Rengaya – North Sydney

End of financial year dinner with the company! Before our boss suggested anything, there was a sudden inspiration that hit us all (the staff of course). We wanted meat, BBQ meat! As for the boss, he prefers buffet as it is easier for a huge group to eat out together, than taking an hour to decide on what dishes to order, and this will ensure that we will all be well fed, satisfied and happy before heading home.

I picked this location because of its proximity to a train station. There were other options and suggestions as well for Yakiniku (Japanese BBQ) but this one was located right next to North Sydney train station, so there you go, winner – Rengaya Yakiniku Japanese BBQ.

front entrance

We walked through the front doors, and kept walking past the bar and into the front of the restaurant. Our table (there were 18 of us) was located at the front section, there were smaller rooms on the side. It was a long table with a grill between every 4 guests.

For the convenience of this evening, we went for the buffet menu at $69 per adult. We are allowed to order for 120 mins. Some of us arrived a lot earlier and we were served green tea once we settled in but were told that if any of us started ordering anything from the menu, the countdown for 120 mins would start, so we waited.

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selection of wagyu beef and mixed vegetables

Finally when everyone turned up, we started placing orders for the dishes. Each serve is (said to be) 100g, but it seems to vary from order to order. The one featured above is 2 serves of each types of meat – rump, oyster blade, ribs, outside skirt and rib fingers.

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beef loin – thinly sliced

 2 serves of beef loins. This meat is to be grilled and flipped over quickly to retain its fatty marbling tender texture.

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ox tongue

Ah, ox tongue, one of the best things about Japanese/Korean bbq is the ox tongue. I like the chewy texture of it, and it is one of the most popular meats as we noticed with Yakiniku. The one above is 4 serves of ox tongue. Here is the inconsistency. My 1st order I’ve requested for 2 serves and was served up 6 slices of tongue, this is definitely a lot more than 12 slices. The last time I ordered 10 serves, it looked about the same as this one. Either way, as long as you can finish the food that you order, all good!

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pork ribs and beef rib fingers

Great cuts of meat, seasoning/marinade was great too. I really enjoyed the meats this evening. It sure is fantastic and a wonderfully happy thing.

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prawns, calamari, edmame and salmon sashimi

For you seafood people, I wouldn’t say there’s a really huge selection of items, what they have here is good for a contrast in the selection of meat provided for the evening. Salmon is supposed to be a sashimi, but my co-worker really wanted me to grill it up for her, aburi, so I did and it tastes just fine.

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yukke – beef tartar

I’m not that big a fan of Yukke, but quite a few of my friends enjoy their meat raw/blue/rare and here is as good cold dish to start with.

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large serve of lettuce

Vegetables, good to wrap cooked meat in for a good crunch and to cut back on the fatty texture.

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straight onto the grill!

The smell was fantastic. I can smell it from memory by looking at this pic. Ah, more meat!

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ice cream for everyone

One of the things that annoyed me on this menu was that there’s no dessert included in the buffet. We had to order ice cream from the a-la-carte dessert menu, which added $5.60 per person, that is if you wanted dessert. It was just strange not to have something sweet to finish off, so the boss suggested we each pick a flavour. The dessert menu looks really great, and I would have ordered a whole lot of other stuff as well.

If I visit on my own, I’d probably end up ordering a-la-carte for everything, plus one of the fancy desserts instead of getting the buffet, as (just personal opinion) a buffet to me means it should cover every aspect of my meal and not having to shell out on top of what I’ve already paid for. I understand that drinks and fancier desserts can be made as an add on, but at least have the basic options.

The food was great, staff is really friendly. For my company where most of the staff are more fluent in mandarin, Rengaya has staff that are fluent in mandarin which was really good for some of my co-workers. Food service is fast and 120mins is quite enough to fill us all up.

Enjoy!

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