The Onigiri map, Melbourne: Daikokuten, Kuu, Chookas, 279, Ima Pantry, QQQ, Haiku, Tokyo Lamington and Nosh

Late last year, we were excited to hear about an Onigiri Map of places to buy onigiri around Melbourne with special stamps at each cafe for those participating.  It was a great way to explore different cafes and compare their onigiri.  We visited some favourite places and made some discoveries.  

All the onigiri was amazing.  One of our favourites was the onigiri with superb seasoning at Daikokuten that you can see in the top photo.  Today I will share our journey visiting the nine cafes on the Onigiri Map.  It is quite long but will give you an insight into where to get great onigiri in Melbourne. 

Upon first seeing the map, it felt quite a challenge to eat at all nine cafes in different areas of inner Melbourne over five weeks between 1 November and 7 December. 2024  Sylvia managed to fit it in by organise visiting nine Japanese cafes in three days.  Before we visited all of them, the map was ended early because it was unexpectedly popular and the organisers ran out of prizes.  We were more interested in trying new onigiri than freebie merchandise.  We continued our quest to get stamps on our map at all the participating cafes.

Day 1: Chookas, Ima Pantry, QQQ St Kitchen, Tokyo Lamington
Day 2: Daikokuten, Haiku Future, Kuu Cafe and Japanese Kitchen
Day 3: 279, Nosh

Onigiri is not the prettiest food.  It is not easy to photograph.  Yet it is a great quick snack.  Forming a handful of rice into a tightly packed ball or triangle, often with a seaweed (nori) wrapper, means it is quick to purchase and easy to transport.  They are usually a reasonable price, in this day age, for about $6 to $8 per piece.  

It was interesting to see the different ways to present it: fully wrapped, half wrapped or not at all wrapped; plain rice filled, rice mixed with filling or layers of filling; fancy toppings, rolled in seasoning, with sesame seeds or wrapped in paper.  All the onigiri we tasted were vegetarian with most being vegan and most being gluten free.  While it was mostly called onigiri, sometimes it was also omusubi, musubi or onigirazu.

 

Daikokuten

Shop 1/398 Tooronga Rd, Hawthorn East VIC 3123
https://www.daikokuten.com.au

One of our favourite cafes was Dailkokuten and we returned there soon after.  Like all the cafes, there was an endearing spirit of kawaii cuteness.  You can see the spirit of this in each cafe having their own specially designed rubber stamp and coloured ink so we could stamp our map at each visit.  This was part of the fun of the map, both admiring each design and collecting them all.

The cafe was really busy when we arrived on our first visit on a weekend and were were lucky to find a seat for a quick onigiri each before heading off for our next location on the map.  I had the Sweet purple potato croquette onigiri at the front of the photo.  It was amazing and so delicious with a amazing furikake seasoning mix coating the rice and a piece of croquette atop like a garnish as well as in the middle of the rice triangle.  The croquette was beautifully cooked with a crisp coating and soft sweet potato inside.  Sylvia had the Tamago onigiri and raved about hers with similar seasoning coating and the piece of Japanese omelette instead of my croquette.  At $6 each, these were great value.

We loved Daikokuten so much that we stopped there for lunch before we met friends for a drink and a cake in the South Eastern suburbs.  It was a weekday and the place was much quieter.

Sylvia had a matcha latte which she loved.  It came with a nice swirl of latte art in a gorgeous cup and saucer.

She could not resist that amazing seasoning and ordered a plate of three onigiri: Tamago, Seaweed, and Avocado.  Daikokuten has such a good range of onigiri that it has a separate page of the menu for it.  As well as the four veg ones that we tried, they also offer Takana (pickled mustard greens) and Kinoko & Tamago (mushroom & omelette).

I was tempted by the onigiri but I also wanted to try something else.  I could not resist the Forbidden Garden poke bowl: the vegetarian version was $27.  It was a generous plate of black rice, nori, avocado, pickled vegetables, cherry tomato, edamame, mixed leaves with sesame dressing, purple sweet potato croquette with sriracha mayo, and it came with kinako mushroom but I asked for mine with fried tofu instead.  It was delicious with lots of great flavours and textures.  

Chookas

1 Ballarat St, Brunswick  VIC  3058
My post on Chookas or Chookas Instagram

The place that we started our onigiri trail was a favourite of ours.  We were excited to be on an adventure of new onigiri but we started with some of our favourites.  Chookas is such a great place to spend time in it's beautiful old 1930s building in the leafy lane.  They call their rice balls "omusubi".

 

Sylvia goes there almost every week and I go there occasionally with her.  We don't really need the menu. I really like the Kimchi omusubi with edamame and cheese.  This is not what I would have expected but it is not too spicy for me. Sylvia has lots of favourites and often has the marinated boiled egg and pickles on the side.  She got the Yukari omusubi with the egg and pickles on this visit.  Yukari (shiso rice seasoning) is made of dried purple shiso leaves and salt.  The onigiri has a umami flavour and a tart Japanese pickled plum hidden inside.  In addition to the Yukara there are quite a few vegan omusubi on the menu.

Ima Pantry

The Nightingale Village, Ground Floor, 9 Duckett Street, Brunswick, VIC 3056
https://www.imaproject.co/pantry

We loved a lunch last year at Ima Pantry's sister cafe Ima Asa Yoru so much that we had visited at Ima Pantry previously to browse their fancy Asian groceries but we have never eaten there.  When eating at the cafe we had tried the omusubi at a relaxed sit down meal with a set of side dishes.  In the pantry it is sold as snack food that can be takeaway or eaten quickly perched on a small bench in a corner of the grocery store where they sell food that is ready to eat.

When we had the onigiri with a creamy umeboshi filling, Sylvia was worried it was seafood and we asked to check it was vegetarian.  It is listed as vegan on the menu in the cafe.  Maybe the creaminess is a vegan mayo.  It goes so nicely with the rice and crispy seaweed wrapper.  I also tried a tahini biscuit sandwich with chocolate filling that was very good, albeit a bit fragile when taken on the onigiri trail in a paper bag in my handbag!

QQQ St Kitchen

4 Peel St, Collingwood VIC 3066
https://www.qqq-st.kitchen/

I had never heard of QQQ St Kitchen but when we visited it on Peel Street in Collingwood, I found it was just down from the Grace Darling Hotel on a corner of Smith Street that is very familiar to me.  I am not sure how long it has been there but I wish I had made my acquaintance with me sooner.  

We didn't eat in, although there was the option.  Instead we purchased at the hole in the wall.  I took our onigiri to the nearby park and Sylvia took hers to eat while she was entertained by a cat in a nearby window.  Not that we could stay long.  The rain kept us moving to the next place.

QQQ was one of the two cafes on the list that fully wrapped their onigiri.  Good for eating on the run.  Bad for photos.  It had one of my favourite onigiri.  It was a vegan special filled with Mushroom kaarage, capsicum and walnuts.  The mushroom did not excite me too much as I am not a huge fan and six of the nine cafes on the onigiri map had mushroom in at least one onigiri.  But I love walnuts and it is not a common onigiri addition. It is not for everyone, including Sylvia but she loves mushrooms so that was good.

Tokyo Lamington 

258 Elgin Street, Carlton VIC 3053
https://www.tokyolamington.com/

We were pleased to have the opportunity to return to Tokyo Lamington.  It is a small space but feels very stylish with the simple wooden benches and beautiful display of lamingtons.  They have such an amazing range of fun lamginton flavours but also some interesting savoury options.  It is hard not to have at least one lamington flavour that we are keen to try.  This time we were pleased with our selections of a strawberry orange lamington for Sylvia and a neapolitan lamington for me.  

We had the Miso eggplant and Umeboshi cream cheese onigiri.  Only the miso eggplant was vegan.  Both were really good but they were filled onigiri and I got confused and ate the umeboshi one.  Sylvia did not want the eggplant one so I ate that too.  No wonder that she was not very hungry.  Both of us were on our fourth onigiri place for the day and tired.  I fear there can be such a thing as too much onirigi!

Haiku Future

1161 Toorak Road, Camberwell VIC 3124
https://www.haikumelbourne.com/

When we were going to Haiku Future, I thought we were headed to Haiku Cafe which had a great menu.  Then I discovered that Haiku Future was the Japanese convenience store (konbini) next door to the cafe.s  It was fun looking at the groceries: ginger yuzu hot sauce, saltbush furikake, umame black garlic sauce with black sesame, and matcha white chocolate bronut.  There was also some beautiful kitchenware such as bowls and chopsticks.

The store has a small fridge area which has onigiri, which they call sushi burritos or onigirazu because it has layersof filling.  It is far more vegies and less rice than other onigiri.  We tried three and all were really good.  Sylvia ate most of the egg haloumi (I tasted the bit without egg) and I really liked the mushroom one.:

• Spicy tofu: tempura ponzu tofu. cos, korean hot sauce, viet pickles, kewpie vegan
• Egg haloumi: cos lettuce, tomato, sriracha. fried egg, haloumi, kewpie
• Teriyaki mushroom: grilled field mushroom, cucumber, spinach, vegan kewpie
  
  

Kuu Cafe and Japanese Kitchen

190 Park St, South Melbourne VIC 3205
https://www.instagram.com/kuujapanesecafe/

The last place on our map that we visited on our second day was Kuu Cafe and Japanese Kitchen.  We'd already eaten well but this place was on the other side of the river where we don't go often.  So we made the most of it.  The menu demanded that much of us!

It was disappointing that there were no onigiri.  After all that was what we were there for.  We were also there for an iced match latte and yuzu soda and to share an indulgent Tofu Katsu Sandwich ($15).  They did not disappoint.  Especially that crispy panko crumbed fried tofu with shredded cabbage, though I could do with a bit less sauces than the BBQ sauce, hot mustard and mayo.  Sylvia says she would have more sauce but I would have a little less.  There should be more amazing sandwiches like that in more cafes.  It would help spread some tofu love!

Sylvia's matcha-loving ways meant she could not go past the Matcha ganache cake.  It tasted really good but I was more impressed by the colour than the flavours.  (Cake is alwys better with chocolate!)  Whereas Sylvia was delighted with all of it.  Then we convinced the staff we really needed a stamp on our Onigiri map even though it had closed early.

We liked the place a lot but, honestly, I went back because I wanted to have an onigiri from each place on the map.  After all we had the stamp on our map.  It took us until this month to finally get back there.  It was worth it just to see the koala foam art on Sylvia's matcha latte.  How cute is that!

I had a ginger soda which was really refreshing.  It was similar to the yuzu soda that I had previously.  Both were served in tall soda glasses and came with a generous serve of candied citrus rind and - in the latter soda - of candied ginger.  It was a bit odd that pieces would make their way up the straw.  I did enjoy eating some and found myself surprised both at how much there way and how it actually worked.

 

The place was pretty cute.  Not only did they have pencil shaped containers for the cutlery, but they also had chopsticks that were pencils on one else. I was so fascinated by how these chopsticks were made.  They were fun for eating my Vegan tofu scramble ($21.50).  I was so surprised that the tofu was served in marinated chunks rather than mashed, that I asked the waiter if I had been given the scramble.  He assured me it was.  It seemed more like a stirfry with tofu, vegies and brown rice in a lovely garlic chilli soy sauce.  What set it apart was that it had a generous serve of greens and I really loved these with the sauce and a good squeeze of the fresh lemon wedge.

Sylvia wanted to try other dishes but she loved the tofu sando so much that she ordered it again, this time with a generous side of fries for $3.50.  I found that there were quite a few other veg options I would really love to try such as the Agedashi tofu set, the Kakiage (tempura veg) udon noodle soup, or the Tofu salad.

 

 

And we finally had our onigiri.  The vegan shitake mushroom tempura soy onigiri was excellent, though we wondered if we had it freshly made if it would have a bit of tempura crunch.  It had a great mushroom flavour and was worth the return visit.  We were back for the onigiri but the food was really good so we would definitely love to try more of their dishes.

279

279 Victoria St, West Melbourne VIC 3003
https://www.279victoriast.co/

The Onigiri map was organised by the folk at 279 cafe in West Melbourne We visited after the Onigiri map was closed early and had a chat to the friendly staff there.  It was great to have a chance to tell them how much we loved it.  They were overwhelmed by how many people brought a map stamped with every cafe and claimed their prizes.  We assured them it was the fun of going around the map that we loved rather than prizes.  Despite this, they were generous and found us some onigiri stickers.

They call their onigiri "musubi".  I had the Shiso miso (which I loved saying) and Sylvia had a Salted kelp.  They had 4 vegan options and 3 gluten free. Best of all they did a cute thank you on the paper bag we got our musubi in.  They even drew reindeer ears because it was December.  And the musubi was really good too. 

Nosh

Galleria, 2 Little Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000
https://nosh.net.au/

Fittingly it was evening by the time we visited our last cafe on the Onigiri Map.  We tried to go earlier but we went to the wrong Nosh (the map was only at one of the Nosh outlets) and we had a festive diorama workshop to attend so we went to the Galleria Nosh after it.  We were quite tired and disappointed to find that there was no onigiri left.

 

We had the Tamarind Tofu Taco: pan seared tofu with tamarind lime garlic sauce on coconut turmeric rice and baby greens encased in housemade crispy nori taco and roasted sesame seeds ($7.50).  It was very nice but not easy to share.  I also enjoyed a Miso Falalafel bowl in a visit soon after tthat we had to go.  The staff were very nice and gave us a stamp even though the map had closed early.

Finally a week or so ago, I went back determined to try the onigiri one lunchtime.  I tried the Melbourne Centre Nosh but it is now closed.  So I went back to their Galleria cafe.   I ordered the crispy eggplant set ($16.90) which came with two truffle shitake onigiri, crispy eggplant, miso sauce and house pickles.  When I was given three options and immediately asked for the eggplant one, the staff member asked if I wanted vegan because usually an onigiri set has one shitake and one salmon onigiri.  The onigiri was lovely but I was most impressed by the freshly fried and pleasingly crispy eggplant with the salty miso sauce.  

And with that final onigiri, I completed our aim of an onigiri at each location on the onigiri map.  It was a fun way to compare difference onigiri and gain a broader understanding of what the term might mean.