I am suffering from diner envy. I feel like the woman in the deli, watching Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal’s characters in When Harry Met Sally. We are eating at Iwa, a relatively new Japanese restaurant in Chatswood and the table next to ours has ordered yakiniku. The stove comes as a large earthenware pot on top of which is a metal grill. A copper coloured exhaust is pulled down from the top of the table and waiters start dropping off plates of glistening meat and chopped vegetables which you cook yourself. The smell wafting over is smoky and wonderful. I want what they’re having!

Instead, we’re ordering little dishes off the prettily photographed menu. There’s a whole page on the menu dedicated to wagyu beef, which can’t be a bad thing. I’m not sure what to make of the look and feel of this place though. Faux gas lamps hanging from the ceiling, the log shaped stools, velveteen cushions and dark wood tables all evoke a sense of dining outside. I half expect to detect a scent of citronella burning and to see fireflies hovering above our heads. We are seated next to the kitchen pass (a dark bricked area), and can hear the chefs yelling, “Service!” from time to time. B finds it a bit distracting, but I don’t mind it, even though it does remind me of being at work.

The Beef Tataki appetiser comes as slices of beef topped with salad, red onion and a generous splash of a very delicious vinegary sauce. The beef is very tender, but the texture a little strange – somewhat reminiscent of corned beef. The Sea Bass with a spicy miso sauce arrives next as two pieces of fish with thick black slashes on the flesh due to time spent on the grill. It is well seasoned and is a good match with the sauce and cooling slices of cucumber. Again, a tasty dish, but the fish had the texture similar to that of cured fish, which was unexpected.

Next is the least successful dish of the evening : a Spicy Tuna Roll. The serve looks generous, but upon closer inspection, there is barely any tuna in the roll. Most of the filling is beefed up by fake crab stick – an item I don’t really think should feature in any kind of restaurant at all. It reminds me of that unsatisfying feeling I get whenever I pick up a $2 sushi roll from almost any takeaway sushi outlet in the city.

Being greedy, we finish our meal with a plate of superbly light and crispy Tempura. And here’s where it becomes advantageous to eat out with someone who’s more than just a friend : He doesn’t mind if I double dip the sauce, and I don’t mind when he tries to convince me that we both had one prawn each and that his just happened to have two tails!

Iwa Japanese Yakiniku Dining Room
380 Victoria Ave
Chatswood 2067.