My arm is easily twisted. On Friday night, after a tough week at work, my friend Lewis asked if I wanted to grab some sushi. Even though I was trying not to spend money and really could have used a night in, sushi sounded reeeeeally good.
Hakuba is situated off Great Russell Street in between Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury. The interior is really sharp and there are some fantastic tables for private dining. However, I find it odd that it was completely EMPTY on a Friday night. There was no reason, it was perfectly nice. I’m just not sure how a restaurant can stay in business with no business on a weekend.
Tuna carpaccio
On to the food:
Tuna carpaccio – The tuna was very light in colour, it almost looked like hamachi. This was just ok. 4/10
Spicy hamachi – Not great. That’s all. The hamachi wasn’t very flavourful. 3/10
Spicy salmon – Odd that the same exact roll with different fish could be so good. There was a nice sprinkling of togarashi on it that was a nice touch. 7/10
Spicy Salmon
Spring roll with sweet chili – A little bit greasy, but otherwise a perfectly respectable fried stick of vegetables. 6/10
Rainbow roll – It was a rainbow roll. 3/10
Nagoya (tempura maki layered with unagi and avocado sprinkled with aonori, tempura flakes and smelt roe) – Yum! Love it when tempura is done correctly. I love eel. This was easily the best of the night. 7/10
Nagoya
For six dishes, 3 glasses of wine and a beer, it came to £60, including service. It’s not a very cheap night, but you could do a lot worse in this town. The food was much better than your average upscale takeaway, worse quality than Sake No Hana, but a much better price!
The rest of my photos from the night are on Flickr.
4 Comments
13 July, 2009 at 14:36
I’m with you on most of that, but I’d mark the rainbow roll more kindly – They also need a better winelist as the Reisling was drinkable, but not dry enough for my liking with that kind of sushi.
19 July, 2009 at 17:34
nagoya reminds me of eel tempura roll from sushi.com. any plans of trying umu?
3 September, 2009 at 03:50
[...] came with a sweet chilli sauce that tasted exactly like the one at Hakuba. The spring roll wasn’t too greasy and had a nice mixture of filling inside. Fabulous little [...]
29 October, 2009 at 08:10
[...] quality of a sushi place based on the quality of their hamachi. For example, what did I think of Hakuba’s hamachi? Not great. Tomoe’s hamachi? Actually quite nice, and a good price. Japan [...]