Rengaya Casual Dining

North Sydney’s Rengaya is one of Australia’s pioneering Japanese-barbeque restaurants, and its Burwood sibling is similarly set up to serve one thing only: all-you-can-eat Japanese yakiniku (grilled meat).

The space (and the dining experience) here is a little more casual, with an industrial design softened by light timber beams on the restaurant’s exterior. There are also two tatami-style private rooms, each accommodating up to 12 people.

For less than $95, you have two hours to order all you want from the iPad menu. Pick from the different Wagyu cuts – ribs, loin, skirt – and cook them to your liking on the coal-fired barbeque fitted into each table, before dipping them into your choice of sauce: an umami-rich soy sauce, a sweet barbeque sauce, or a vinegary soy.

Garlic prawns and scallops, fresh squid, pork ribs, shiitake mushrooms, asparagus and butter corn are on the long list of other dishes you can fire up over the coals.

Apart from barbeque, the buffet menu also offers a generous selection of popular Japanese dishes, including a range of sushi and sashimi, seaweed and egg soup, okonomiyaki on a stick, takoyaki (octopus balls), chicken-wing karaage, and rice and curry. Desserts such as vanilla or matcha soft serve are all included.

To take it up a notch, a special à la carte menu featuring high-quality A5 Wagyu imported from Kagoshima, Japan, can be ordered separately.

To drink, there’s a range of Japanese beers, top-shelf whisky, shochu and umeshu (plum wine), with the latter three also available in tasting flights. If you’re after something sweeter, there are Japanese-inspired lattes and floats, including an iced kurogoma (roasted black sesame) latte and a matcha float.