aki japanese restaurant - 134 bourke street melbourne 3000 9639 3195

how many restaurants in melbourne send food past you on a conveyor belt from which you can pick an choose as you desire? while it might sound like the ultimate in fast food tackiness, this is how it is done in japan, so it is actually kulchral and you can feel good about it. how it works is that the food comes out on different coloured plates, depending on how much each costs. unless you can push the plates onto someone else's pile they add them all up when you pay your bill. the conveyor continually sends its culinary delights past your nose and watering mouth so it could be easy to ring up a substantial bill without actually ordering anything.

this place is run by a family of japanese and about half the people who eat here are japanese so you know the food is about as authentic as you're going to get in oz. and they do okonomiyaki better than any other place in the city - damnit, i reckon the country. it's almost as if someone took a little tokyo sushi bar, shipped it over here, made it ten times it's original size so that more than 3 people could fit in the place, and called it aki. it's authentic but a little pricey. not everyone working there is japanese but then not everyone living here is aboriginal. if you want low fat, japanese food that won't make you feel like you just ate chinese food (dragging your gut around like a baby), you'll love aki. if you want pretentious crap, see mikoshi.