As pointed out to me by some readers, Sushi Hiro which has now closed, use to be the Japanese restaurant favoured by chefs Heston Blumenthal and Anthony Demetre of Arbutus. But just a few steps down the road is another Japanese gem, Kiraku. The story goes that Heston only stumbled across Sushi Hiro because he was trying to get a table at Kiraku after being sent there by the head of his experimental kitchen, Kyle Connaughton. Finding the latter full, he wandered down to Sushi Hiro instead.

I haven’t been to Kiraku in a while, but I use to be a bit of a regular there, and time and time again I was hooked by the kaki fry (fried oysters: £8.80) and the saba shio (grilled mackerel: £6.90), so much so, I had to introduce the delights of these two dishes to my friends. They were suitable impressed. The meaty flavour of the giant sized oysters exploding in your mouth as you bit into the wonderful coating of crunchy panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) was impressive, as was the contrasting sweetness of the tonkatsu sauce.

Fried oysters

The mackerel also delighted with its fantastically crispy skin and moist succulent flesh. A drizzle of lemon juice and some grated daikon also worked a treat. I adore the way the Japanese grill their mackerel, and Kiraku probably produces some of the best in London.

Grilled mackerel

A special sushi set (£18.50) was very fresh. The sweetness and acidity in the rice was well balanced. It was reasonably priced, but Atari-ya still has better priced sushi in London just like the So Good Sushi bar in France.

Special sushi set

A serving of gyoza was good and decent (£5). Nasu dengaku (grilled aubergine with miso and sesame pastes: £5.90) was gooey and soft, as well cooked aubergine should be. Both the miso and sesame pastes were nicely flavoured, but there was a touch too much of each which slightly overpowered the delicacy of the aubergine.

Gyoza & grilled aubergine

Prawn tempura (£12) with firm juicy prawns was delicious. The tempura batter was wonderfully crispy but could have been a little lighter. Agedashi tofu was slightly disappointing as it was a little bland.

Prawn tempura

Agedashi tofu

We finished with a selection of ice creams (azuki beans, green tea and cinnamon: £3.80 to £4.30) which weren’t bad, although there were ice crystals to be found in my green tea scoop.

I like Kiraku a lot. I’ve been here a number of times and I think the food is consistently good, especially the kaki fry and the saba shio. Kiraku is a family business and it shows in the homely atmosphere, down-to-earth Japanese decor and warm friendly service. It’s well worth making the trip to Ealing Common for.

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Summary information

Food rating: [xrr rating=4/5]
Service rating: [xrr rating=3.5/5]

Price range: £25 to £35 per head, excludes drinks and service.
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Web: http://kirakulondon.wordpress.com/

Koya is the hottest udon-ya in London right now. In fact, it’s the only proper udon-ya in London where a man in the basement makes the noodles by rolling them with his feet for five hours every day. The restaurant is homey and simple, with tiled floors and pinewood furniture. The tables are for sharing, and it’s the kind of place that you imagine would be fantastically warm and cosy in winter. As I walked in, I couldn’t help but be taken in by the wonderful, gentle aroma of the delicious, smelling miso soup. Perfect for the onset of the autumnal weather!

Udon noodles are the highlight here, but I wanted to try some of the other dishes as well. From the specials menu, baby clams steamed in sake (£8) were nicely cooked such that they were still firm. However the accompanying broth was extremely salty which made it quite overwhelming.

Baby clams steamed in sake

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Japanese Restaurant Roka on Charlotte Street (there is a new branch in Canary Wharf) is one of those places where it can be really difficult to get a reservation, especially on those ‘going out’ nights like Friday. I’ve tried booking on a number of times, and on each occasion I was told it was full. But I managed to achieve the seemingly impossible task of getting a table when I discovered that there is a bar seating area called the sushi and robatayaki counter which is open to customers on a first-come-first-served-no-booking basis. It’s located right in front of the chefs who cook on the open grill, and the best time to go to ensure a counter seat seems to be before 7.30pm. So for those who want to eat at Roka and can’t get a reservation, this is the route to try.

In fact, when I turned up just after 7pm looking for a counter table, I managed to secure a table for 8pm.. This allowed time for a detour to the affiliated Shochu Lounge Bar in the basement area downstairs (shochu is a type of Japanese spirit, typically containing about 25% alcohol). They have an abundance of fabulous cocktails, a number of which contain shochu.

Black cod marinated in yuzu miso & hajikami

The food menu is full of choices, but it’s always hard to pass up on a black cod marinated in yuzu (a citrus fruit) miso and homemade hajikami (ginger pickled in vinegar) (£22.60). This was a lovely rendition of the classic ‘Nobu’ dish, with the cod being succulent and flaky. It oozed with lots of sweet, slightly sticky yuzu miso sauce.

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Mixed selection of sushi and sashimi at Atariya

Atariya is a little hole-in-the-way Japanese sushi place nestled amongst a string of restaurants along James Street, just north of the shopping pulse of Oxford Street. Actually, it’s part of a chain, although I’ve only been to the one on James Street. The great draw card of Atariya is that the sushi is resoundingly fresh. Just ask Jason Atherton, chef of one star Michelin restaurant Maze and his adjoining Maze Grill. I did, when I bumped into him at Atariya last year and got chatting to him. Apparently he’s a bit of a regular for the simple reason that the sushi is so fresh. And Atariya, being a stone’s throw away from his restaurants on Grosvenor Square, means it is all quite accessible when he’s taking a break.

I too have visited Atariya many times. It’s where I go when I’m in need of a sushi fix, and I’ve never been disappointed with its freshness, although the most stringent and rigorous of sushi connoisseurs might challenge the slight inconsistencies in the sizing of the sashimi pieces which occasionally seem to change from time to time. But this is a minor detail. It’s the freshness of the seafood that counts the most, and this is pretty assured. Furthermore, the vinegary sushi rice is authentic, with that required level of stickiness and sweetness.

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Okonomiyaki at Abeno Too

Last week, a fellow food blogger, 5 Star Foodie, contacted me to ask if I would guest post on her blog and I immediately jumped at the chance. Its always great to be able to share your love of food with other food lovers, but also extremely satisfying to be considered worthy enough to feature on another person’s blog. For this purpose, I wrote about Abeno Too, an okonomiyaki restaurant. So without further ado, please click on Abeno Too Review to read my post…

Abeno Too at:
17-18 Great Newport Street
London WC2H 7JE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7379 1160
http://www.abeno.co.uk/index_too.html

A girl has to eat, and this time it’s Japanese food! So check out my latest review on Tsunami Japanese Restaurant as I storm my way through a multitude of dishes. I’ve posted it as part of a blog exchange with fellow food blogger, Londoneater.

So to read all, and savour the yummy dishes, click here ‘Tsunami Restaurant Review’.

And be sure to come back here on Wednesday to check out Londoneater’s post.

Happy eating!

When a restaurant boasts the name of Alan Yau behind it, one cannot help but have high expectations. Alan Yau is the man synonymous with the success of Hakkasan and Yauatcha, both Michelin star holders, and other well-known establishments such as Busaba Eathai, Wagamama and the recently-opened gorgeous Milanese bakery, Princi. Such is his Midas touch, it seems only just to have high expectations when stepping through the door of one of his restaurants. So it was that I went to dinner at Sake no Hana (Flower of Sake) last night, another Alan Yau offering, giddy with the weight of expectation. Add the money of owner Evgeny Lebedev, son of a Russian oligarch, and a location in the heart of Mayfair, and you would seemingly have a blend to induce one huge success story.

But for the privilege of such a pedigree, a monied backdrop and said location, comes a price. Case in point, the beer. £9.50. Yes you read right, nine pounds and fifty pence. Ok, it was good beer, Suntory premium malt (a winner of the Grand Gold Medal at Monde Selection for Three Consecutive Years), and admittedly not a kind you might readily obtain in London. But still: £9.50? It was the same price as my cocktail, the ‘Gandara Dream’ (Kumquats, Diplomatico Reserva rum, Don Julio Silver tequila, Umeshu plum liqueur, almond sugar and green tea), which as delicious as it was, was more ice than drink.

Softshell crab salad with wasabi sauce

We started with a softshell crab salad with wasabi sauce (£10.50), although we had tried to start with two different scallop dishes: the prawn, scallop and lotus root katsu (£8), and the scallop and spring onion in miso mustard dressing (£8.50), only to be told that both the scallop dishes were unavailable. Huh? It was barely 7pm, and with Sake no Hana’s pricing levels and upmarket persona, this was all too disappointing.

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A few months ago I debated the merits of buying this smashing pair of Prada sunglasses. I mention them because sunglasses rarely look good on me and these ones did. However it came at a price of course, and so whilst my foxy inner angel in fishnet stockings and slinky stilettos went “go, go, go”, my sensible inner angel in her matronly outfit then counterattacked by asking if I could actually afford them. ‘Sensible’ eventually won over, but months later I kept wishing I had succumbed to my inner yearnings.

Sitting at dinner at Inamo, I was again washed over with that wave of “I wish I had bought those damn sunglasses”. Playing with the table, I was being blinded by the kaleidoscope of ever changing patterns and colours that were flashing up at me from this new toy every two minutes.

To explain, Inamo is a restaurant with an interactive ordering system. The menu is displayed through the table and once you’ve decided what you want, you order through the table. There are also games, even a function to allow you to call for a taxi home, and you can also choose the patterns and colours of your table to design your own personal look. But we were being all too clever, we were. We had decided on the random select mode and our table therefore changed patterns and colours every two minutes. So really, I only had us to blame for being blinded, by of all things, a table.

Our shiny table on random shuffle

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