logo
Bali's best new steakhouse

Bali's best new steakhouse

West Australian16 hours ago
I have reviewed hundreds of restaurants throughout my career . But I still don't consider myself a restaurant critic — just a writer who describes rather than criticises food.
Why? Well, first of all, I'm not a chef or restaurateur. I can barely cook, and I don't believe you should judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes.
Second, I'm too easy to please. Make me a good melted cheese toasty and you'll get the same kudos and gratitude from me as I'd give to a master chef who spent hours reducing the perfect lobster bisque. And thirdly, I don't give a toss about awards, stars and hats, including those given by Michelin guides. Their idea of good food, foie gras, steak tartare, edible flowers, etc., is not my cup of tea.
So when I was invited to review Yen Social, the new Bali chapter of Yen Yakiniku, a Japanese steak restaurant in Singapore and Michelin Plate awardee, I was like, 'meh'. But when I was told the invite was for a special event, a seven-course wine pairing dinner in collaboration with Penfolds, my arm was twisted. I'm not the kind of guy who ever turns down a good bottle of red.
Yen Social is set in a quiet back lane of Canggu, Bali's most popular restaurant and nightlife hub. The moment you walk into the place you know it's not going to be cheap, with thick marble benchtops, bottles of wine costing thousands of dollars adorning the walls, well-coiffed customers and two dozen staff members yelling 'Irasshai mase' — welcome — at you in Japanese.
It was followed by an orgy of meat and wine: an Angus tenderloin with garlic butter sauce, Australian wagyu ribeye and Australian wagyu short rib with a clear barbecue sauce, among other cuts, with each dish matched with different Penfolds blends that culminated in a couple of glasses of Bin 389. This drop is known as baby or poor man's Grange because it costs about $100 or more at your local bottle shop compared to $600 or more for Grange Hermitage. There was also silky fried rice cooked in wagyu beef fat and a spectacular dessert: flaming tiramisu served in a chocolate Easter egg.
After dinner, I had a chat with the general manager, a Frenchman called Marius, and asked him if this was the best Japanese restaurant in Bali. His reply surprised me.
'No,' he said. 'We don't do sushi, we don't do sashimi and we don't do ramen. Several places in Bali do sushi as good as the best Japanese restaurants in Paris or Tokyo. What we are,' he continued, 'is the best steak restaurant in Bali. No other place that I know of goes to the lengths that we do when selecting and ageing premium beef.'
That's the hard sell. All I can say is that it was bloody delicious. Plus one more thing. Remember when I said dinner at Yen Social would cost you an arm and a leg? Well, our meal, seven courses paired with seven glasses of wine, cost $108 per person, including GST and a 10 per cent service charge that substitutes a tip. Tell me of one restaurant in Australia where you can get a meal like that for that money and I'll eat my hat and write a food review on it, too.
For bookings, see @yensocial.bali on Instagram.
Ian Neubauer was a guest of Yen Social. They have not influenced, or read this story before publication
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever
This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever

Sydney Morning Herald

time2 hours ago

  • Sydney Morning Herald

This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever

Donkey Kong is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, and one of the earliest. Yet despite remaining relevant for the bulk of the past 40 years, none of the major Donkey Kong games since the 1980s have been made by any of Nintendo's internal Japanese studios, meaning the character has become a bit of a nebulous B-tier entity next to Mario and company. With the Big N solidifying its properties through movies and theme parks, as well as new games, a Donkey Kong reclamation was inevitable. The surprising part is that Nintendo threw its absolute best at the franchise. Donkey Kong Bananza is not only a contender for the best game the series has ever produced, it gives other contemporary games a run for their money when it comes to sheer fun, constant innovation and technological achievement. In the first year of the original Nintendo Switch, the company reasserted its place among the best game-makers by combining industry trends such as open-world design with its Mario and Zelda franchises to produce unexpected, delightful and utterly inimitable games. And now at the beginning of the Switch 2, Bananza sends the message that it's not slowing down. Created by the team behind Super Mario Odyssey, it combines elements of Minecraft -like permanent terrain alteration with Mario-level control and acrobatics, an evolved take on 3D platformer collectables, heaps of fresh ideas and plenty of inspiration from the past Donkey Kongs developed by Rare and Retro Studios. It has the climb-anywhere style of the recent Zeldas, but also the cathartic ability to tunnel through and destroy just about anything you see. It also sets a new tone and visual design for the series and character, which feels current but is perfectly in line with the arcade original. Bananza is set far away from DK Island, where our hero (and seemingly every other ape and monkey) is investigating a massive cache of underground gold. Donkey Kong is more interested in Banandium Gems, special jewels that look and apparently taste like the delicious yellow fruit, but unfortunately the evil Void Kong also has his eye on them. After a dastardly scheme sinks the mine deep into the ground, DK finds himself in a subterranean world populated by all sorts of weird creatures, and partners with a lost tween named Pauline (a young take on the damsel character from the arcade game) to head to the planet core. DK's abilities seem simple – you can jump, roll, punch forward, down and up, grab stuff, slap the ground and whistle – but it all adds up to a very satisfying arsenal that's easy to deploy. You can smash directly down into the ground, or rip chunks of rock out of the wall. You can combine rolls and jumps to cover huge distances. You can surf on hunks of concrete over hazardous terrain, or use a kind of sonar to detect goodies underground and tunnel right through them. And it feels heavy, crunchy and satisfying, like the very essence of the character's benevolent aggression. The central loop of the game is pretty simple too. You're steadily descending through layers, each one with a wildly different theme and inhabitants, and each with a number of sub-layers. Most have an elder to meet, who is of course a DJ, and because Pauline has a talent for singing, she can learn a magical song from each one. That's how you unlock transformations for DK. Several of these are just hideously jacked animals with angry faces and all the aesthetic appeal of the worst AFL mascots – an ostrich, a zebra – but intentionally and humorously so, and they come with abilities you will need to explore and progress.

This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever
This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever

The Age

time2 hours ago

  • The Age

This '80s pop icon is back, and it's better than ever

Donkey Kong is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, and one of the earliest. Yet despite remaining relevant for the bulk of the past 40 years, none of the major Donkey Kong games since the 1980s have been made by any of Nintendo's internal Japanese studios, meaning the character has become a bit of a nebulous B-tier entity next to Mario and company. With the Big N solidifying its properties through movies and theme parks, as well as new games, a Donkey Kong reclamation was inevitable. The surprising part is that Nintendo threw its absolute best at the franchise. Donkey Kong Bananza is not only a contender for the best game the series has ever produced, it gives other contemporary games a run for their money when it comes to sheer fun, constant innovation and technological achievement. In the first year of the original Nintendo Switch, the company reasserted its place among the best game-makers by combining industry trends such as open-world design with its Mario and Zelda franchises to produce unexpected, delightful and utterly inimitable games. And now at the beginning of the Switch 2, Bananza sends the message that it's not slowing down. Created by the team behind Super Mario Odyssey, it combines elements of Minecraft -like permanent terrain alteration with Mario-level control and acrobatics, an evolved take on 3D platformer collectables, heaps of fresh ideas and plenty of inspiration from the past Donkey Kongs developed by Rare and Retro Studios. It has the climb-anywhere style of the recent Zeldas, but also the cathartic ability to tunnel through and destroy just about anything you see. It also sets a new tone and visual design for the series and character, which feels current but is perfectly in line with the arcade original. Bananza is set far away from DK Island, where our hero (and seemingly every other ape and monkey) is investigating a massive cache of underground gold. Donkey Kong is more interested in Banandium Gems, special jewels that look and apparently taste like the delicious yellow fruit, but unfortunately the evil Void Kong also has his eye on them. After a dastardly scheme sinks the mine deep into the ground, DK finds himself in a subterranean world populated by all sorts of weird creatures, and partners with a lost tween named Pauline (a young take on the damsel character from the arcade game) to head to the planet core. DK's abilities seem simple – you can jump, roll, punch forward, down and up, grab stuff, slap the ground and whistle – but it all adds up to a very satisfying arsenal that's easy to deploy. You can smash directly down into the ground, or rip chunks of rock out of the wall. You can combine rolls and jumps to cover huge distances. You can surf on hunks of concrete over hazardous terrain, or use a kind of sonar to detect goodies underground and tunnel right through them. And it feels heavy, crunchy and satisfying, like the very essence of the character's benevolent aggression. The central loop of the game is pretty simple too. You're steadily descending through layers, each one with a wildly different theme and inhabitants, and each with a number of sub-layers. Most have an elder to meet, who is of course a DJ, and because Pauline has a talent for singing, she can learn a magical song from each one. That's how you unlock transformations for DK. Several of these are just hideously jacked animals with angry faces and all the aesthetic appeal of the worst AFL mascots – an ostrich, a zebra – but intentionally and humorously so, and they come with abilities you will need to explore and progress.

Bali's best new steakhouse
Bali's best new steakhouse

West Australian

time16 hours ago

  • West Australian

Bali's best new steakhouse

I have reviewed hundreds of restaurants throughout my career . But I still don't consider myself a restaurant critic — just a writer who describes rather than criticises food. Why? Well, first of all, I'm not a chef or restaurateur. I can barely cook, and I don't believe you should judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes. Second, I'm too easy to please. Make me a good melted cheese toasty and you'll get the same kudos and gratitude from me as I'd give to a master chef who spent hours reducing the perfect lobster bisque. And thirdly, I don't give a toss about awards, stars and hats, including those given by Michelin guides. Their idea of good food, foie gras, steak tartare, edible flowers, etc., is not my cup of tea. So when I was invited to review Yen Social, the new Bali chapter of Yen Yakiniku, a Japanese steak restaurant in Singapore and Michelin Plate awardee, I was like, 'meh'. But when I was told the invite was for a special event, a seven-course wine pairing dinner in collaboration with Penfolds, my arm was twisted. I'm not the kind of guy who ever turns down a good bottle of red. Yen Social is set in a quiet back lane of Canggu, Bali's most popular restaurant and nightlife hub. The moment you walk into the place you know it's not going to be cheap, with thick marble benchtops, bottles of wine costing thousands of dollars adorning the walls, well-coiffed customers and two dozen staff members yelling 'Irasshai mase' — welcome — at you in Japanese. It was followed by an orgy of meat and wine: an Angus tenderloin with garlic butter sauce, Australian wagyu ribeye and Australian wagyu short rib with a clear barbecue sauce, among other cuts, with each dish matched with different Penfolds blends that culminated in a couple of glasses of Bin 389. This drop is known as baby or poor man's Grange because it costs about $100 or more at your local bottle shop compared to $600 or more for Grange Hermitage. There was also silky fried rice cooked in wagyu beef fat and a spectacular dessert: flaming tiramisu served in a chocolate Easter egg. After dinner, I had a chat with the general manager, a Frenchman called Marius, and asked him if this was the best Japanese restaurant in Bali. His reply surprised me. 'No,' he said. 'We don't do sushi, we don't do sashimi and we don't do ramen. Several places in Bali do sushi as good as the best Japanese restaurants in Paris or Tokyo. What we are,' he continued, 'is the best steak restaurant in Bali. No other place that I know of goes to the lengths that we do when selecting and ageing premium beef.' That's the hard sell. All I can say is that it was bloody delicious. Plus one more thing. Remember when I said dinner at Yen Social would cost you an arm and a leg? Well, our meal, seven courses paired with seven glasses of wine, cost $108 per person, including GST and a 10 per cent service charge that substitutes a tip. Tell me of one restaurant in Australia where you can get a meal like that for that money and I'll eat my hat and write a food review on it, too. For bookings, see @ on Instagram. Ian Neubauer was a guest of Yen Social. They have not influenced, or read this story before publication

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store