Is one of Perth’s best steak bargains found at a suburban Japanese restaurant?

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Pop quiz. What is The Bradshaw? Is it a variant of the Cosmopolitan cocktail – as popularised by Sex in The City – that swaps out the standard issue cranberry juice for richer blackcurrant juice? Is it the nickname for the Brisbane Lions’ fairest and best award? Or is it name of a large French herding dog?

The answer, of course, is none of the above.

I also, of course, suspect dialled-in readers guessed that and quickly saw through my flimsy Balderdash-style ruse.

How many readers, however, have visited The Bradshaw, an apartment development in Manning? If so, you’re doing better than me.

Although this area has featured throughout my life – my first job was at O’Briens Clothing Co – it was only this month that I learned there were residents living among the commercial tenants here.

The catalyst for this discovery was Hiyori, an urbane Japanese restaurant that opened in The Bradshaw last November.

While Japanese food is well established in WA – see supermarket shelves everywhere stocked with soy sauce and takeaway California rolls – Hiyori still manages to bring new ideas to the party.

The space, for starters, is no izakaya-by-numbers snoozefest or Temu Nobu knock-off. Those approaching via the Manning Laneway will be greeted by windows dressed with pale linen curtains, ornate lamp shades, a wabi-sabi arrangement of stones, and more empty space than probably makes sense in the current economic climate.

Juliana Koh, the restaurant’s Singaporean-born owner, might have done marketing for a living, but architecture and design are her passions, and it shows.

Neatly stacked chirori sake flasks line the shelves; the bevelled circular plates are Robert Gordon; the plywood chairs are locally made using the Japanese wood joinery technique kigumi.

Yet despite all this design attention to detail, Hiyori presents as warm, not cold; somewhere to hang rather than a museum to be Instagrammed. Much of its charm comes via the cheery front-of-house: natural hosts who are easy to smile and sincere by nature. It’s tempting to chalk up this service as typically deferential Japanese, yet the approach here feels Japanese, but remastered for suburbia.

The menu, a team effort between Koh and her son Jerome Mark Amin, also demonstrates same-same-but-different thinking. Raw tuna is sluiced with a spicy mayo, then arranged on rice paper crackers of impressive load-bearing capacity: a free-spirited yet likeable interpretation of “poke tostada”. Miso butter and warming togarashi chilli lend a Japanese spin on ribs of char-grilled corn.

Fried chicken junkies can choose between squares of chook skin puffed into golden crisps or midwings (shio teba) marinated in shio koji, split in two, then fried. Which is most deserving of a place on your dinner order? In the immortal (translated) words of Mia Agraviador: why not both?

Being mostly a neighbourhood spot, Hiyori doesn’t have Kobe beef, Hokkaido sea urchin and other high-end Japanese ingredients on the menu. But neither does it have the accompanying wallet-busting prices.

So while there’s West Australian Futari wagyu on the menu, the cut is oyster, an undervalued cut of beef equally suited to being thinly sliced and presented raw as carpaccio as it is being char-grilled and served with a sweet miso-spiked bearnaise sauce. The cooked wagyu is also just $26 and is surely one of Perth’s biggest steak bargains.

While the yakitori isn’t quite Washokudo-good, there’s enough caramelisation and char on Hiyori’s sticks to appease grilled chicken fans. Skip the generic-tasting sake clams in favour of the shimesaba: vinegary cured mackerel (not made in-house but imported from Japan) teamed with a ginger oil that conjures memories of Hainanese chicken rice. Desserts and a tight drinks list – another study in east meeting west – keep the focus on value right to the finish.

While I haven’t road-tested every neighbourhood Japanese restaurant in Perth, I like to think that I’ve experienced enough Japanese meals to confidently say Hiyori’s approach – and price point – feels spot-on for the suburbs.

Dinner for three with sweets and booze was less than $200. A recent solo omakase outing cost me more than that while being far less enjoyable.

Perhaps there’s a little-known address in your neck of the woods delivering bang-for-buck? I hope so. (And that you tell me about it.)

But until you find your local Hiyori, a visit to The Bradshaw makes for a rewarding night out.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.