Dashi

What a horrible time it is to be rich and important. What's the point? No one's impressed by your Hummer. Everyone cares more about the pizza in some bolthole than getting into the restaurants only you can afford. Knowing a place is the only currency that matters now, and every hypester with a smartphone is beating you to the punch. Ugh.

By that same token, what a great time to be a place like Dashi, a sharp yet non-descript Japanese restaurant in a Mount Eliza strip mall. You don't know it, but you should. We're not talking a Minamishima​ in the suburbs. But we are talking chef-owner Yuhei Wada, late of Taxi and Ten Minutes by Tractor, doing off-piste dishes and doing them well, trappings free. By today's standards, that makes it crack for the masses.

You find a park off Petticoat Lane, take a seat at a plain black table and get the impression that Wada is building his dream one dish and dollar at a time. It's a simple room, visually basic. Decoration amounts to a big red parasol and Japanese graphic novels, glued to walls, leaves fanning out. It's brightly lit and family-packed, but then a few sleek chairs line the dark, glossy counter and pretty mottled ceramics show up between cheaper plastic bowls. You can sense there's more to come.

Wada has stepped quietly, carefully into Mount Eliza, placing one foot each into the classic and creative camps. Which means you could order plainly at Dashi and have a totally nice and unremarkable time eating edamame, crisp karaage and fat fluffy mantou​ - those oven mitt-shaped buns, here stuffed with sweet pulled pork and pickle. You could chase with a tidily sliced platter of sashimi - small for $18 or large for $36 and juicy pork gyoza, which somehow, thanks to a sharp apple sauce, tastes like a Pizza Hut Hawaiian slice in the best way possible.

But go deeper and step left and you could get a taste of that shojin ryori​ staple goma dofu, the almost-but-not-really-tofu made with sesame paste, cooked down like a savoury custard with kudzu​ powder so it eats like nutty silk off your tiny lacquered spoon. There's an almost yeasty funk, countered here by a little soy, and a toasty panko​ crumb and black sesame crumble.

There's also a chance to try the much abused slow-poached egg in its original form. Your onsen tamago is still cooked in a circulator bath and not a Japanese hot spring, but it arrives cloched in its bowl, whites ghostly but set, yolks liquid but a little sticky, all surrounded by a lightly salted dashi moat with a sprinkling of spring onion and sesame for lift.

Does the talk of yuzu​ tapioca and soy pearls on your seared tuna, or balsamic teriyaki sauce with your slow roasted lamb shoulder make you worry about some over-fussing of dishes? It might. But if Wada has a crazy eye for dressing a plate, he's got a sensible palate. The lamb with black rice cooked to risotto consistency is a little smooshy, but the balsamic makes it taste brambly, nutty. The meat is beautifully cooked.

Is Dashi expensive? The online comments you might read before committing to the drive would suggest so, but you get a lot of bangs per buck. The shabu-shabu, which your impossibly polite waitress with the million watt smile pricelessly calls "swishy fish" is a whole dramatic production of burners inset with wavy waxed cardboard bowls set up on the table and filled with kombu​ dashi​ from a teapot. Into this you swish your crunchy-fresh snapper till it takes on a bare tint, then dip in ponzu.

The roasted rice tea comes in unique ceramic cups. You get a full drip coffee ceremony if you go the other way. Harder stuff? Refresh yourself with umeshu soda or, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, BYO for a tenner. Such little things, but they hit home big.

THE LOWDOWN
Pro tip It's BYO Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Go-to dish Swishy fish, just to hear them say it. Shabu-shabu with snapper ($18)
Like this? Komeyui​ nails the interesting Japanese in a neighbourhood restaurant brief. 396 Bay Street, Port Melbourne

How we score
Of 20 points, 10 are awarded for food, five for service, three for ambience, two for wow factor.
12 Reasonable 13 Solid and satisfactory 14 Good 15 Very good 16 Seriously good 17 Great 18 Excellent 19 Outstanding 20 The best of the best