New Japanese cafe Parami is a tiny inner-city sanctuary serving onigiri and other Japanese snacks and sweets. It’s tucked down Alberta Street, near Alberto’s Lounge and Haco, on the former site of cafe Cre Asion (now in Pyrmont).
Onigiri, also known as omusubi, nigirimeshi or rice balls, is a Japanese comfort food, and a staple of Japanese lunchboxes and konbini (convenience stores).
Usually triangular, the simplest form of onigiri is slightly salted rice wrapped with seaweed. It can also be ball-shaped, flattened and round, or the traditional tawara-shaped (cylindrical). And it doesn’t necessarily need to be wrapped in seaweed.
What makes onigiri so popular is not only its portability, but its ability to match with a huge array of savoury fillings – if it goes well with rice, it will go well with onigiri.
For Parami co-owner Mika Kazato, onigiri evokes many childhood memories. She grew up in the countryside of Oita prefecture, surrounded by rice fields.
“I was able to eat freshly harvested rice every fall [autumn],” Kazato tells Broadsheet. “Now I think about it, it was such a luxurious life.”
Most of her memorable onigiri was the plain kind, accompanied by side dishes.
“That’s how good the rice itself was,” says Kazato. “Onigiri brings so much comfort.”
Kazato wanted to share the world of onigiri with Sydneysiders, and opened her petite store in November 2022.
At Parami, more than 200 onigiri are made on-site on weekdays, and between 400 and 500 on the weekends, using koshihikari rice from the mountainous Toyama prefecture. The mineral-rich soil of Toyama makes this koshihikari one of the top-ranking rices in Japan, known for its elegant sweetness and aroma.
There are eight varieties of onigiri at Parami. The most popular options include salted salmon, tuna and mayonnaise, chicken soboro (flavoured mince) and seasoned egg.
One onigiri is perfectly snack-sized, or you can make a meal of multiple. Parami’s have proven a popular grab-and-go lunch for surrounding office workers. On the weekend, people come from afar to pull up a seat at the shady outdoor seating area.
And it is not all rice. There are both sweet and savoury bread rolls, from prawn cocktail to egg mayonnaise, strawberries and cream, and grape and cheese cream. Sweets include purin (crème caramel), cookies, mochi and muffins. The cafe offers a similar style of eating to a Japanese konbini: mix and match the snacks and sweets to your liking. Unlike a konbini, Parami serves Single O’s Killerbee coffee and single-origin matcha from Yame, Fukuoka.
Parami
101/21 Alberta Street, Sydney
Hours:
Mon to Fri 8am–3pm
Sat 9am–3pm
@parami_alberta
31 Jul 2023
27 Jul 2023
27 Jul 2023
26 Jul 2023