Tucked away neatly in a rather nondescript building at a junction on Residency Road, Harima is a secret hideout of local Japanese folks and doles out copious portions of everything from salads to sushi, with plenty of sake thrown into the mix.
A menu of epic proportions, resist the temptation to lose your way in it and quickly order a mix of popular classics and some very novel sounding fare. We found the sushi competent and fresh in the form of the Cheese Katsu Roll. Beautifully presented crisp finger-happy bites, it starred our three favourite words — fried, cheese and pork (you get the picture!) which worked wonderfully when dunked in the mildly sweet sauce that came with it. We followed this up very ambitiously with the Pork Okonomiyaki, billed as a savoury pancake of grilled pork belly and a special sauce. The Okonomiyaki, an unusual mash-up of Nagoya and Naples was perfect for sharing and messy eating.
For mains, we oiled up our machinery with a portion of the Negi Raamen and the Shoyu Raamen. Both bowls were brimfuls of comfort, loaded with noodles in a delicious chicken stock broth. The Shoyu additionally had some chicken pieces and an egg and also packed in the punch of kimchi in each slurp. We decided to skip the bar, but the menu (and a lot of very happy co-diners) told us that there was plenty to drink, and you could choose from your favourite tipple, or try something more traditional (read sake) as well.