Located at: 137 Sir James Pieris Mawatha, Colombo 02, Sri Lanka

Visited on: 30 Nov, 2018

Located at the far end of the second floor of the mall, this place might be easy to miss if you are unaware of it. Walking in through the restaurant entrance, I didn’t imagine it to be as spacious as it was either, but it extended into quite a large seating area and had a separate bar too. We visited for a bit of an early dinner that evening and so were the second occupied table. However, more diners started walking in over time, and the restaurant was starting to fill up as we were leaving.

We tried the Classic Miso Soup (LKR 400), which was quite good. Right up there with most nice miso bowls I’ve had.

Pre-mains, we thought of trying out a couple of their sushi rolls. The first choice was a Shrimp Tempura Roll – tempura shrimp, crunchy cucumber and avocado with Chef special sauce (LKR 1,200). It looked a bit like a plate of organised chaos when it came (I mean this in a good way), with six pieces of roll almost concealed under a bed of tempura floss and sauces. It tasted quite good, with the shrimp being nice and crunchy. Texturally, the sushi felt quite soft – softer than most sushi I’ve had, so the floss provided a nice balance to the soft texture by adding a bit of coarseness. The sauce definitely enhanced the flavour of the dish – not all that sweet, but nice and savoury.

The second roll we ordered was Tiger Roll – jumbo shrimp tempura, cucumber and avocado, topped with spicy tuna, tobiko and truffle oil (LKR 1,660). Yes, shrimp again, but this was different. This plate of eight pieces was quite colourful, which was somewhat reflective of its taste and texture as well. With a bit of crunch coming from the shrimp and cucumber inside, the sauce-laden spicy tuna did well to smoothen it out. And of course, the tobiko (flying fish roe) gave it a bit of pop. The tuna also obviously gave the roll a bit of spice, which was mellowed down by the rest of the mouthful. As with the previous roll, I felt like this was quite soft as well – softer than usual. I’m not sure if this was deliberate or not. I didn’t mind it, but it was an obvious unorthodoxy felt on the palate. Visually, (the previous platter was topped with a layer of floss, so cannot be compared) I felt like this one could have looked neater.

For the mains, we tried three dishes from their Hot Kitchen section, the first of which was a Chicken Katsu Don (LKR 1,400). I quite liked this. It looked delightful with a topping of fresh greens and pink pickled radish. With a decent serving of breaded chicken and beaten egg, it also tasted good. The light soy sauce had got absorbed into the chicken well to give it good flavour. The sauce was also a great accompaniment for the sticky rice, as were the pieces of sliced onion that had got mixed in with the egg.

The second dish was a Ten Don – tempura prawn and mix vegetable served with teriyaki sauce on a bed of rice (LKR 1,600). The tempura batter and preparation of the elements was quite good as even the lady’s fingers tasted nice. The sauce was good too, but I feel like the dish needed a little more of it – perhaps as a dip on the side – to accompany the tempura items.

The final dish was a Giyu Don – pan-fried wagyu beef served on a bed of rice and topped with bull’s eye egg (LKR 1,800). Visually, this looked good too. I tasted a bit of the rice with the sauce and it was good – quite similar to the soy sauce of the katsu don. I didn’t try the protein myself, but was told that it was a bit on the chewy side. Flavour, I am told, was alright.

All in all, this was a good find, and a place that I can see myself returning to in the future.

Yummy Rating: 4.0 / 5.0