Recently went here for my birthday dinner with the family. Having heard good things about the restaurant from friends and liking what we see saw on the online we were eager to try it out.

We were unsure at to whether or not it was licensed and therefore decided to hedge our bets and bring our own wine. I am still not entirely sure whether the restaurant is purely BYO or not. The décor is nothing flash and even on a Tuesday night it was quite noisy. This did not bother us, but I would say it is not the right setting for an intimate dinner. Another thing to note is that the selection of Japanese cuisine is rather limited, with most of the dishes being more of Thai origin.

For entrée we ordered the gyoza, sashimi, and chicken spring rolls. The sashimi was the real stand out from the starters we tried. More expensive than other entrée items on the menu (as one would almost hope with raw fish) but definitely worth it. If you are looking to try anything at Clover this is the dish I would recommend!

We also decided to share mains and ordered the Thai beef salad, BBQ pork, red chicken curry and teriyaki chicken.

The Thai beef salad was rather spicy and the meat very rare. I am not a fan of beef and so did not have more than a tasting of the dish but the other people I was dining with enjoyed it.

I was personally disappointed with the pork, although this is probably just due to my own dislike of chunks of meat as the rest of our party enjoyed it. I must say that the sauce accompanying the dish was superb and would have liked to try it on a different cut of meat.

The red chicken curry was nice, and as a member of our party commented they appreciate that the food was not “dumbed down” as so many suburban restaurants do to appeal to western tastes. It had the right amount of spice and was my personal favourite main we tasted.

The teriyaki chicken was as you one would expect nice but nothing special.

None of us really ever order dessert however, Dad said we had to try the coconut ice-cream as the taste is rather different from traditional dairy-based ice cream. Personally the coconut ice-cream at Clover did not seem to taste any different from your standard coconut flavour which was a bit disappointing.

All in all though I was very happy with the experience and we all agreed we would dine here again. Especially for the price at just over $100 for four people.

Approximate cost: $120