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Café Japan |
By Laurie Ashton
I love reviewing restaurants. It’s fun, I get a date with my otherwise home-bound husband, and I get to try out a wide variety of restaurants and ethnic food. What more could a girl want? Japanese. Always Japanese. In fact, sushi is one of my favorite fast foods. Where I hailed from in Canada – Vancouver, British Columbia, to be precise – there’s a huge Asian population. In some parts of the city, I’d be the only white face in a crowd. And with the large Asian population comes the many Asian restaurants, including Japanese. Want sushi? No problem! Just head five or ten minutes in any direction and you’ve got it! Frequently, business lunches or dinner and a movie were over sushi or sashimi. Lunch with a friend or a hot date meant teriyaki or tempura or miso soup. Japanese food became a part of my lifestyle. Who am I kidding? It became a part of almost everyone’s lifestyle there. And it has me wondering – is this why I’m commonly mistaken here for Japanese? Hmm. When I was assigned to review Café Japan, I was more than happy to comply. Immediately after my husband and I sat down for lunch at Café Japan, we were given hot, steaming washcloths to wash away the city grime. How thoughtful and refreshing! We started with Banana Milk (Rs. 120) and Mango Lassi (Rs. 120). Both were unsweetened, but we were given a small pot of sugar syrup to sweeten to taste. The banana milk, my husband’s choice, was excellent, and the mango lassi, mine, was even better. We ordered an assortment of sushi - Tuna Maki (Rs. 70), Kappa Maki (Rs. 70), and Ebiten Maki (Rs. 150). And then I had the joy of educating my husband on the fine art of eating sushi. Mix wasabi with soy sauce until it’s a murky greenish brown color, then grasp a piece of sushi between the chop sticks with a piece of pickled ginger on top, and soak it in the wasabi-soy mixture. Heaven. Even better, I got to tease my husband about his lack of chop-stick abilities. Café Japan filled my sushi gap with their outstanding sushi. But I’ll come back for more, I guarantee it. Following that was the Seafood Salad (Rs. 150). Prawns, cuttlefish, onions, carrots, and seaweed servedon a bed of tomatoes and lettuce with a delicate dressing. Light. Mouth-watering. My husband and I shared it, and he agreed with me that the seaweed really added to the flavour. We enjoyed it so much we ended up fighting each other over the last of it. “You had more prawns than me!” he said. Mmm, munch, what? My husband had the Tempura Teishoku (Assorted Seafood and Vegetable Tempura Meal – Rs. 550, served with steamed rice, miso soup, pickle, and ice cream or fruit for dessert.) The tempura was done exactly as tempura is supposed to be. Cruncy deep fried batter on the outside, tender vegetables and seafood on the outside, accompanied by a sweet dipping sauce. Awkward for my chopstick-challenged husband to eat. Amusing for me to watch. All good. I had the Higawari Teishoku, the daily special, which was Sweet and Sour Pork (Rs. 350, also served with steamed rice, miso soup, pickle, and ice cream or fruit for dessert.) The tender and juicy pork was cooked with chunks of tomato in a superb sweet and sour sauce. I loved every bite. The miso soup was as expected – very good. It was served in a delicate lacquered bowl, as was the rice. The pickle – chopped in tiny matchstick pieces - came in a tiny square plate, white with a blue design – very cute. I also ordered the Kimpira renkon (Stir-fried lotus root – Rs. 120). I’ve never had lotus root before, and it captivated my interest when I saw it on the menu. It arrived, matchstick pieces in a bowl. I took a bite – warm, salty, slightly sweet, very crunchy. An interesting contrast of flavors. Next? Dessert. Snow Hill (Rs. 80). Huh? What could it be? And what could I do but order it? The Snow Hill arrived, a pale doughy mound covered in icing sugar. I dug in to the cream cheesed dough exterior and uncovered the cream cheese interior. Sweet, but not too sweet. A bit of tangy richness from the cream cheese. Addicting, and oddly so! When we first arrived, my husband had two very distinct reactions to the extensive menu - 14 or so pages. The first – how long would it take me to decide what I was going to have? The second - that even he, a very picky eater, could eat here once a week for a year, find something on the menu he liked, and still not eat the same thing twice. Better still, he could do that without breaking the bank. In the mood for chicken? Why not have the Barbecued Chicken (Rs. 300). In the mood for Sri Lankan or Chinese food? An entire page is devoted to that. Everything from Devilled Prawn (Rs. 180 regular, Rs. 350 large portion) to Chicken Fried Rice (Rs 140 or 190), or Beef Fried Noodles (Rs. 140 or 190). How about seafood? Ika Amiyaki (Grilled cuttlefish with ginger soy sauce, Rs. 350) would do the trick, as would Hiyashi Kakiage Soba (cold noodles and mixed vege and shrimp tempura, served with dipping sauce, Rs. 400 or 450). Vegetarian? Why not have the Nabe Shigi (Nasu Miso – boiled eggplant with soybean paste, Rs. 120). Or Wakame Udon (Hot noodles in soup, topped with Wakame seaweed, Rs. 150 or 200). Or Kakiage to Zaru Udon (Cold noodles and mixed vegetable tempura, served with dipping sauce, Rs. 280 or 330). Pork. Gyoza (Pork and vegetable dumplings, Rs. 180). Or Buta Kimchi (Stir-fried pork and kimchi, Rs. 300). Serious choice. The only difficulty you might have is deciding what to order. Attention to detail is the byword here, whether it’s in the artistic arrangement, the freshness of the produce, or the flavour and texture of the food. Curious about the Japanese owners, I asked Yumiko Kyuma, ever smiling and friendly, how the restaurant came to be. She told me that she and her mother, Chigiri Kyuma, started the restaurant four years ago after they followed her father, who was already working in Sri Lanka. Service was great. Yumiko provides the full Japanese experience to patrons, but the staff needs a bit more training in that area. However, we weren’t kept waiting, they were attentive without being annoying, and the food arrived in short order. If you have a hankering for great Japanese food, Café Japan is the place to go. Just make sure you get here early enough – it’s very popular and gets crowded fast! Café Japan36 Ward Place
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Last Updated:
2005-08-25 15:37
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