Howard Smith Wharves: Yoko, Japanese restaurant review

A fresh take on Japanese, DJ beats and chatty waitstaff bring something new to the table at Howard Smith Wharves.

Like everywhere else in the Howard Smith Wharves precinct, Yoko doesn’t lack for vibe.

The river laps its feet, the Story Bridge underbelly dominates everything above water level, and the crowds just roll past.

And like its neighbouring restaurants, Yoko takes its root-genre and whitewashes it for the midstream public.

Yoko interiors at Howard Smith Wharves

Which is by no means a criticism, simply a description.

In fact if someone could lower the DJ’s music that is not quite doof-doof, not quite coming-down (but still well beyond the desires of the general public and me), it would be a pretty fabulous dining place.

I surely don’t need Yoko Ono on repeat (God forbid) but something a little more innocuous and relaxing would work wonders.

But I think Yoko is meant to be light and fun rather than serious and sombre – the streets of Shinjuku brought to downtown Brisbane – so perhaps I’m moaning unnecessarily.

If the name hasn’t given it away, Japanese is the theme, and it covers the basic array of izakaya (street food), raw seafood, noodles, tempura, dumplings, teriyaki and tonkatsu, plus some cooked seafood dishes, steaks and meats.

Kimchi okonomiyaki at Yoko

Seafood is always a good litmus test for quality, and there’s nowhere to hide when it’s raw.

So we try a sashimi platter ($44) with scallops, kingfish, tuna and salmon, a dab of wasabi: simple, faultless.

It comes without the detailed presentation that characterises good Japanese sashimi but that’s fine – it’s very good seafood.

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By contrast an apparently simple dish of miso-glazed eggplant ($15) is more exotic, more complex, more textural than its rather plain moniker suggests, and perhaps the best dish of the day.

Or maybe that honour belongs to a san-choi-bao meets Japanese pork belly with lettuce cups, pickles, a very good kimchi and condiments ($35). How’s that for cultural fusion?

Fish collar at Yoko

We eat our way through plenty of dishes – so-so gyoza ($16), a quirky, delicious, quite delicate plate of spanner crab and toasted rice with fish roe and edamame ($26), and a good, slightly contemporised rendition of chicken karaage ($14).

But there are some more exotic things that we missed, like pork katsu steam bun; teriyaki fish collar; scallop, silken tofu and yuzu kosho … dishes I reckon would be worth another visit.

Yoko, like all of its kin, has a decent drinks list with a bunch of cocktails (including a Yuzu, rum, mandarin and passionfruit slushy), a terrific range of sake and a lengthy, well curated wine list. Beers? Yeah, kind of.

Yoko dining kingfish. Image: supplied

But the high point of the experience is the service which is detailed, chatty, helpful.

And it’s relaxed, which might not work so well somewhere more posh, but here it’s spot on.

Yoko dining is, first and foremost, fun.

The menu is a clever interpretation of Japanese casual food, cross pollinated and contemporised.

And it comes in a pretty good package.

SCORES OUT OF 10

Food: 7.5

Drinks: 8

Vibe: 8

Service: 8.5

YOKO

Howard Smith Wharves,

Boundary St, city

Ph: 3236 6582