DashiDashi | The Japanese Food Blog

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Along with everyone's favourite: a new improved version of the Japanese Cheesecake recipe.

Look forward to seeing you over at the new blog!

Clearspring Miso Tasting

 

Who's up for a miso tasting?

Out went the Twitter call and, after the mandatory scheduling kerfuffle that comes with getting eight or so Londoners to the same place at the same time on any given day, we duly descending on the home of Helen (Fuss Free Flavours) to demolish her stash of Clearspring miso products.

There was dried miso, unpasteurised miso, miso bouillon (eh?), miso relish -- where on earth to start?

Restaurant Review: Kyashii, Covent Garden

Hi all, I'm still here. Culinary school has taken over my life, but there's still been time for a little recreational Japanese eating on the side. After some gentle nudging from The London Foodie (who has a new utterly delectable blog header by the way, do go see), reminding me that it's not really a blog if you don't, uh, blog, here's the first write-up from my latest set of restaurant visits. Enjoy!

 

I'd been wanting to try Kyashii for a while now. Any Japanese restaurant described as a 'surreal themed gangster experience', as it was by one slightly baffled commenter on a review site, is surely worth a visit.

So when a friend won 'free lunch' at this overly-stylish restaurant-cum-lounge, I jumped at the chance to accompany her. More about that later, but first I'd like to take this opportunity to unveil my new indispensable guide for restaurants entitled 'How To Offer A Free Lunch'.

1. Inform your wait staff that this 'free lunch' competition actually exists. (When in doubt, 'deny all knowledge' is not a good workplace mantra.)

2. When no mention of this 'free lunch' appears on your online booking system, though the customer swears they entered the information when booking, consider giving them the benefit of the doubt. (Unless you've been scammed repeatedly in such a heinous manner. In which case, consider issuing printable email vouchers instead of social media messages.)

3. Ask your wait staff to give the manager or whoever organised the competition a prompt call in these situations, instead of waiting for the customer to insist they do so.

4. Don't let your customer peruse the a la carte menu for twenty minutes, while waiting for the aforementioned phone call, before informing them they can only order their 'free lunch' from a limited page of lunch set menus mostly in the £10-15 range -- while your a la carte features such delights as Grilled Chilean Seabass with Fois Gras & Uni Butter (£26.50) and Yellowtail Ponzu with truffle oil (£12.50).

5. A 'free lunch' should probably include a free drink. Just saying.

6. Charging service on a 'free lunch', while an admirable nod of respect to your stellar wait staff, is possibly counterproductive*.

So anyway, let's talk about Kyashii. The food's not bad, actually.The sushi was passable, the sashimi of decent quality. Beautifully plated, if you like your food dressed to impress. Over-priced though, especially given the unsmiling lacklustre service. That said, if you work/live in the area and want a bit more dining glitz than nearby Chinatown provides, their reasonably priced set lunches are an option worth considering.

Decor? The ground floor is surprisingly pleasant and airy, though the white circular wall mouldings give a slight sense of being trapped in a giant ghetto blaster. Downstairs is where the surreal gangster experience starts. Searching for the loos, I almost tripped over due to the dark deep-pile carpet and lack of lighting. Alice-in-Wonderland-like, I wandered past an empty window-less room with white banquets surrounded by an in-built fish tank. Curiouser and curiouser.

All in all, Kyashii satisfies all expectations of a celebrity-seeking venue serving trendy Japanese-style fare in fashion-model portions, apart from the lack of suitably fawning service. If that's what floats your boat, by all means pay a visit. Just don't forget a flashlight when you go the loos, and a ball of string to lead you back to reality afterwards.

 

Kyashii
4a Upper St Martin's Lane
London WC2H 9NY
020 7836 5211

www.kyashii.co.uk

 

 

*We also ordered some extra dishes from the a la carte, kindly at a 50% discount to make up for the faff and also because of the 50%-off deal running at the same time anyhow. Thus we were obviously presented with a bill to pay. 10% service was charged on the un-discounted total, including the free set lunches. Whether we'd have been presented with a bill at all, if we hadn't ordered any extra dishes, is not known.

 

London Restaurant News: Sakura moves to Conduit Street

Most restaurants, when having moved site within the last month, might think to inform you of the fact when you ring to book a table. Not Sakura.

So I traipsed up to their old front door, running a few minutes late, to be greeted by the absence of the usual red lanterns and the apperance of a small sign announcing their recent move to 23 Conduit Street.

A new 'update' section has been added to the old review here.

PS: The TVs playing bizarre Japanese game shows and documentaries are no longer there. Cry or cheer as you will.

Sourcing Japanese Ingredients in London

A reader from Sydney recently emailed me asking where to find Japanese/Chinese/Asian grocery stores in London, as she's moving here next year and wanted to make sure she can find all her favourite ingredients. So I figured now would be a good time for an addition to the Where To Buy Japanese Ingredients post, with a more London-centric take:

 

I've always said: I'd be hard-pressed to live anywhere in the UK except London because it's not easy to get hold of Japanese/Chinese/Oriental (yes, Americans, it's okay to use that word over here) ingredients outside the capital. In fact, it's not very easy to get hold of certain ingredients in London either, but here's my guide to ingredient hunting in London and its surrounds.

Specialist Japanese Ingredients

Such as: mochiko (mochi flour), shirataki, konnyaku, okonomiyaki sauce.

There's two places I go for these types of hard-to-find ingredients: Japan Centre (14-16 Regent Street) and Arigato (48-50 Brewer Street), both within a stone's throw of Piccadilly Circus. Japan Centre also offers online ordering and home delivery.

Sashimi-grade fish

For sashimi-grade fish and black cod, I go to Atari-Ya, which has fish-counter branches in Golders Green, West Acton, Finchley, and Kingston. [The other branches seem to be more take-away and eat-in joints.] Various (but few) traditional British fishmongers also have sashimi-grade fish (names escape me for now), and I have a Japanese friend who occasionally wakes up at ungodly hours to get fish from Billingsgate fish market.

General Japanese Ingredients

Such as: sushi rice, rice vinegar, udon, soba, tofu, enoki, shiitake.

These are easier to find, at both Chinese and Korean supermarkets and some local supermarkets.

Central London: There's a smallish Korean food store (Centre Point Food Store) at Tottenham Court Road which also sells a very decent range of Japanese foodstuffs. Also try the shops in Chinatown. And if you can afford it, Borough Market at London Bridge is sure to have a whole host of beautiful fresh vegetables, including Japanese mushrooms and eastern greens.

London suburbs: For all your Chinese ingredients, and quite a lot of Japanese, check out the giant superstores of WingYip -- there's a branch in Cricklewood (North London) and Croydon (South). Warning for non-drivers: I only know the Croydon branch, but I get the feeling that both stores require a car to get to (easily).

Local supermarkets: I find that the posher the area (and shop), the more likely that the local supermarket will carry 'exotic' ingredients. The big Waitrose stores tend to have enoki, shimeji, and shiitake mushrooms as standard. I've definitely seen a wide range of Clearspring products in some (very large) Sainsbury and Tesco stores, as well as shiitake and daikon.

 

I've not been to Sydney yet, but from what I've heard it strikes me that in comparison, for one of the 'greatest' cities in the world, London will have a surprisingly paltry offering when it comes to finding East Asian ingredients. But in our defense, you can probably find ingredients (and people and restaurants) from a huge range of countries and cultures, within a handful of kilometres of Trafalgar Square. And I reckon that's a pretty amazing thing.

So where you do you get your Japanese/Chinese/Asian ingredients in London?

Restaurant Review: Yashin Sushi, High Street Kensington

In life, there are times for wordy introductions and meandering discussions. Then there are times when it's best to cut to the chase. So let me tell you that Yashin Sushi is good, very good indeed.

From the moment you step inside the sleek dark interior, you know you're in safe hands. You also wish you'd dressed up a bit more. Behind the spotless glass of the sushi bar, a selection of perfect glossy vegetables, artfully arranged, stare back at you. You get the feeling they spent more time getting ready tonight than you did.

Above the bar, neon lights on dark green tiles spell out the restaurant's apparent mantra: 'Without Soy Sauce... But if you want to.' This refers to how the sushi chef, after deftly forming then searing each nigiri on a raised stone, will brush each morsel with the lightest touch of soy sauce, as a parting statement. A statement that says: don't mess with my work.

But if you want to.

It's a brave person who'd chance the end of that particular sentence.

The menu pretty much consists of three omakase options: 8, 11, or 15 pieces of nigiri, along with the maki roll of the day -- for £30, £45, or £60, respectively. There are various side dishes and rolls that can be ordered separately, but you'd be hard-pressed to put together a meal from just these alone. And why bother?

 

How to Matcha

"Do you want anything from Japan?  [Insert name here of family friend] is going in October, so get your orders in now."

Requesting a sample of the entire food produce of Japan seemed like a tall order, so I settled for a matcha whisk. Lo and behold, I'm now the proud owner of a proper (and rather expensive) matcha whisk and bowl. Now to find out how to use it.

Serendipitously, David from JING Tea had offered to host a matcha-making demostration, so one blustery tube-strike-ridden evening, we convened at Tsuru Bankside, along with Su-Lin from Tamarind and Thyme for some matcha madness.

So, how do you make matcha? Well, first you work the matcha into a loose paste with a splash of water until the lumps go away. Add more water, then go crazy with the whisk until you get that lovely froth. Or: you can watch this video by JING Tea and read all about it here. Let's just say, it's harder than it looks.

I ended up with a less-than-creamy, large-bubbled froth. Tip: for a better foam, don't use as much water.

Taste-wise? Wow. The matcha was sweet and thick, without the bitter edge you find in some matcha (including the one I tasted at the tea ceremony at the British Museum). I've ordered a packet to see if makes a difference in desserts -- well, you know what they say about wine and cooking. Results pending.

Genmaicha

We also tasted some of JING Tea's other samples: a toasty nutty Genmaicha (green tea with toasted brown rice kernels), cosy comforting Hojicha (a low-caffeine roasted green tea), cute-as-buttons Jasmine Pearls (apparently one of their biggest sellers), and some 'very special' hand-rolled umami-rich Gyokuro. For those who like their teas in limited edition, apparently only 20kg of this particular tea is made each year, and JING Tea have bought 2kg of it. The umami taste was subtle but noticeable, coating the mouth with an unusual feel for a tea. Is it worth the price? At £12 for a 10g bag, it's not cheap, but it's still cheaper per cup than a daily Starbucks. [There's also another (presumably not hand-rolled?) Gyokuro on their website for around half the price.]

We rounded off the evening with some of my (hastily made) home-made matcha cream profiteroles. The matcha in the whipped cream really took the edge of the heaviness -- hence our ability to get through most of a full tupperware. Unfortunately, though possessing many other positive properties, matcha doesn't seem to negate calories. Shame.

All in all, tasting tea is a lot like tasting wine -- the mouth-feel, the taste notes (a hint of smoke, roasted nuts, fruit?), and the feeling that my palate is severely under-developed. Thankfully, my liver and I have absolutely no qualms in consuming copious amounts of tea to rectify this.

Time for a cuppa.

Thanks to David at JING Tea and Tsuru Bankside for a great tea-filled evening.

Restaurant Review: Yoisho, Goodge Street

Twice in the past month, I've encounter people who say they love Japanese food, just not in Japan.

They say this with an unapologetic shrug, seemingly oblivious that their statements are much the equivalent of professing a love of Italian food, but not being able to stomach the grub in Naples, Rome, or Milan -- I mean, who on earth makes pizza that thin, and can you believe they didn't stuff the crusts with cheese?

In this case, the offending item most cited was chicken gizzard, in the form of yakitori. Now, yakitori, as I understand it, is not haute-cuisine. Come on, it's served on a wooden stick. Dipped in sticky, more-ish, tare sauce. But it's a highly effective way of serving up every piece of the chicken you can get your hands on: liver, skin, cartilage, heart, and all.

Granted, their reactions weren't entirely their own faults. Our supermarkets and restaurants conspire to make us a believe a chicken is composed of solely breast, thigh, and drumstick. I order a whole chicken in Nandos, and when it turns up, think: where's the other 45% gone?

[Tip: if you order a whole chicken take-away from Nandos, ask them not to cut it up. You get more chicken (and the good bits) that way.]

Now, I'm a bit of a citizenship snob. In that, if someone recommends me a restaurant, it holds more weight if they're from the country that gave birth to that cuisine. So sue me: I'd rather take a fish-and-chip shop recommendation from the local pub owner, than a passing tourist from Timbuktu. So when a bona-fide Japanese family friend recommended Yoisho, my ears pricked up.

I went on a Sunday evening, which already made me happy. (The only other Japanese restaurant in Central London I know of that opens Sundays is Sakura.) Ordered a selection of yakitori, including gizzard and quail eggs, an okonomi (fried pancake thing - a smaller, thinner, oval-shaped version than the usual), ryoshidon (sashimi on normal white rice) and nasu dengaku (aubergine with miso-topping). Good food, good value, good-sized portions.

The restaurant itself is small, with ground-level and basement seating, and verges on the dark-and-dingy school of Japanese restaurant interior design. The word 'izakaya' (Japanese pub, kinda) seems to crop up in various online reviews. On a busy night, the order system seemed a bit clogged, especially for drinks, and service was perfunctory rather than effusive, but we were there for the chicken innards, not the three-star treatment.

Verdict: Only a quick walk from Tottenham Court Road, and round the corner from Goodge Street tube station, definitely one for the post-Christmas-shopping dinner before hopping on the tube home.

 

£20-30 for dinner for two, including service.

Yoisho
33 Goodge Street
London W1T 2PS
020 7323 0477

Open for lunch Mon-Fri, dinner Mon-Sun.