The Serve: Reworked dishes the standouts

THEME: JAPANESE

★★★☆

BROTHER SHOTA
125 VICTORIA AVENUE, ALBERT PARK, 8596 8172
LICENSED & BYO MC V EFTPOS
THURSDAY-MONDAY 11AM-3PM, WEDNESDAY-MONDAY 5.30PM-11PM
SMALL: $6-$13; LARGE: $13-$39; SWEET: $10-$11

When Han Kim was a boy in South Korea, his father insisted he get up at 5am to visit the fish market. There Han had his first lesson for the day, choosing seafood for the family's Japanese restaurant before heading to school. By the time he was 16, Han was working alongside his father, on track to take over the family business.

There was one big hitch: the young man wanted to do fusion food not traditional cuisine. Cue a long road which took Han to Canada, Japan and finally Australia, where he's cooked in eastern and western restaurants in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, honing the vision, skills and repertoire which have been channelled into the buzzing Brother Shota.

The word "fusion" rings faint alarm bells: it so often points to a confused mishmash. Luckily, Han Kim's renditions balance culinary smarts with a light-hearted sense of fun and a kind of dialogue with the diverse Australia he now calls home. Tuna sashimi is piled into mini tacos. Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) is cooked like a kebab. Crumbed pork cutlet is wrapped in soft bao rather than fluffy white bread. Crab tempura is paired with south-east Asian curry.

Open since January and already popular with Albert Park locals, Brother Shota is bustling and casual. The busy one-page menu has some Japanese classics, including sushi that harks back to those before-school sessions in Korea, but it's the reworked dishes that give Brother Shota its edge.

My favourite is the eggplant tempura, stacked like a Jenga tower on the vertiginous verge of collapse. Fat pillars of eggplant are crisp-fried, piled up, then drizzled with a sticky apple and miso glaze. It's reminiscent of the succulent salty-sweet qualities of the Japanese baked eggplant classic, nasu dengaku, with extra zing and zoom.

Katsu sando, a white-bread sandwich containing a crumbed and fried pork cutlet, is arguably the best Japanese snack in existence. Brother Shota's version tucks the juicy crumbed pork into a fluffy fold-over bao, then dollops it in purple shiso mayonnaise. It's so on trend I worried it was going to hurt. In fact, it was delicious, right down to the last skerrick of mayo I licked from my arm.

Okonomi-yaki are Japanese pancakes; the word translates to "whatever you like grilled". Han Kim has taken the free-wheeling exhortation to rethink the formation of this staple snack. He noticed that Australians like skewers, so he thought he'd form his cabbage and octopus pancake onto sticks. It's a clever idea and the ratio of crunchy to gooey is just right.

Among the larger dishes, the beef rib pokes out. Like the restaurant, it's called Shota which is the name of Han's much-admired chef-master from Canada. The marinated rib is cooked for more than 30 hours at a low temperature. It's then charcoal-grilled and served with salad and sriracha salt (a spicy sprinkle made with Thai chilli sauce). The meat is lusciously soft, gorgeously smoky, and, oh, so happily messy to eat.

Brother Shota is eager to please and easy to enjoy. If you're in walking distance, you're lucky. If you're driving, the worst thing is getting a car park. (Vic Ave is a 1P disaster). But once you're ensconced, say a quiet thank you to the stubborn 16-year-old who decided the traditional route was not for him, before demolishing your own Jenga tower of eggplant.