Nikumaki Honpo and Papparoti

www.papparoti.com.au

This post incorporates two eateries as we bought food from both of them for our lunch on the weekend. 

I saw a post on Nikumaki Honpo on another blog and decided I just had to try it out, so we drove over to the new Warrigal Square Shopping Centre fortunately not far from our house on Sunday to grab lunch. This shopping complex looks super exciting, as there is a Madtongsan branch there, eeeeep, and also Little Nyonya, which is a branch of the Little Singapore chain (not yet open).

Walking in, we passed by Papparoti, which I was very excited about. I’ve seen Papparoti stores in Sydney and also in Vietnam when we visited, but we hadn’t gotten to try them at all. 

Firstly, Nikumaki Honpo:

This was touted as being the latest and greatest thing in Japan. Basically, nikumaki honpo is a ball of rice, wrapped in marinated pork slices, ovenbaked, and then with mayonnaise on top.

There is the option of plain for $4 each, or with cheese on top for $4.50 each. There were also free condiments of either fresh chilli or coriander on top as well. Of course, L got fresh chilli on his. 

Unwrapping the paper like it was a little tasty present, the ball doesn’t exactly look appealing, however it was amazingly delicious. The pork was so salty and succulent and the cheese on top was awesome, I can’t imagine getting it plain. One ball filled me up, but L ate two and wanted more.  It probably wasn’t the healthiest thing to eat, but boy was it tasty. 

Papparoti:

Papparoti have stores in several countries, starting out in Malaysia and expanding to Vietnam, China, the Phillipines, Dubai, Korea and now Australia. As I said, I saw one of these stores in Vietnam, and unfortunately didn’t try it due to the crowd of people around it. 

Papparoti produce one thing only, Malaysian coffee buns! We could see them being made and baked, with coffeecream coating a soft bun in a spiralled fashion and then melting over the bun in the oven. We didn’t eat these until we got home, so they were a bit cooler than they should have been and probably would have been more enjoyable if they were heated up and with a cup of tea or coffee of course. They were buttery on the inside, but I found the whole thing a bit dry to get through. Maybe because I have an excessively sweet tooth? The bun was exceptionally light and fluffy though which was lovely because I wasn’t left with a full bloated feeling as I usually am after eating baked goods.

 

Warrigal Square looks like it’s going to be a great place to grab a bite to eat. L wants to go back next weekend for more nikumaki honpo!

Love,

C