KatsuCo

A mortar and pestle arrives before the food does. You grind the sesame yourself and the sauce goes in on top, so by the time the katsu lands you've made your own dipping sauce. Children work this out immediately and adults take a little longer.

Some visits you'll hear the pounding from the kitchen — a steady thumping through the wall while you're still reading the menu. That's the sound that explains the tender bites here, a few metres from where you're sitting.

The tomahawk katsu is the one people come back for and the ebi katsu runs it close. The crumb holds and stays crisp under the sauce instead of going soft on the plate.

The sashimi is very good for a place that isn't really a sashimi restaurant. Fresh, cut properly, and worth ordering alongside rather than instead.

Curry comes with it if you want, and the katsu holds up in it where a thinner crumb would fall apart. People who try it that way once tend to order it that way every time.

Big tables work here. Eleven people order eleven different things and it all comes out at once, and you notice because almost nowhere manages it.

It's genuinely built for families. The kids' menu doubles as a colouring sheet with crayons on every table, so the wait becomes something to do instead of something to survive, and children stay put with their hands busy instead of reaching for a screen. The room's warm and spotless and unhurried even when it's full, and it feels like a place run by people who intend to still be running it in ten years.

Sunnybank Hills keeps its good food in shopping strips instead of on a main street, and you'd drive past this one a hundred times without noticing. That's true of most of the best eating out here.