mizu japanese restaurant - 133 commercial rd south yarra 3141 9827 1144

we like the door. it's calming. and not wanky. like so many other places in south yarra. especially near chapel street. we were looking for a little cosy eatery with a fire, sofas, etc so the choice of this little japanese restaurant made no sense whatsoever. a complete surprise for you and i. now, i speak japanese to a degree so it's good to find a restaurant that has genuine japanese staff, not vietnamese, chinese, malaysian and korean waiters because the owners think that australians are too stupid to tell the difference. we can tell, you assholes.

anyway, back to mizu. very quick, very good japanese food. points are lost because they don't do okonomiyaki - a kind of japanese pancake with beef, pork, scallops, prawns - but they get points for great sashimi and vegetarian gyoza. i recommend the gyu maki (strips of beef wrapped around vegetable), beef tataki (like beef sashimi), gyoza (pockets of stuff with dipping sauce, my favourite). the ebi sumai (prawns dumplings with mustard) were not that good. stay away from the ebi.

i always recommend beer with japanese food. i lived there for some time and that's how it's done there. i suggest asahi beer because i work for the company that owns asahi. i'm such a slave to the corporate assholes who'd kill their own grandmother, slice her into thin strips and call it fresh sashimi. no way an old grandmother can be mistaken for fresh sashimi. too many wrinkles. anyway, you could fit in thirty or so people inside and when summer comes, the back area (the restaurant, not the grandmother sashimi) will be great. all lanterns and japanese rock gardens.

food was very good and the service was very good. we're going through a spate of good reviews recently and it's a bit scary. you'd get a lot of points for a first date here, more if you speak japanese in front of her. you she might use her tongue later too if you're really good.