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.