Don Don Rikka, Newmarket

By JENNIFER YEE

Don Don Rikka, tucked behind the Newmarket pool and opposite T-Mart Asian supermarket, is the youngest of the Rikka family.

With non-Japanese speakers like us and equally non-English speaking wait staff, numbers are the universal lingo for ordering.

Here I choose a selection of starters to share with David and Simon. And so it's the number 45 — thinly sliced seared beef tataki, with a radish mini salad; 39 — prawn tempura, 55 — aged ashi tofu; fried tofu in a dashi broth. All turn up arranged like ikebana on a plate.

I've got to do a bit of a rave on the tofu dish. Telling us to eat tofu, you say.

Trust me. The tofu is light, plump, melting in the middle and crispy on the outside. You get several pieces, sitting in dashi broth-based sauce with dried bonito flakes with the addition of mirin, ginger juice and light soy. It is garnished with whiskers of hot pink ginger, nori and spring onion.

My own recipe is on page 86 of my book Chow Down & Chill Out, but Don Don Rikka's comes a very close second.

The donburi offerings are "bowls of hot rice with your favourite topping" which come with salad and a choice of miso or garlic consomme.

They've had some fun naming the toppings — shogun, kamikaze, Mt Fuji, origami, geisha, tsunami, ninja, sakura, sumo, Tokyo, banzai. Hey, my Japanese isn't that bad after all.

Number 106 (kamikaze donburi) has a "light crispy treats" topping of deep-fried prawn, salmon, oyster and finely shaved raw cabbage. A 26 (sumo) appears reinvented as grilled gingered beef scotch fillet with an endive salad.

More interesting were the kamameshi dishes. A description of the latter is boldly lettered on the back wall "a uniquely Japanese dish". Originally created out of need, following a great earthquake, when cooking utensils were scarce, the style caught on and now you can enjoy it without the trip up the Richter scale

The entree consists of three tiny dishes holding a cube of layered omelette, French beans with sesame seed dressing and a mouthful of panko-crumbed beef (all served cold) plus miso soup. The hanabi is a mixed kamameshi with your choice of meats. Ours is topped with juicy teriyaki chicken and pork cutlet. The kamameshi pot comes in its own wooden box and lid along with a smidgen of colourful pickles and a spoonful of potato salad. Lift the lid after three minutes exactly and take care of the hot edge of the pot.

On my second outing to DDR, I had supper on my own. It's an ok place for solo diners and I was happy in one of the booth seats with my banquet for one: a small sake and favourite comfort dishes — aged ashi tofu; edamame (young soya beans) and the seafood kamameshi with delicately cooked morsels on top of steaming hot rice. I enjoyed the fat oyster, delicate smoked eel, a thick strip of shiitake mushroom, green bean, a whole prawn, a finger of salmon and bubbles of briny salmon roe popping in my mouth.

The rice underneath is flavoured with juices from the fish and fine threads of ginger.

Service can be slightly hit and miss, but the food delivers. Do order a warmed bottle of sake, with or without company.

OUR MEAL: $170.30 for 4 (incl. 2 sake and 2 beers); starters/sides $5.80-$8.90; donburi; $12.90-$20.90; kamameshi $14.90-$22.90

OUR WINES: by the glass $6-$8.50; by the bottle $29.50-$38.50; sake $15