This place is crazy. Duck in under the noren curtains hanging over the front door, and get hammered by a wall of sound, as grill chefs shout loud welcomes while hovering over long line-ups of Hakata-style kushiyaki skewers. Everybody piles in, elbow-to-elbow, around the central grill counter, on a large communal table, in a booth or on lounge furniture, drinking too much sake and Suntory draft beer. It feels like a rollicking end-of-year office Christmas party just before it gets totally out of hand and you tell the boss what you really think.

Owned by Japan's Goryon-San, and operated by North Sydney wagyu yakiniku​ restaurant, Rengaya, Goryon-San brings the neon-lit back-alley madness of Tokyo to the streets of Surry Hills. It's a typical kakurega, a casual, pub-style izakaya that prides itself on being a place to hide away, relax and have fun.

It's not a place to get all uppity when the sweet, iPad-toting waitstaff bring the wrong order, don't bring an order at all, or tell you that the three things you were dying to try are sold out. All these things happen, and may well continue to happen, but you're better off just ordering another lightly bitter Japanese lager (Hitachino Nest, $14) and not worrying about it.

You can, of course, order stuff that isn't on a stick. Goma salmon ($19) is a hearty dish of big fleshy furls of raw salmon teamed with green leaves, edible flowers and nori seaweed, scantily dressed with sesame cream. But really, Goryon-San is all about the sticks. Hakata, on the island of Kyushu, is where pork belly meets kushiyaki – and what food on a stick could not be improved by being wrapped in pork belly? But somehow, the tightly packed lettuce wrapped in pork belly ($6.50), the bacon-wrapped scallop ($7.50) and even the buta bara of cubed pork belly ($5.50) are all plain old bland. There's none of that straight-off-the-binchotan sizzle, and little of that salty, savoury, lip-licking savouriness that makes kushiyaki and yakitori such great drinking food.