TOKYO DRAGON

Okura

No. 9, Landsdown
Paceville Avenue
St. Julian's, Malta

2781 1888

Food - 8

Service - 6

Ambiance - 5

Value - 9

Avg - 7

Much in the same way as some people remember what they were doing when they found out about Lady Di's passing or the day they found out the truth about Father Christmas, I remember the day I was introduced to the album called Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. I wish I could say it was a life-changing moment but my life resumed its dreariness without any consideration for how momentous this should have been. The music has been extensively discussed eleswhere but I remember reading something in the liner notes about a particular form of Japanese art.

A pen is drawn across a wet, stretched parchment to produce a hint of the image one is trying to portray. Press too hard, and the nib will break through the surface. Hesitate for a moment and the ink will spread, immortalising your lack of decisiveness with a rather unsightly blob. The Japanese had understood that if the moment is captured, there is nothing that can ever imitate or reproduce it - the same nation that gave us mass production and the Toyota model was teaching us about transience. While I wished to write and tell the guys to decide what they really wanted the world to think of them they were busy producing my TV and sound system so I shut up and listened to the album.

The Japanese also gave us umami, that elusive and translation-defying fifth taste. I suspect this is why were were only really taught four in school. Imagine a primary school teacher having to field questions after saying, "There are five basic tastes - sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami." The closest we get is 'savoury' but it does not do justice to the taste and somehow implies 'salty' which takes us further from the truth. Although we first experience the glutamates that are responsible for this when breastfeeding, we get to enjoy them later in life as different foods come together to give a flavour that is better than both ingredients put together. In Japan this would be seaweed and fish. Closer to home we add Parmeggiano to tomato-based sauces. And now you know what kind of synergy we're talking about.

One quiet weeknight I thought I'd try the Japanese version and headed over to Okura in Paceville. It is far enough from the madding crowd to be quiet even on the weekends but I wasn't taking any chances. Parking is a doddle, especially considering that it is a drunken stone's throw away from the Portomaso car park. Parking there is free for Okura patrons so we start our evening with a point in favour of the Japanese restaurant. The place itself is nothing remarkable. Other than a few paper lampshades with Japanese script on them there is very little to add Japanese character to the dining area. The music in the background is nondescript and a flat screen with Discovery Science on it completes the rather haphazard approach to creating an appropriate ambiance. We're shown to our table by a young man who I'm hoping wears a Japanese digital watch as a claim to Japanese fame. If it is a yellow Casio F-91 then I'm all the more impressed but he is as Maltese as ever.

We're presented with the menu, a rather comprehensive affair with a restricted sashimi selection that plays safe rather than optimistic and the welcome addition of some imaginative items that go beyond the typical spread. The selection is quite vast and really quite tempting so trying to choose what to leave out quickly became quite a trying endeavour. Matters became even more complicated when our young man pointed out the 'buffet' option. This basically means that one can practically order the entire menu for the fixed price of €23.50.

This isn't as simple as it sounds. We were provided with a sheet of paper that includes the entire menu split into four sections. We were instructed to order in phases, moving to the next step only after we'd finished the previous one. A few items were restricted to one per person and this included, quite predictably, the sashimi section. The rest was almost entirely up to our discretion and came with a single proviso. They don't like waste. If you order an item and you don't actually consume it, this will be added to your bill at the end. Draconian as this may sound it does help dampen the temptation of ordering much more than you can possibly eat and let most of it go to waste.

I started ordering across the sushi menu, picking the sashimi first, followed by a trio of nigiri (finger sushi) items to include my favourites - octopus and smoked eel - and then went through the maki (seaweed and rice rolls plus the ingredients of your choice) and the more interesting 'New style' rolls that seem to be a speciality of this place and include the more colourfully named 'Tokyo Dragon' and 'Crazy Monkey' variants. Keeping in mind that one maki roll is sliced into an average of six, bite-sized, portions I tried to exercise some restraint. The next issue I had was the miso soup that featured in the second part of our order sheet. I like miso soup the Japanese way, served with the food (and when possible topped up). I mentioned this and the attentive young man said there would be no problem as long as I filled in all of my choices for the second set. I went ahead and ordered prawn tempura and spicy lamb skewers along with the soup.

Warm sake is a drink I rarely forego with

sushi and was lucky to be the only person at table who actually loves it. A bottle of Marsovin’s excellent Ulysses Chenin Blanc accompanied the sake for the sake of my lovely guest. I vowed to stick largely to my chosen drink but the refreshing citrus zest of this locally grown white helped my break my promise again and again. I was tempted to teach the enthusiastic young man how to serve wine but so sweet was his demeanour that I had no heart to embarrass him. He’ll grow and he’ll learn.

A quick look around at the other patrons filled me with hope. Every other table bar a couple in the far corner was filled with Japanese people. It felt like the Japanese community had been here before, liked what it tasted, and came back for more. Short of consulting my i-ching, I could think of no better omen than this vote of confidence.

Soon enough the reason for their presence was made apparent. The miso soup was as authentic as it gets and the truck-load of sushi I had actually ordered turned up in a gigantic, circular container and looked divine. It was also evident that it could easily feed a small family. We dug in immediately, dispatching the sashimi first and working our way through to the more spicy items, refreshing our palate occasionally with pickled ginger, warm sake and cold wine.

The sushi was consistently fresh, well-made and on occasion innovative. While I tend to object to some of the Western additions that subtly seep into sushi, I understand that this has helped contribute to its popularisation in the West. Okura has found a happy medium and the tables around me bore testament to this. The selection of fish used is quite restricted, the chef having preferred the safe and ‘permanent’ use of tuna and salmon over the more risky seasonal species that I hope are made ample use of during the more bountiful summer months.

We skipped the third ‘main course’ stage, both because we’d overdone the first two and because the main courses didn’t sound as attractive as the sushi we’d just enjoyed.

I rounded off my meal with an interesting green tea ice cream while the dessert across the table goes into my books as one of the most bizarre I’ve seen. And I’ve eaten my mother’s cooking. Picture a Nutella core, surrounded with sushi rice and topped with strawberry sauce - a seaweed-less Nutella maki roll. I tried one but that is as far as I could possibly go. The meal cost €65 for both of us which is decent value for virtually limitless sushi of a respectable quality. I’d be prepared to live with the insipid décor and relatively amateur service at that price. What was really priceless though was the fact that for once I was not the only person in the restaurant snapping away at the food.