Asakusa: Mornington Crescent

I love this place, Asakusa in Mornigton Crescent, just by the station. It looks and feels like you've stepped into an izakaya in Japan. The staff are all Japanese, have competent but strictly textbook English, the walls are covered with handwritten menus and Asahi beer posters, and the food is excellent.

I popped in with a couple of friends the other night and we romped through some a banquet of ika shougayaki, agedashi tofu, prawn tempura, succulent nigiri sushi, yakitori and gyoza. There is also a good selection of sake, shochu, umeshu and beer which I feel we didn't quite explore enough but there is always next time.



This place has been open for about 15 years and actually, if you look carefully behind the wall decoration it seems as though it might have once been a pub. Other memorable occasions there include the time when one of the older sushi chefs proudly proclaimed "I been Engrand 17 years but no English" and another when having asked for takowasa (raw octopus marinated in wasabi), we were presented with the off-menu special of "toriwasa" - the same dish made with raw chicken. It was so good that even some of my more squeamish friends wanted to order more.

Of course the price is not massively cheap, £30 for a good feed and a couple of drinks but the portions are fair and bowls of rice are only a quid. Also, I would love to see some other standard izakaya offerings on the menu, a yakisoba or chahan would go down well. And finally, it's a small point but, the toilet - they have gone local on this one. It is basically a standard pub toilet, a bit old, not particularly clean. If I was in charge, I would buy and install Toto's latest super loo with washlet and seat warmer immediately! What's the point of not learning English but compromising your lavatorial standards eh?

Wasabi Sushi & Bento

I came back from Brighton today and had to change trains at Victoria - I decided to check out the Wasabi Sushi & Bento place at the station. To be honest I've seen this place on a number of occasions and given it a wide berth, it just looks a bit nasty. The sushi is on shelves wastefully wrapped in individual portions while wasabi, soy and ginger is available in tiny sachets for 5p a pop. Today I decided to give it a go.

I opted for a couple of salmon nigiri ("2 sushis for £1" as the billboard announces) and some avocado hosomaki. It was predictably disappointing. Despite the name of the place, wasabi is not used in the construction of the sushi, the fish was small and unimpressive (although it was fresh) and the avocado too young and hard. I was pleased not to have bought more and to have avoided the specially for the UK varities such as red pepper rolled sushi. And, as well the excess packaging of each portion, to add insult to injury, they also give away disposable chopsticks with every purchase too.


At the counter, as well as offering wasabi peas, there are a few hot dishes available such as the very greasy looking chicken yakisoba, a Chinese looking tofu or chicken "jahang" and a couple of other shiny MSG concoctions.


It has been hard to find out much about this chain except that it is Japanese-owned and the website claims to have some sort of health mission pronouncing that sushi should be fresh and affordable. Hear hear. Apparently it is doing quite well too having 11 branches listed on the website, and having opened only in 2002. Reportedly, its Oxford street branch attracts almost 7,500 people per week visit with an average spend of £8.00. It is also pioneering contactless paying technology. At least it stands a chance of giving people like Pret a run for its money. Shame about the food.

Manga Mania in Britain

As I child, I read the Beano voraciously but after the age of about 11, I rarely looked at comics. And later, when I started getting into Japan, unlike many, it was not through the route of Dragonball etc, (rather more through sushi and the history of the Ryukyus for me). However, since I last lived in the UK a few years ago, the visibility of manga on bookshelves has increased dramatically and as British Japan-spotter, this is too small a trend to ignore. Even small rural bookshops stock at least some manga.

A little digging and I found that this summer in the UK, some manga titles have replaced classics in the top 200 books tables with VIZ Media's Death Note series apparently being the hottest manga on the market here at the moment. Official sites such as www.amimeuknews.net provide detailed reviews and are widely used by the British manga reading community. This interest has in part been fueled by the Japanese embassy who have had a number of exhibitions (like this one) and organised promotions to encourage Brits to read more manga.

A true mark of success must surely be the arrival of "Manga Shakespeare", published by a British company (SelfMadeHero), offering animated versions of the bard. The BBC reported on this last spring and looked at the manga version of Hamlet. The writer observes:

Hamlet's famous soliloquy begins in familiar fashion, "To be or not to be ... that is the question", but then jumps to "To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream..." - completely dropping the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the sea of troubles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6647927.stm

Seems like he is rather shocked at this particular "outrageous fortune". Seems OK to me if it is helping students get interested. But, I wonder whether after reading a manga version of MacBeth, a British teenager would be more likely to pick up Othello or Naruto?



(I also wonder what it would take to get me more interested in manga than Shakespeare...)