Gokohai serves Japanese style hot-pot, better known as shabu shabu. Although hot pot season is coming to an end as the weather warms up, Gokohai’s focus on mixed vegetables, wheat-flour noodles and puréed radish and carrot toppings makes this restaurant a fresher alternative. If you call ahead, you can reserve a small Japanese style tatami room, or walk in for a table. Each seat has an individual pot, so you don’t have to fish around your friend for the thinly sliced meat or figure out how to cook something separately for a vegetarian.

For those who think of hot pot as being just giant piles of meat, the menu has well selected pre-set kamaboko (ground fish cake), konnyaku (a grey jelly which is a popular Japanese diet food), vegetables, mushrooms and pressed tofu platters. We also ordered a bowl of prawns (12 RMB), but to be honest we should have ordered one bowl per person. The meat slices were very lean and it wasn’t necessary to scrape any fatty water off the top of the pot during the meal.

Located a short walk away from Nanjing Xi lu station, Yoshizoh is the perfect place for grabbing a little Japanese comfort food. You can find it by looking for the white and red lanterns, noren curtain and a kitchen which is visible through the front window. When the cooks see you heading up the narrow stairway, they all shout out ‘irrashimase!’ and it feels more like you’re heading into someone’s home rather than a restaurant.

The atmosphere is very welcoming and the waitresses are eager to practice their English, Chinese or Japanese with patrons. Expect to be seated amongst Japanese office employees, who ask if you mind if they smoke and then bow in response when you say that you don’t. You can choose to sit in western style tables or in small, individually lit rooms with Japanese style tables. The dark wood furnishings are close enough to feel snug and facilitate conversation, but it doesn’t feel overly cramped.