Accord­ing to their web­site, Dojo is Japan­ese for “Place of the Way”. If memory serves, a dojo is also Mod­esty Blaise’s weapon of choice – kind of like two door handles joined togeth­er, which can be applied with force to pres­sure points on your oppon­ent’s body to inflict all kinds of harm & inca­pa­cit­a­tions. And Mod­esty Blaise, you may recall, was the book John Tra­volta was read­ing in the dunny in Pulp Fic­tion. But that’s irrel­ev­ant.

I don’t know what you call the cuisine at Dojo in Wood­ward Street (where Chow used to be – Chow is now in Tory Street), and neither did the wait­ress. Asian/French fusion per­haps? Per­haps we could just call it deli­cious. Dojo's logo.

The res­taur­ant itself is at the top of Wood­ward Street, and up some stairs which bring you right to the well stocked bar. The eat­ing area is small, but remark­ably uncluttered.

Ser­vice is super prompt! And friendly. Three of us star­ted with the “Dojo Remix”, which is a plate of entrees & appet­isers: Seared sal­mon, prawn cakes, satay beef & chick­en. Very tasty.

We fol­lowed with mains of satay chick­en, braised pork hock with stir fried udon noodles, and steamed sal­mon with lime, galangal and lem­on grass, with a shared dish of steamed asi­an veget­ables. We all tried each oth­ers main & each dish was divine! I per­son­ally recom­mend the pork.

Some­what unusu­ally for us, we then all had desserts. My steamed date & ginger pud­ding was light & lovely. My wife’s ginger & basil creme bru­lee was too. Our daugh­ter­’s green tea icecream was… inter­est­ing to my pal­ate… but she scoffed it no prob­lem.

Since it was a birth­day occa­sion, we also had cock­tails – the wait­ress told us it was com­puls­ory. The birth­day girl had a yummy plum dai­quiri, but my pear & eld­er­flower mar­tini was a little sweet for my taste. Maybe I should have let them go ahead & stir it.

The whole lot came to about $195, but that included a bottle of Huia Chardon­nay & the cock­tails.

Over­all, the food was deli­cious & nov­el & we will def­in­itely be going back.

They also do take-out. And will pos­sibly do home deliv­er­ies in the future, if the bar­man is to be believed.