Chaki Chaki

I've become strangely and suddenly familiar with this building in Braddon, not a building I entirely approve of, being a fan of the cheap and knocked-together version of Braddon rather than the sleek, metal and polish version that is springing up in its place. 

The building is called Ori, and I'm finding that this place has surprisingly become a regular destination for us. John Marshall's ice-cream shop is here, and Naked Foods, where we buy the constituents of muesli and cashew butter, an excellent spread. It's also where I discover my physiotherapist, who it turns out has regular yoga classes, and it's where my family seems to go to the gym. Strange, all of that in one little corner of Lonsdale Street.

So I have pressed my nose against the window of Chaki Chaki before turning up for dinner tonight, and already been impressed by the sleek fit-out. Good wooden tables, bare, a tiled bar, a long open kitchen, wooden detail, a rope feature on the ceiling, deconstructed and modern as you'd expect with a large balcony where most people are eating this hot evening.

Owner and chef Yujiro Takeda used to run Tasuke, an old favourite in the bus interchange. Tasuke was quick and cheap end, always enjoyable and decent, so I'm inclined to like the idea of an upmarket eatery in Takeda's hands.

However, I'm not sure the early set-up will work, partly because the menu sends you to one of two "degustation" options, or to a list of "tapas". I don't know that degustation is the way people want to eat, especially in an area as casual and youthful as Lonsdale Street, but the alternative, the "tapas" options, sound too generic to appeal.

Sushi and sashimi are there, of course, as you would expect, but at $60 for a sushi platter, or for "assorted sashimi", you would want to be pretty confident about what you were getting. Otherwise, the list includes yakitori chicken ($20), karaage chicken ($25) and vegetarian wontons ($25). On a return visit, we would order from this menu, since "grilled king fish wing" ($25) does sound the goods, but tonight we stick to the degustation options, with one dish from the tapas menu – the okonomiyaki ($20).

The "Sound of Tide" summer degustation ($60) starts well, with a selection of tastes, served cold: radish, two little balls of rice with sashimi, crunchy broccoli with a sweet mustardy sauce which turns out to be miso and mustard, eggplant, chunks of tomato, mushrooms. This is a good way to eat and appropriate to the hot night. We really enjoy the little bowl of egg – poached through  – with what we guess as milk skin, a reminder of the heady days of el Bulli when mastering milk skin was the thing to do, but turns out to be bean curd. It's refreshing and interesting.

We order a "cloudy plum sake", called Rabbit Dance ($15), which comes with the glass in a wooden box. The ritual is that you pour the sake into the glass and let it overflow into the box. We don't quite understand the ritual but we like it and the drink too, which has a slight fermented fizz. 

The next course is soup, with silverbeet, seaweed and carrot, a piece of tempura. Again, this is logical and quite enjoyable. 

The course that lets Chaki Chaki down is the main course that follows, confit quail and grilled Alaskan deep-sea cod. The fish is succulent and tasty enough as a cut but we're not fond of the unsubtle tomato sauce on top. The quail is quite tough and difficult to eat, albeit with a strong soy-based sauce. There are noodles underneath, which are a little soggy, beans, which are not crisp, and mushrooms. The other problem, I feel, with this dish is that it's all served together on one plate, fish and quail, sauces and all, which adds to a sense of confusion and a lack of purity and elegance. It seems to me more buffet than degustation.

We have ordered okonomiyaki alongside to re-live a little of the magic of a recent Japan trip, where this rustic pancake comes as a pile of ingredients that you cook yourself at the large hotplate that dominates your table, and where we become very fond of the sticky cheesy versions. The pancake that we're served at Chaki Chaki doesn't really capture the joy, and its bed of raw red cabbage misses the point for us.

Dessert is presented as a row of three things – a likeable sorbet which might be pineapple, a green tea cake that we don't like at all, and a nutty black-sesame custard which we enjoy. Chaki Chaki feels good in the set-up but could probably do better with a little more focus on the plate.