Almost everyone here starts with the cute kingfish ceviche, where diced fish is teamed with apple and a hint of wasabi and stuffed into a charcoal cone. There’s pork and kimchi goyoza and tontaksu croquettes and open spanner crab California rolls, all perfect partners to on-theme cocktails – a cucumber and yuzu sour, perhaps, or the cheekily named Slippery Nippon (Midori, Cointreau and yuzu) – or a good line in Japanese beer.

Billed as the only ramen joint on Chapel St, five bowls of this restorative wonder are on offer, from the classic through chicken and veg options, and are all good for what ails you. Bigger dishes include a great half chicken that’s slathered in gocujang (a Korean chilli paste) roasted crisp and served with a crackingly good apple fresh slaw, or miso-marinated cobia (a type of kingfish) that’s deftly grilled until it’s ever-just underdone in the middle and teamed with a brilliant fresh pea and edamame mix.

But whatever you do, make sure the DIY bulgogi bao have a place on the table, the beef rib all sticky and rich, the cloud-pillows laden with kewpie mayo ready to be piled high with meat and pickles.

Tokyo Tina may not be the the most rigorously authentic Japanese/Korean going around, but this Astro Boy-adorned addition to Chapel St could well be the most fun. The young and the pretty who pack it out each night certainly think so.
Tel: (03) 9525 2774

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