Living in South-West Sydney, I drive past Canley Heights quite a bit. Canley Heights is sort of starting to build a reputation of becoming an area where little gems, restaurant wise, are starting to pop up. Through my numerous drives through the area, I noticed that a new restaurant 'Ryoma' was opening.

 I first experienced Japanese BBQ in Japan and really enjoyed it. The meat is cut a lot thinner and is more fatty due to more marbling than the meat that is served for a Korean BBQ generally. This makes for some great tasting meat as well as some great fire photos. The sauces are also quite different to Korean BBQs with the sauces given for Japanese BBQ being more oil based than the Korean sauces.

I visited Ryoma about a week ago with a couple of my friends. Tables were full but we didn't really have to wait for long - just long enough for the wait staff to get our table ready. Their menu is posted outside their restaurant so you can check out the menu and decide on what you want before getting seated. We decided to get Pork Ribs (it really looked like Pork Belly), Wagyu beef Inside Skirts and Rib Fingers (2 plates of the Rib Fingers), Ox Tongue, Mixed Vegetables, Baby Octopus, Karaage Chicken, Takoyaki and Lemon & Lime Bitters as a drink.


The Karaage Chicken was really nice but I'm not too certain if it's the best Karaage Chicken that I have had. The Takoyaki was really nice and quite bigger than what I have gotten at other restaurants. I found the inside quite nice and fluffy. The Lemon & Lime Bitters were served in a glass bigger than I'm used to so it seemed like I was getting more.


The Mixed Vegetables consisted of 3 types of mushrooms (that I can't remember at the moment), pumpkin, onions, eggplant and corn. The pumpkin took forever to cook and I wished that they partially cooked it to a degree so that the BBQ could just brown it and finish off the cooking process. The corn was just regular corn on the cob but I love corn so I found it really tasty especially with the meat and such also infused in ... but that may just be me.


My favourite meats had to be the Wagyu beef dishes especially the Inside Skirts. They were just so tender and juicy and when dipped into the soy-oil sauce (at least I think it was), it was just heaven on your tastebuds. I highly recommend that you get at least one Wagyu beef dish. I really liked the Baby Octopus as well since it was nice and tender when cooked. The Pork Ribs were okay, not the best but they were nice to eat. With every BBQ restaurant, whether Korean or Japanese, you will get frozen meat and for us that came in the form of our second plate of Wagyu Beef Rib Finger. It wasn't totally frozen but I could tell that they got it out of a freezer due to the hardness of the meat. However saying that, it still tasted great.


The wait staff at the restaurant were really nice and welcoming especially when we initially entered. However, when we ordered our second round of dishes, one of the wait staff forgot to finalise our order since it is all done via a tablet and this resulted in the kitchen not getting our order. So I would definitely check that orders are finalised when ordering more dishes after your initial order of dishes.

Ryoma is open between 5:30 and 10pm and is located on Canley Vale Road, Canley Heights. The pricing is pretty average, nothing too outrageous in my opinion. With all those dishes that I mentioned above, it came to roughly $28 per person and there was 4 of us eating. I would definitely recommend you visiting the restaurant if you fancy eating or trying out Japanese BBQ.