Gilgamesh - Gilga-meah in Camden - Oct 2013

It's been a while since Gilgamesh opened. The 800 seat 'super restaurant' landed in pre-gentrified Camden Lock market in 2006 like a blinged-up supertanker gatecrashing a Levellers gig.

Visually, it's stunning. The diner-to-be ascends a narrow escalator, which opens out into an atrium space, a cavernous daylight-filled dome, stuffed with ornately carved dark woods and squadrons of hushed staff. It's definitely one of the more extravagant spaces in the city, as distinctive as the tall tower dining of the Shard and its ilk.

Sadly, it didn't take long to go downhill on a recent lunch visit. Paper towels, scuffed and peeling menus and cheap, unwrapped disposable chopsticks clash with the opulent surroundings. We were the first people in at 12.30 on a weekend lunchtime, and indeed the only diners for a while, so maybe they only bring out the good stuff (and staff) for the beautiful people later on in the evening.

It's a surprise that it's so quiet, given the vast hordes chowing down on hideously stodgy, reheated muck from the noodle merchants below. Despite the prices being more Chelsea that Camden, Gilgamesh have a set lunch menu at £12, so are not so far from competing in price and are surely a step above a styrofoam tray of MSG. I think there's more they could be doing to create a welcoming entrance - either that or they need to actively compete with the serried ranks loudly peddling their deep-fried chicken drowned in gloopy sauce, and offer people a taster.

Given the pricing on the main menu, the disparity between the pricing of the set dim sum menu and the a la carte causes some confusion. The latter offers a pan-Asian mix with most main dishes hovering in the £17 to £25 level, the former offers 3 'types' of dim sum for £12. With no idea how much that might deliver us we go a la carte.
  

Mushroom dumplings were green, glutinous and somewhat grim. They filled a steamer basket like claggy shopping bags filled with a lukewarm mushroom vol au vent mix. Similarly, an £8 dish of three unremarkable chicken gyoza arrived flabby and too cold again, their skin lacking any crisp or crunch. Mottled, soft and wrinkled like swimmers who've spent too long in a municipal pool. Overall, the mixed temperature of the food became a lunchtime theme, with most dishes just not hot enough. Admittedly, it's an enormous restaurant, but it didn't take so long to get from the kitchen to justify the tepid temperature of so many dishes.

Ribs were of decent enough quality meat, but had been cruelly treated. Cooked in (or at least covered in) a glossy oilslick of black bean sauce, tasting like a sweet soy that had been punched in the face by a rogue gang of star anise pods and not much more. A rare high came with great tempura prawns. Scattered with a sprinkle of crushed something, jade green methamphetamine maybe, they were as moreish as they were fresh, though four of them for £17.50 is definitely on the steep side. 

Conversely, the T'n'T 'sashimi' pizza (I'm not entirely sure that's where best to place the quotation marks, but they need to go somewhere in a half-baked concept like this) wasn't the best idea of the day. There's a T for the tuna, wafer-thin slices of very good sashimi, thrown away on an over-salted flat biscuit base and violently assaulted with truffle oil (that other T) and acerbic micro greens.

The Chef's sashimi selection was thickly sliced, lumpen and way too cold for the flavours of the fish to have opened up. I wasn't expecting Dinings or Umu standards, but I was hoping for better than M&S. We've moved on with Japanese and Asian dining in the capital, it just doesn't feel like the team at Gilgamesh has noticed. Two pieces each of salmon, tuna, prawn and (I think..) mackerel were plonked down unceremoniously by the server unannounced and unexplained.

At £40 a head for an a la carte lunch with no drinks it's difficult to see me being back to try their evening atmosphere, though I'm sure that for some, the idea of a roped-off luxe lounge in the heart of newly wealthy Camden is de trop. It's a world away from the Hawley Arms that's for sure. But come here for food? I'm not sure I could do it (and I'm not sure anyone else does). It's a gigantic bar and club that also serves food. Overpriced mediocrity I know your name. And it is Gilgamesh.

DISCLAIMER: We were invited to dine here (anonymously) by the restaurant. We walked in unannounced, paid in full and then were refunded by the restaurant PR after we'd left the restaurant. 

 


 

Mmmm Ramen... hip to the jive - Jan 2013

It's January! And what do you need to beat January? There's nothing like a healthy soup right? And trust me, tonkotsu ramen are nothing like a healthy soup...

After my recent rant about burgers I should be careful about jumping on another bandwagon lest I end up with more on trend foodstuffs I can't write about. After the gourmet meat patty explosion, the latest import popping up is that Japanese addition to the street food canon, ramen noodles. And not just ramen noodles, but the porkiest, most unctuous subset of ramen, tonkotsu.

With ramen, and especially with tonkotsu, the news isn't about the noodles. They're the bread that soaks up the soup. They need to be good, but they're not (really) the story for me. The story is the broth… broth made from pork bones to be precise, long and slow cooked for 15 hours or more until they yield up their fatty bounty into a creamy collagen rich soup. As an advertisement at Shoryu proudly describes it, 'rich, creamy and porkalicious'. Oh, and reader, it is.

I won't write too much about them, but instead defer to Marina O'Laughlin's excellent review on the most recent openings, Bone Daddies and Shoryu. I'd also recommend that you read her end of the year round up on the inexorable rise of trendy, dirty fodder like ramen and burgers. It's bloody funny (and bloody accurate).

Now noodles aren't just meaty delivery systems, there are numerous different styles (ask Mr Noodles, he has almost an entire blog devoted to them) and combinations, but the one unifying rule should be that it's (very) hearty, healthy(ish) and leaves you feeling better than you were when you walked in. Like the Japanese version of chicken soup, this is food that soothes the soul.

I've become slightly obsessed with the Soho venues that have sprung up offering the noodle, particularly ramen, over the last few months. As much because it's the perfect solo lunch or pre-theatre dinner. They all (with the exception of Ittenbari) have a counter that means you don't feel out of place slurping away on your own. Of all of them though, I preferred the atmosphere at Bone Daddies, it's buzzy, fun and resolutely non-traditional. The least authentic of the lot, but the chance to stare out at the passing Soho trade while supping your thick broth means that this is the perfect way to spend a lunchtime. The ramen was almost too porky for me*, packed with salty piggy flavour and creamily unctuous. Served with a rich and shining soft boiled egg and thick slices of the pig whose bones you are literally drinking, it's protein and protein and protein till you can't take any more.

Shoryu feels slightly more authentic but somehow slightly more austere (the cringey communal greeting all of the staff holler as you walk in aside) and Ittenbari, despite not offering the tonkotsu everyone is lusting over, is still often packed, it's shabby interior full to bursting with a silently polite line of ex-pats and Japanophiles queuing out of the door. Tonkotsu has proved the easiest to snag a table at, but here still you'll face a 30 minute wait of a prime time evening. To a casual like me they all taste pretty fine though it's definitely that Bone Daddies stock I wake up after dreaming about.

At between £8 and £11 a bowl it's not as cheap as it should be, but as a once a week treat it beats a burger. Don't kid yourself though, it certainly isn't as healthy as you make out just because you eat it with a spoon and it has veg spiked through it. It's probably not far off the calorie count of that burger if you checked (I won't if you won't). Even conveyor belt kings Yo Sushi are getting in on the game... Ramen vs Hunger emblazoned across their windows. I can't contradict them on that, and given the quality of the rest of the menu, I may not... any reports welcome!

Four spots for ramen in Soho:
Tonkotsu - 63 Dean Street, W1D 4QG
Shoryu - 9 Regents Street, SW1Y 4LR (opposite the Japan Centre)
Bone Daddies - 31 Peter Street, W1F 0AR
Ittenbari - 84 Brewer Street, W1F 9UB
And if you can't get enough of your noodles, then pop round to Koya - 49 Frith Street, W1D 4SG - Thicker udon noodles here, but damnably tasty all the same...


*even now I'm ashamed to have written that sentence...

Tonkotsu - souped-up super noodles in Soho - Nov 2012

A year or so ago, a place called Koya opened in Soho. It's a stripped back little place with a sparse menu focussed on their highly revered house noodles, a few dumplings and the odd daily special. It's good, very good, and used to be a real favourite for lunch when I worked locally.

Ramen noodle bars are a pretty big deal in similarly multicultural New York, their equivalent of the recent London burger explosion. However unlike other ultra-successful food trends here it seemed to start, and stop with Koya. The queues, growing nightly out of the blue curtain swagged door told any chancy restaurateur that this could be the start of something big. It's taken a while, but it seems that there are a few others springing up now. A caveat at this point, it could be that there are a load of decent noodle places around that I don't know about, so if you have any other recommendations, drop me a note.

I have to say that Ittenbari didn't wow me as much as Twitter told me it would, the slow braised pork slices were strangely flavourless, though the snaking queues of silently anticipatory Japanese expats gave some clue to the popularity of the place. The most recent to open, the chillingly named Bone Daddy, is on the list.

In essence, it's simple. Pick your base stock and key ingredient, add extra noodles or soft boiled egg if you will and serve. This simplicity is what for some can elevate the humble ramen noodle dish to an art form.

Here the soft egg was burnished bronze perfection, lightly gelatinous white leaking golden savoury depth into the clear stock, thickening and enriching almost like butter. The noodles were perfectly cooked with a slight snap to them (though I'm no expert on the subject) and sank into the life giving, clear and umami packed stock. With expertly crisped chicken karaage alongside, it's a simple, satisfying and savoury lunch.

   

Kikuchi - High end sushi off the Tottenham Court Road - Aug 2012

I once took my small, Northern mother for a sushi blowout at Jenny's in Manhattan, keen to introduce her to my new favourite thing. She flashed me a helpless pleading look as the enormous plate of mixed sashimi and nigiri landed and I hastily ordered her a side salad with (cooked) tuna before nailing the lot myself. 

If you were a sushi newcomer, Kikuchi probably wouldn't the most accessible entry into the world of high-grade fish. Even for people who know their nigiri from their nitsume we had some problems with the ordering. The staff might be bright and friendly but given the extremely high ratio of Japanese customers, they assume that you know exactly what you're doing here. Asking for advice on the sake generated confusedface from our waitress, who stabbed the page at random and shrugged apologetically. Similar worry radiated when we asked whether we'd under-ordered, although looking at my ever expanding stomach probably made that a more delicate question.

The supermodel of Japanese food, black cod marinated in miso, is one of my favourite plates in a good Japanese restaurant. It's an expensive fish, but the flavour is divine, and here it's one of the best I've had. At £20 for a single fillet it's steep, but against the £42 you'll pay at Nobu it's a steal. If you wanna spend a lot of money on food, go for sushi. Every time. It's the food choice of the gourmet aesthete and the cash-loaded philistine alike. The former seeking out the rare and the subtle, the latter seeking pricey ostentation. It's overtaken caviar, even among the Russian super rich (though to be fair that's probably more the influence of their fashion conscious girlfriends).

At the other end of the pricing spectrum, we shared a small hot plate of sliced fish cakes - thin patties of crab and shrimp and other white fish, compacted into a thinly fried slice, a grownup fish ball if you will.

Nigiri - a good selection freshly made, more fish than rice, and every piece exceptional. We had 12 pieces to share, each with a different payload. Fatty o-toro tuna was, as expected, the standout for flavour. Marbled like a fine steak, potentially an ecological worry but unavoidably gorgeous. Eel was dark and brooding, a tang of the estuary to go with the fresh flesh of the open sea. Buttery and sweet silken tuna reared its fin again as thickly sliced yellowtail sashimi, close to perfect for my gaijin tastes.

The only disappointment was a final menu Tourettes order of duck skewers, too quick off the grill and still shocked to tight chewiness by the lick of the flame.

The crowd is as you'd expect from a high-ish end sushi joint in central London. There are a fair few tables of Japanese businessmen, interspersed with the odd couple on a special date night (guilty) and a scattering of braying hedge fundies, piling in with the sad acceptance that there's nothing like this for them in Zug or Zurich.

   

 

Ittenbari - chicken soup for the Japanese soul - Apr 2012

There were a good mix of Japanese and European faces filling the utilitarian tables and the queues outside as we left were as long as those outside previous noodle-magnet Koya. With plenty of spaces in the noodle bars next door and around 'little Japan' it would appear that somehow this new Brewer Street addition is engendering the same fanaticism that Koya manages. So what is it with this noodley obsession in London, and what is it specifically with Ittenbari?

Ramen is like chicken soup for the Japanese soul. A big bowl of steaming handmade noodles lurk like deep sea cables in a fragrant pool of umami rich seaspiced broth ripe with veg, pork and a perfectly cooked egg. Simple, egalitarian and delicious. This is the food of Gods, and a workday lunch for most of Japan, the lucky bastards.

Despite the posters announcing a new opening, it doesn't look like they've decorated in years. The grafitti on the back of the loo door is historic and the decor chipped. What is new it would seem is the ownership. It's now the London outpost of a renowned Osakan institution, imagine the frenetic foodie buzz if Russell Norman opened Polpo Tokyo and you might come close.

It's difficult and naive for this knowless gaijin to pass judgement on the actual noodles. I'll let the photo of the crowds streaming down the street at the lunch service do that. Was it the finest lunch i've had in my life? No, but it genuinely came close... As a fulfilling, tasty meal, I can safely say that it's hard to beat.

Koya - noodling round Soho- Apr 2011

Where: Koya, Frith Street Soho

How much: Bowls of noodles or rice are between £8 and £13 with side plates around a fiver each. 

With who: The Lumberjack

Come here if: you can manage to get a table

There's a real renaissance in reservation free dining in the West End. Looking at most of the current hot lists, there's a number of names cropping up again and again; #Meateasy, the New Cross burger pop up, Sputino, Russell Norman's latest 26 seater Soho spot, Dishoom and Koya, each expect you to take your time, and take your chance with the queues. I'd love to link it to some banker backlash, a sense of camaraderie from eager restaurateurs seeking to kick back against the elite and provide opportunity to all, but it's more of a new type of dining, a more casual twist away from the fine dining edge. 

Casual Koya certainly is. Dressed down, colour coordinated soft linen lined staff straight out of a Muji advert. Plain walls, bare wooden tables aimed at twos and reclaimed floor tiles, it's a pretty space, though nothing designed, arty or memorable. It's a little Japanese cafe focussed firmly on the art of the noodle.

There's lots to like here. The staff are friendly and unobtrusive, still or sparkling filtered water land on your table as soon as you're handed the slim 2 page menu. There isn't long to wait for food, the homemade udon noodles that are the staple of the house, are made fresh daily and briefly braised in an umami rich broth and served with a variety of accompaniments. While you can have several of their delicately flavoured toppings with rice and have the noodles dry, without the broth, but for me these both miss the best bit. We started with cold sliced duck breast in light soy with fierce Japanese mustard on the side comes to share. It's nothing to write home about (assuming your home was in Japan) but it's a great piece of meat, cooked well. The noodles are exceptional, as always. Thick worms of al dente udon simmer in a broth shared with slow poached chicken, vegetables and a golden poached egg shining in the centre of the pot. Sprinkled with a spoonful of deep red shichimi seasoning, combining chilli pepper, orange peel and toasted sesame seeds, it's a thing of beauty. 

Review of Aqua Nueva in Soho - Nov 2010

Where: Aqua Nueva, Oxford Circus

With who: A pair of clients and one of our account managers

How much: We were treated, but it's not cheap... 'tapas' style starters from £8 - £12 a plate and mains from £22. I dread to think how much we paid for the three bottles of a fair but forgettable Rioja we shared.

Come here if: Someone with deep pockets owes you a favour

Las Vegas is wonderful for many things, among them a real sense of pomp and circumstance around the art of eating. Sure, you can grab a burger, or queue up at the trough of an all you can eat buffet to feed your face with the best of them, but there are plenty of places where flair is key. I was reminded of this as I entered the slightly schizophrenic entrance of Aqua, two restaurants for one, in the old Dickens and Jones store on Argyll Street. Heavy red drapes, suited flunkys and confusing mirrors remind you more of the circus house in Twin Peaks than luxe dining. A lift to the loft disgorges you into another welcome annex, with yet more floating staff, and by the time you enter the main bar you feel thoroughly confused.

The main bar is decorated in a generic international style. Chinoise fabrics, opulent drapes and tall banquette tables surround the semi-circular bar - occupied by skinny pretty girls and the braying suits who pay for them flood the space. From the main bar, the space leads off to a Japanese restaurant on one side and a Spanglish restaurant with its own bar on the other end of a long corridor. It's owned by a consortium of  Chinese businessmen and seems determined to pick and pinch from every cultural influence it can. 

The Spanish side of the space is very separate and feels lighter in style, like eating in the lobby of a Four Seasons hotel rather than chowing down in the nightclub. The international feel carries on, with French and Polish staff treading their way carefully round the menu. Our stumped 'sommelier' finally recommended a Rioja as being the most Spanish, desperate as he was to veer towards the upper reaches of the list. Tap water wasn't offered.

The menu has a Spanish twist, but in the loosest sense of the phrase. We tried to do tapas, but you'll fare just as well going for starters, main course and desserts. The plate of Iberico ham was thickly and badly carved, chewier than it should be against the grain, and a stretch at £18 for around 125 grams of the rich, gamey meat - even in Borough Market you'd be pushing it to pay more than a fiver for that quantity. Other starters of octopus, sliced sausages and croquettes were acceptable, but not exactly memorable, though they did have a grassy and tart extra virgin olive oil I could have almost drunk neat. 

The mains followed a similar vein. Monkfish 'adobo' was a pleasant piece of fish, but bore no trace of the titular marinade, a spicy Latin American base of peppers, oregano and cumin. Of the other mains, a beef tenderloin was a well cooked yet dainty slab, served simply with pimentos de padron, a simple if incongruous side to the dish. The boiled 'confit' tomatoes were left untouched. We'd attempted to order the peppers as a tapas plate and had initially been told that they weren't in season. To be fair to the restaurant, when we pointed out that they were the side of one of the main dishes, they did offer to cook an extra portion as a side, though charged us prettily for the pleasure of the simple salted peppers. 

For a Wednesday night in November, pre party season and a year after opening, both sides of the restaurant and the two large bars were buzzy and busy. It's an impressive state of affairs considering the punchy prices and determinedly inauthentic concepts. But this place doesn't appeal to or aim at the determined foodie. If you want to eat authentic Japanese and / or Spanish, there are a dozen better within walking distance. But if you're entertaining clients, models or proving to friends that you are in the know prior to a night jousting with AMEX Black cards in nearby Movida, then you may just have found your new go to destination of choice.

London Restaurant Festival - Gourmet Odyssey - Oct 2010

There are very few things that will get me out of bed early on a Saturday morning. The promise of champagne before lunchtime and three courses at three of London's top restaurants is undoubtedly one of those. As part of the London Restaurant Festival, they're hosting a series of events, or odysseys, taking people around the city by foot or open topped bus in an audacious attempt to do three courses at three different restaurants. I've tried this style of smash and grab dining a few times, as both guest and organiser, and it's not an easy thing to do, so my hat was already partly off to them for even trying it. In the main, it succeeded. There is a top end bias to the London Restaurant Festival, but it's not surprising in a city with so many fine dining restaurants. This is particularly true of the Odyssy tours. That being said, you're not going to drop £125 per ticket for anything less than the expected best.
The Met Bar
We met at London's original 'it' bar and, of an evening, the go to pick up joint even now for the out of town elite (or expense account business types rolling in from Nobu upstairs). They've got a door policy, but these days it seems to extend as far as checking whether you can pick up a tab stretching into the hundreds for premium cocktails and sold up bottles of champagne. I've been a few times (never by choice, please believe that) and thought it an odd start place for our Restaurant Odyssey. In the daylight it suffers. A small space with a handful of deep red leather banquettes, an impressively long bar and a tiny dancefloor for the tiny models and style fascists who occupy it nightly. There's little to no design to speak of other than lacquerwork walls and a couple of generic chinoiserie frills. The staff were fairly clear that this was a 'free' event and had that level of bitter cynicism that comes from anyone who has been around journalists and drink. My request for an orange juice gave the instant response of "that's not free you know, you'll have to pay for it". And pay for it you did, £4.50 for an ice-filled shotglass of juice. Not a good start. At £125 for the event, I was amazed that they hadn't laid on soft drinks at this time of the morning.  
Starter at Koffman's 
Cassolette D'Escargots et Girolles
Things looked up from there as we (eventually) boarded our Routemaster bus like overexcited wedding guests and headed to Koffman's at The Berkley. Taking over the old Boxwood Cafe site wasn't a particularly challenging return for the doyen of 80's expense account cooking and London's first holder of three Michelin stars. The site has hardly changed since Ramsay's departure, still a library-like space of silk and grey. The hushed reverential surrounds feel fitting for the former owner of Tante Claire and darling of the nascent gourmet restaurant scene, but it feels at odds with his gutsy French cuisine. The starter of choice today was a cassarole of  plump earthy snails and sweet mushrooms served on a bed of pureed potato, more cream than spud, covered with a velvety green blanket of garlic and parsley foam. A little full on choice to start, and slightly too much for my companion, but it went down well with a glass of crisp pinot blanc. If you do go to Koffmann's, and go I think you should, then their £22 three course lunch menu is available all week and is very good value, though you don't get to try the unctuous pig's trotters stuffed with mushroom and sweetbread that made Chef Koffmann's reputation. This is worth a trip of its own.
Main at Hibiscus
Label Anglais Chicken with wild mushrooms, white beans, ginger, lime and peanut sauce
By now we were all a few glasses to the good and despite being inevitably behind schedule, were relaxed and happy for the trip back into Mayfair for Claude Bosi's slightly more gentrified and experimental take on French cuisine. The two starred Hibiscus was upended from foodie Mecca Ludlow and the chef has stuck to the kitchen, resisting the temptation to turn businessman and expand brand Bosi. An imposing and genial man, Chef Bosi can't be missed, arms folded, ready with a joke or retort, while his sharp eyes scan the room. He looks almost at odds with the refined and delicate food he serves in the small, unfussy space on Maddox Street. You'd expect rugby player hands the size of hams to be more at home with big meat butchery or at least the more rustic cuisine of our previous locale, however it's clear in his cooking that he possesses a surgeon's delicacy. There's a fussy attention to detail as high as you'd expect from any two starred chef. The chicken was slow poached then roasted, arctic rolls of meat served with a rough mushroom filling. The white bean came with a kick of lime, but the other flavours were too subtle for my palate, despite that, I could have eaten the whole thing again. It went very well with a light Rioja.
Dessert at Sake No Hana
Mitsumame with green tea ice cream and sticky rice cake
It's a beautiful building with huge high wood slats and a soft pine colour scheme. Sadly from a foodies point of view, the best wasn't saved till last. I have to be honest and say that Sake No Hana felt like an afterthought, though it's difficult to follow the previous two courses with a dessert, no matter how good. This holds particularly true for a subtle Japanese dish of jellified seaweed cubes served with fruits and a green tea ice cream (no sign of that rice cake sadly). The dish was fine, but not worth the additional leg of the journey. The fragrant Reisling served with it was the best part of the meal, a shame as I've had some good experiences at the St James Japanese. Particular note on previous visits to some spectacular maki rolls, beautifully flavoured katzu and an excellent dunburi, slivers of ribeye served spiced over a bed of fragrant rice.
Overall
It's a good fun concept, and I'm glad I took part. The company was superb in the main and the organisation was well held together and strong. It was a shame some of the 'free guests' crowed about it so much, we sat near a couple who had obviously saved for it and were slightly crestfallen by the number claiming that they wouldn't have paid for it. It's certainly not the way I'd choose to eat my way around three restaurants. For the price paid, you could easily and happily do separate set menus in each and achieve a much better experience of what the kitchens are capable of.

Review of Bincho Yakitori - May 2010

Where: Bincho Yakitori, Soho
With who: Citizen Smith, the New Boy, Telly Alex and his other half
How much?: £30 a head gave us a their pre-theatre special, a few extras and a massive (and I mean massive) bottle of sake...

Bincho seemed like an obvious choice for a group meal with a random set of likes and dislikes. It wouldn't have been a first choice to be honest, but it ticked enough boxes. In hindsight I wish the food had been one of those.
It opened to some fanfare a several years ago in the Oxo Tower originally, the reviews were fine, though nothing out of the world and the model seemed to be an interesting one. They have a large grill in the front of the restaurant where they grill your yakitori and kushiyaki on bamboo skewers, the former exclusively chicken 'bits' and the latter assorted other meat, fish and vegetables. These are mostly served family style for the group.
The staff are lovely. Absolutely lovely. They couldn't have done more to make sure that we were happy, up to and including organising impromptu sake drinking demonstrations for the group. The menu was very impressive. Simple skewers and an assortment of accompanying rices and salads. Nothing held back for Western appetites, proud of their gizzard and tripe and heart. This was food I was very much looking forward to.

We went for the pre-theatre menu and following a starter of miso soup and a rather ordinary salmon 'salad' (a small portion of cooked fish dropped on a bed of mixed leaf) we were then served a mixed plate of yakitori and kushiyaki. The skewers are usually cooked with salt or tare, a sweet mix of mirin, sake and soy. These were definitely cooked salty. The mushrooms and spring onions were chewy and virtually inedible and the assorted chicken parts were drenched with salt. The one saving grace for me was a perfectly cooked belly pork, thankfully the sweet white fat put off a couple of the other members of the group and I was able to load up on the tiny piggy nuggets. 
Additionally to the set meals, we ordered a handful of other items to share. The chicken hearts were small, salty bombs of fibre. Any give in the normally soft sweetbreads had been blasted out of them by the strength of the grill. An oily prawn skewer came wrapped in the type of plastic over-smoked bacon you'd expect from a late night petrol station sandwich. 

The desert was a dust dry pile of soya milk doughnuts served with a green tea ice cream necessary for the moisture it gave. I managed two of them before running out of ice cream and the will to live.
I had expected better from reports read before the visit, certainly more enjoyable experiences than ours. I like the model, the staff and the location but I'm sticking to Roka for my grilled Japanese treats.