Yoko is Japanese. She wishes to open a Japanese restaurant in Wellington and so, by way of testing the market, she takes over the kitchens at RAWA House and puts on Japanese food once a week.

First things first: RAWA stands for 'The Renaissance Artists and Writers Association', a friendly front for the Ananda Marga group. They, amongst a lot of other things, run a restaurant cum gallery on the second and third floors of an old building right at the top of Cuba Street. A lot of slog and a fair bit of imagination has turned what was an old dump into a delightful place to spend an odd hour.

The menu changes each week, but to give you an idea last Thursdays hand written card offered the following:

Entree ($1.00)

Kobachi - a finely shredded carrot/mushroom vege mix. Tofu - Soya bean curd Soyabean Salad

Main Course

Tempura - deep fried vegetable slices in batter on skewers $4.00

Udon - Japanese noodles $3.00

Sushi - Vegetable Rice $4.00

Curry & Rice $3.00

Dessert: Sweet potato cake $1.00

With the menu came a mug of light and fragrant Japanese Tea. Yoko will explain the menu to you so you can take a stab at what might appeal.

In the interests of greater student knowledge we tried everything except the curry and rice. It all appealed.

All the courses came in beautiful little lacquered bowls with lids and as only chopsticks were offered and since we knelt at a low table on a raised platform it didn't seem like upper Cuba Street at all.

Soyabean curd is a granulated type of thing with a slightly nutty flavour. Kobachi is a delicate finely shredded salad. I cannot begin to guess the ingredients but there seemed to be several distinct flavours layered through the dishes.

Yoko herself is not vegetarian but out of deference to the people whose kitchen she uses all the dishes are vegetarian.

Tempura is a set of 4 dishes being flavoured rice, a soup to pour over it, two skewers of deep fried vegetables and a light dip to drop the skewers into. There were slices of capsicum, kumera, onion, carrot, aubergine and cauliflower. Beautifully prepared and each bit a separate taste. Sort of sharp like soya sauce maybe but so different from our food presentation tastes that it is hard to explain. The Sushi was a three dish layout with vegetable rice, soup and a tangy ginger and sharp vegetable salad. Udon was a wet noodle dish similar to what you might have in a Chinese restaurant.

The dessert was sweetened mashed kumera with coconut reformed into a cake and eaten with a spoon, More Tea.

There is no feeling of rush in any of this. The alcove that we sat in was the poetry corner where anyone can stick up their most heartfelt bits. And they had. The corollary is that any other person can scrawl their comments over the stuff already up. People don't seem as polite as I was taught to be at school about other people's verses so you can see quite beautiful fears and dreams and their ridicule as well.

While we're on to art; two doors down is a place called Renta - Picture with all kinds of original framed paintaings displayed. I don't know what for unless the name is literally true. But the place is never open when I've been past so if you find out please let me know.

I couldn't work out whether RAWA was byo or not. Play it by ear. You can probably do without it just from the fun of eating there on a Thursday.

Robert Lithgow