQ restaurant but with a menu of non-BBQ items as well. It’s unabashedly porky – from the Grilled Pork Don to the Pork Karubi and the different cuts of pork for BBQ, intestines, liver and others.
Dining on fine Japanese food is always a rare expensive treat. But at Shichirin, lunch or dinner here is affordable and you can go back as often as you wish.
Lush sweet pieces of tender pork on the Grilled Pork Don
For a satisfying one-dish meal, the Grilled Pork Don is hard to beat. The meat is tender, smoky and lightly sweet, its sauce trickling down to the rice. The same goes for the Grilled Beef Don, though I don’t feel the same about the Salmon Don. I’d rather have salmon sashimi.
Grilled Beef Don
Gyoza – thin skins and flavourful pork filling
Two dishes I would always order at this Japanese restaurant are the Gyoza and the Hot Ramen. The Gyoza has a delicate thin skin, wrapping round a flavourful minced pork filling. I can never get tired of eating these here. The ramen sits in a lovely light soup, unlike the cloudy and dense stock we usually get. The ramen is topped with seaweed, egg, mushrooms and Japanese char siu. The texture of the ramen is firm and supple, as it should be.
Hot Ramen in a light, tasty stock
Another hot dish to like is the Pork Karubi Kuppa which has short ribs in a delicious spicy soup, laden with vegetables. In it too is rice, making it a one-dish meal.
It’s easy to eat healthy at Shichirin. The Cabbage Salad with seaweed and ponzu dressing is so fresh and good. You can get a small bowl of it (as well as a soup) by adding a few ringgit when you order any of the Don dishes. At one dinner when we brought kids, they ate up all their cabbage salad. I was impressed.
Assorted Japanese Kimchi
I also enjoy the Japanese kimchi here. It’s lighter and less spicy than the Korean one, with Chinese cabbage, cucumber and the crunchy, slimy huai shan root (Chinese yam) in it.
Iberico pork belly, pork shoulder and pork neck for the BBQ
We had the Japanese BBQ one evening, with pork shoulder, throat soft bone, iberico pork belly, tongue and intestines. We found the intestines too tough and chewy and the pork belly a bit fatty but the rest turned out well. The service was attentive and the barbecuing was done for us at the table. For the BBQ there’s also seafood like squid and salmon, and beef of course. You could also request for the barbecuing to be done in the kitchen if there are kids at the table.
Wobbly, smooth Water Jelly that I can’t get enough of
The best dessert to have here is the Water Jelly – all wobbly and smooth, topped with bean powder and sitting on brown syrup. I love it. There is also coffee jelly and ice cream but this is the best.
Salmon Belly Sashimi
Shichirin has recently added Bento boxes (from RM20 to RM32) and family sets to their menu, making it easy for those who have trouble ordering from an a la carte menu. Prices are reasonable: Beef Don is RM25, Pork Don RM16, Hot Ramen RM18, Salmon Sashimi RM22, Assorted Kimchi RM15, Water Jelly RM5. The pork BBQ items are RM12 per plate, Iberico pork belly RM25.
Shichirin is located at 11, Jalan 20/13, Paramount Garden, Petaling Jaya. Tel: 03 7865 9619.
https://www.facebook.com/shichirinjapanesebbq/
Look out for this Shichirin signboard