Roka is what I like to call one of those “Sex and the City” restaurants. It’s hip, it’s trendy, and when you walk in there’s a feeling of importance thanks to the ambience, the music, the staff and more importantly, the (possibly imaginary) stares. You’ll want to play dress up before coming here and if that’s not Sex and the City-esq, then I don’t know what is… and I LOVE IT!

As hip as it is, it still has an Asian feel, i.e., everything here is very woody – the walls, the tables, the lights. If you want to watch the chefs grilling and cooking, there is a bar like counter – nice if you’re a single diner or a couple.

The first thing on our table was the Ama Ebi to Hotate Yaki Maki. It’s one of their signature dishes and after one bite you’ll know why. It was one of the most intriguing and delicious maki I’ve ever tasted. No exaggeration. So many tastes come flying at you from the lime, scallop, shrimp, rice and even the crisp seaweed. Each ingredient is so fresh. You can taste the fresh flame grilled scallop with the sweet prawn all in a bite. Even the sushi rice is nicely cooked. For $95, the portion is decent and the taste is well worth the price.

Next, we moved on to the wonderfully presented Tuna Salad. The tuna is fresh and the salad is served with apple mustard dressing which I thought was a little too acidic and overpowered the freshness of the tuna. Overall, it was another great dish to start the meal.

As another starter we tried the Gin Tara No Gyoza – prawn and black cod dumpling served with a ginger sauce. As recommend by the server, we did not feel the need to use the sauce since the dumplings are well seasoned. And even though the dish is made with two different kinds of seafood, the tastes are distinguishable which I find important.

The first or our main courses was another signature dish, the Gindara Saikyo Zuke no Kushiyaki – black cod skewer with gingered Saikyo miso. A generous sprinkling of ginger cuts the sweetness of the combination of the black cod and miso. We were told that, because the Cod is so oily, it is pressed for 12 hours and marinated for another 12 to make sure the seasoning is absorbed. I really enjoyed this dish although it might be too rich as your only main so I suggest sharing.

Our second main course was the Lamb Cutlets with Hot Pepper Spices ($190) served with a pepper sauce or a salt and pepper rub. I’m not a fan of lamb but after tasting this wonderful dish I can say I’m a convert! The lamb is prepared just right and extremely tender with the hot pepper sauce a good compliment.

For dessert, we ended our meal with the Ichigo to Jasmine no Sundae – in short, a jasmine flavoured ice-cream sundae. I was pretty amazed at the presentation as you can see the different layers of ingredients and as for the taste – I won’t give too much away because I think everyone should end their meal with this dessert. You won’t regret it.

I haven’t had this good of a good meal in such a long time and it’s nice to know that Roka has proved the saying “if the interior is nice, the food must stink” absolutely wrong.