Japanese restaurant Sakura seems to have attained a higher level of finesse with its new spread. Unnati Joshi reports
Trust Sakura to surprise us most when we least expect it to and think that we have savoured enough of Japanese cuisine. Its recent menu upgrade, centred around the best of Kaiseki cuisine — the food of the royals — ranging from the freshest sushi and sashimi to meat and seafood, is bound to make it a talking point yet again.
There’s a ramen and yaki soba festival on and hence we ordered Yaki soba to start the dinner. This is ramen noodles, pan sauted with chicken and a few vegetables in Japanese sauce. You could say it is a derivative of the Chinese noodles but in times of imperial Japan, it was integrated so organically that today you would not even think about its origins. Sweet, savoury and a wee bit sour and salty, it leaves a rounded satiety. No wonder they call Japanese food the best balanced there is.
Next on our table was the famous California sushi roll, again an innovation overseas and not home-grown. Wrapped in a sheet of dried seaweed, it is simply constructed of crab, thin slices of cucumber, avocado, prawn, mayonnaise and sushi rice. The avocado made it creamier and softer.
“The California roll that we roll out in Sakura is quite different from what other restaurants serve on their menu. As we used the freshest ingredients flown from the Tsukiji market of Tokyo. The sushi making is an art no one came make a same product from the same ingredients, that’s why we have Master craftman Chef Tetsu Akahira who is having more than 40 years of experience in making sushi and other Japanese food. The normal california rolls are generally made out of crab meat, cucumber, avocado and flying fish roe with sushi rice and seaweed, as to give a dinners a new and distinctive taste we add on prawn and mayonnaise with all other ingredients,” explained Ashim Rastogi, F and B Manager, The Met.
However, we were drawn to the Tempura Moraiawase, a mixed platter of prawn tempura with a combination of seasonal vegetables and a super crunchy batter. Served with tempura sauce, it was perfectly balanced, decent and succulent.
We were then served Gindara saikyoyaki, broiled cod fish marinated with white Kyoto soybean paste. Cod’s buttery flesh justmelt in our mouth and we finished a fillet quickly.
Chicken teriyaki was as good as it gets at Sakura, fresh, chewy and lustrous because of the sugary shine.
Moving to the desserts, we tried Maccha or green tea ice cream, not for those who do not like tea in the first place. You could go for the Ogura ice cream, a scoop of red bean, luxuriously smooth, pleasant and filling.
It was hard to believe that a restaurant, which we thought to be great already, turned out to be even better. A big thumbs up to the freshness and quality of the menu.