Hayashi, Birkenhead

By EWAN MCDONALD for viva

"What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?" asks Bob, the melancholic hero of Sofia Coppola's bittersweet movie Lost In Translation, confronted, out of his depth, barely able to cope with his crumbling life let alone a civilisation alien to him, Tokyo.

At Hayashi you won't have to cook your own food: that will be in the more than capable hands of a couple of master chefs. And if you are wary about confronting an alien civilisation, don't fret about that, either. The menu has translations so you won't get lost and the staff is helpful.

I'd given Alex the choice of eating Italian or Japanese and he chose Japanese. "It's been a while since I've had it," he said, which only goes to prove that (a) Hamilton has become far more cosmopolitan in the past 12 years or so and (b) so has my son.

He's moved to the Big Smoke and we met in Birkenhead, which has developed into one of Auckland's most interesting culinary neighbourhoods. (North Shore City Council advises that the shopping centre should be called "Highbury" but staunch footballing principles prevent me from using the word.)

It is crammed with Thai, Italian, Chinese, Malaysian and half a dozen other ethnicities of inexpensive, family-owned eateries, and we could requite a long-unrequited promise to visit Hayashi.

Last time we ate in this room it was home to an impeccable Italian neighbourhood restaurant called Perugino's, run for 16 years or so by the ever-hospitable Erica and Luciano Canestri.

The couple retired in mid-2002. Within weeks Michael Lim and Ken Totsukawa had turned their backs on several years in the kitchen of the Carlton Hotel's highly regarded Katsura restaurant, crossed the bridge and set up their own place. They gave the two adjoining shops a makeover, opening up and paring down the look of the Italian trattoria into a Japanese ryoriya.

So many of us pop into the nearest sushi bar for lunch these days that there is little point taking another detour into a detailed explanation of everything you'll find on Hayashi's menu: raw dishes like sushi, sashimi, beef tataki; grills and braises and pickled vegetables; shabu shabu nabe, the simmering fondue of paper-thin slices of beef and vegetables that diners dip into a simmering pot of broth. It's been called a do-it-yourself hotpot but no, Bob, you don't have to cook it yourself.

We chose combination meals. Each followed the typical formula of rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables and fish or meat - in our case, chicken or beef. In Japanese cuisine the meal is designed to be a feast for the eye as well as the palate. Each small dish is displayed with an eye to colour, texture and balance. Our meals might have had a different "main" flavour but the placement of each portion, almost each grain of rice, was identical on each platter.

Alex opted for the eel platter. The most beautifully presented of the three, it arrived in a closed red lacquer box, which he opened to uncover three butterflied and deep-brown-grilled pieces resting on boiled rice.

Which brings us to the moment when the Japanese would say, "Itadakimasu", which literally means, "I take", but since we're on the subject of things that get lost in translation, is the cultural equivalent of the French, "Bon appetit".

We wouldn't pretend that this was a meal that propelled us into transports of rapture. We would suggest that the pickled vegetables were pretty damn close to taking us there, and that the whole experience was one of the more interesting and piquant that we've enjoyed in a while.

It's always a bit of an enigma matching wine with Japanese food. Hayashi has a limited list - we mulled it over, took some advice from the staff and went with a sauvignon blanc of familiar label. It was a wallpaper wine: didn't add or subtract much from the experience. The BYO option is available, too.

Japanese restaurants aren't renowned for their desserts and we weren't going to bother until I heard a whisper about ginger ice cream and couldn't resist the thought or the reality, though it was a close-run thing with the tempura-battered bananas. Might go back for those and the shabu shabu in the winter.

Because Hayashi is the sort of place - like Satya, like Delicious, like K. K. - that calls you back. Proof, if you needed it, that two manly cooks don't spoil the miso.

Open

Lunch Mon-Fri, dinner Mon-Sat

Owner/chef

Michael Lim

Vegetarian

Extremely

Parking

Surprisingly crowded, even on weeknights

Noise

Appropriate noodlings

Disabled access/toilets

Footpath is on quite a slope, access tricky

Bottom line

Birkenhead has developed into one of Auckland's most interesting culinary neighbourhoods, crammed with a dozen ethnicities of inexpensive, honest, family-owned eateries. Hayashi's menu features raw dishes, grills and braises and pickled vegetables and more intriguing traditional dishes, prepared and presented with assurance and style.

* Read more about what's happening in the world of food, wine, fashion and beauty in viva, part of your Herald print edition every Wednesday.