Japanese Canteen

Tottenham Court Road (TCR) is generally known as the place for electronic goods but in recent years there has also been a concentration of home/furniture stores. And more recently still, it appears to be home to an increasing concentration of Japanese eateries. From the Centre Point Food Store, right up to Warren Street I counted at least 12 outlets - not to mention the Futon Company shop as well.

However, the old maxim about quantity not equating to quality is a sad truism in the Japanese food regard... As well as a few gems, there is also a Wasabi (see below) and some other pretty shoddy restaurants. I aim to visit them all so watch out for the definititive TCR J-Food Guide.

The other day I popped in for lunch at the Japanese Canteen.



This no frills diner offers an uninspiring menu of dishes - bento boxes, noodles, gyoza and "chilli fired rice" all with the same variants of topping. These are predictably, chicken and salmon teriyaki, pork and chicken katsu, chicken curry and so on... staples made either spicier or blander in accordance with some imagined idea of the "British taste", presumably based on Anglo-Chinese cuisine.

Attempting to judge the place on its own terms I went for the salmon teriyaki bento box. It was a reasonable size, served within about 2 seconds and tasted, well, pretty average. For £4.95 I guess the pricing is fair(although it's £2.45 for a few edamame!) but I found the bare interior, lack of smiles and unimaginative cuisine rather depressing overall. Go, if you have to but I reckon you'd be better off with a cornish pasty.



Looking forward to getting round to the good places!

Hare & Tortoise

The Hare & Tortoise in Bloomsbury is one of four outlets in this unusual and modern Asian chain. While Japan purists may be appalled by its blending of different Asian cuisines, Japanese format prevails and the deviations from tradition, such as spicy maguro maki sushi, are very welcome to the more open minded.

An evening with three old friends was the perfect occasion to sample a good cross section of the menu, which is vast in terms of its range, offering all sorts of sushi, sashimi, tempura, ramen and rice dishes. JA went for the classic miso ramen, except at the Hare & Tortoise it is made with a twist - generous dollops of garlic and chilli oil make it all the more flavourful and the perfect antidote to glum autumn weather. Meanwhile, LS (who has recently acquired an astonishing taste for fried food) went for the duck and bok-choi on rice. "But that's more Chinese than Japanese" I hear you say. Perhaps, but the presentation is don-buri style on Japanese rice and the meat is done in a similar way to tonkatsu making it a rare but happy combination of Sino-Japanese cooperation .




AM also went for Japanese style ramen while I opted for the special "laksa" ramen - a rich, very tasty, very spicy, coconutty Malaysian broth that plays host to pork, chicken, prawns and noodles. Sadly, it normally includes cucumber but I always have it without, cucumber being the one food I simply can't stomach. Cucumber in ramen - it's just wrong! The side order of prawn and chive gyoza was good too.



And on the liquid side, the drinks menu boasts a good range of Western beverages alongside umeshu (plum wine) and some good ginjo and kyotu-fu sake. Unfortunately our waitress brought us umeshu sodas for some reason... not sure why she did that but the service is pretty poor generally. The staff are mainly drawn from China and Southeast Asia and good command of English is clearly not given too much importance in the recruitment policy. I seem to remember some unordered dishes arriving on a previous visit too. But as AM pointed out, "it's cheap and the service is cheap and not very good but it doesn't really matter. It's good value and it's good." It is indeed - about 5 or 6 pounds for a superb main course that defeats most people with cheap and cheerful side orders for less.

The obvious comparison is with Wagamama's but the Hare & Tortoise is more unusual and intimate, and the food is more authentic, and better - even the crockery is nicer. And why the pub-type name for an Asian/Japanese diner? I haven't the foggiest but nousagi to kame would just be a failure.

Happy Fat Man

M and I went to Taro this evening. Taro is a Japanese diner on Soho's Brewer Street, next to the Glasshouse Stores pub. The Glasshouse has always intrigued me because of the large Japanese crowd that it invariably draws - apparently from a nearby language institute.

M refers to Taro as "the happy fat man", because of the round face logo. Having met the owner, the inspiration for the design is obvious:



The menu is classic - lots of ramen, udon, don-buri, sushi and high qulaity izakaya staples such as gyoza and agedofu. The decor is bright, modern and slick and the service of a very good standard; I ordered "Tonkatsu Curry Udon" but was initially presented with Tonkatsu Miso Udon - on mentioning the error there was no hesitancy in correcting the order and I was promptly presented with a large portion of the right dish, which was delicious. M opted for the "Chicken Teri Don" which was also excellent and of a size fit for greedy people, like M and me. Alive with a buzzing atmosphere, a couple of Carlsbergs (Asahi available but why waste the extra 30p?) and a half bottle of Ozeki cold sake, we were as happy as Larry (ラリー？）, on a very good day.


All in all our totally satisfactory feast set us back under £20 each, and then it was back to the Glasshouse to finish off the evening, two very happy fat men. Luckily we were both cycling home...

And by the way, if anyone knows the mystery of why this particular section of Brewer Street is so Japanese dominated, please do let me know!

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...)

Fuji Foods

Well, back in London, there appears to be a somewat wider selection of Japanese groceries on offer. I pottered down the road this morning to Fuji Foods in Crouch End.

Mr Fuji, who was a little abrupt having just yesterday returned from a trip back to his native Osaka, has been in business for almost 5 years. His little store of Japanese standard groceries also houses a sushi/sashimi counter behind which he stands cutting fish.



He tells me sushi is his most successful product and, while browsing in the shop, a couple of regulars swing buy to pick up their orders. The other stock includes all Japanese cooking staples, miso, shiso, nori, mirin, soy, tofu, umeboshi, rice, edamame, natto and so on, plus there is a good selection of soft drinks featuring iced green tea, CC Lemon and Pocari Sweat. They even sell mentaiko sauce for spaghetti. All in all, a comprehensive range with a few avocados thrown in for good measure.

Being located in a relatively trendy part of North London where the word 'organic' is sure to draw a few more happy pence from enthusiastic green shoppers, Fuji Foods is on the ball boasting its own selection of Japanese organic produce.