Aka Siro

The name Aka Siro has a simple meaning: red and white. As such the design is simple, functional and homey.

The restaurant's food is too. The dishes are the sorts of Japanese staples you'd call your favourites and have once or twice a week without ever getting tired of them.

The menu features 11 teishoku (main, rice and miso soup) dishes, all served with a crunchy salad of cabbage, iceberg lettuce and cucumber topped with an unusual but more-ish dressing of pureed carrot and vinegar.

Each dish arrives with a subtly flavoured miso soup and you can have as much steamed rice as you like. There are also sides which change daily, such as sardines with pickled cucumber, or sauteed slippery jack mushrooms.

Carnivores should try the slow-cooked pork belly and daikon in sweet sake sauce, grilled pork in egg and flour with Japanese barbecue sauce and mayonnaise, or the tonkatsu, which the menu describes simply as “very popular deep fried pork cutlet”.

And for those who enjoy a spot of fusion, there’s the Hamburg – grilled beef and pork mince patty with tomato and Worcester sauce.

There are also a couple of interesting vegetarian options. The drinks list is short and sweet and features Karita paper drip coffee, specialty teas, grape juice and homemade lemonade.