Shop 5, 1 Elgar Rd, Derrimut. Phone: 9363 1554

I’VE BEEN TOLD THIS RESTAURANT HAS NOW CLOSED.

Head up Ballarat Rd, turn right at Deer Park, keep on driving and you’re in Derrimut.

This is a trip into the unknown for us, in more ways than one.

It’s an area in transition.

Our destination for the night is part of a shopping precinct – a car wash and a handful of eateries (Subway, Turkish, Chinese/noodles, F&C, Japanese) on one side of Mount Derrimut Rd, a Coles and more cheap eats on the other – that doesn’t appear on Google maps.

Further on up the road we spy Sunshine Golf Club on one side of a large roundabout and a slice of swish-looking suburbia on the other.

Everywhere are the bleak vistas of industrial parks and lack of humanity.

No matter.

We’re here for the food, as they say in the classics.

We’d spied Shota Muni while cruising around after lunch at Kabayan Filipino Restaurant.

Our expectations range from the nastiest of takeaway sushi rolls to the real deal – some good and varied Japanese stuff.

Happily, our Friday night dinner very much fits into the latter category – with a few hiccups.

After placing our order, we are presented with small bowls of complementary bean sprouts. Vinegary, sweet and with just a touch of chilli kick, they are very high on the scale of scrumptiousness.

Our order of gyoza duly arrives. The dumplings look sleek and glistening – and like they’re going to be on the crunchy side. They’re not. Instead, they’re slippery, tender and delicious. Kenny has two. He wants more, but the dumpling nut opposite does the pleading thing and gets four.

Bennie finds the whole idea of bento very appealing – all those little compartments, so much variety. So the staff are nice are enough to rustle one up for the boy when asked nicely – they’re usually only part of the lunch menu.

It’s a winner!

Seemingly a little pricey at $16.80, it has three weirdly elongated prawns tempura (they look like roasted anorexic parsnips), a mound of rice, three more gyoza and a gratifyingly large serve of sweetly grilled salmon, under which lie some salad bits and pieces. This is the only greenery – a little disappointing, as bento deals usually involve some kind of more substantial vegetable or salad quotient.

Still, I am not about to complain. This is the first time – EVER – Bennie has ordered fish. Could this be a breakthrough?

The three generous pieces of fish are just the slightest bit overcooked, but there’s more than enough for dad to have a good taste, too.

My own main course order is the biggest hiccup of the night.

It’s a beef hot pot for $18.80, a variation of shabu shabu.

But it’s not cooked at the table.

Instead, it arrives in a large paper bowl, which is placed on a burner fuelled by some sort of petroleum jelly substance that looks like it belongs in a lava lamp.

There’s no rice provided, no way to sup on the stock in which the meat, vegetables and cellophane noodles are cooking – the whole trip is a little weird.

Our waiter suggests I dip the food in soy sauce, and that works. But soon the food is scaldingly hot, and has to be removed to a plate for further eating.

The mix of sliced beef, bean sprouts, cabbage, carrot and tofu is nice enough. But really, it’s more like what I need rather than what I want. After a long week of commuting, holiday program and so on, something a bit more sexy and seasoned would have been welcome.

And there’s plenty of that going on at Shota Muni.

The menu lists a long range of grills, salads, ramen and udon, donburi, tempura and so on. I’d want to know if the range of fish extends beyond the usual salmon and tuna, however, before embarking on a sushi/sashimi adventure here.

Oddly, we are served a single bowl of excellent miso soup after our mains arrive.

Still, we are satisfied – so much so that the non-arrival of our seaweed salad is of no consequence.

The bill is a tad over $50, including a strawberry Calpico cultured milk soda pop for Bennie.

This is a scandalous tab for the likes of us – but, hey, it’s Friday night.

Back home, I discover online that Shota Muni seems to be a chain of Japanese eateries with Chinese roots and/or connections. Whether the Derrimut version has ties in that direction, I know not.