Allow your tummy to soak up some Japanese joy at a new sushi fest in town

Saadi Dilli has taken kindly to the sushis and the sashimis and quaint Japanese restaurants have mushroomed all over the city. But after the first wave of attack on our culinary territory, the Japs are ready to overwhelm us with more healthy yet tasty bites.

Sushi so good: Even the rajma-chawal fan will love the change

And Chef Kazuhiro Koizumi, who has been flown in at Hotel Sheraton's Pan Asian restaurant to design a Japanese platter Delhiites will love, is a torchbearer of this revolution. He makes sure the Japanese fare being served at Pan Asian is a delight, even for the diehard rajma-chawal fan.

We started the meal with a crabstick salad, a very popular starter in Japan. The small bowl of crispy lettuce and succulent crabsticks comes with a seasoning of Enoki mushrooms (flown in from Japan). While the crabsticks, claimed by the chefs to have been extracted from crab claws instead of being rolled from the cheaper substitute surimi, were fresh; the Enoki mushrooms lent a mild and a pleasantly crunchy texture to the salad. For the uninitiated, crabsticks (also called imitation crab meat) are a type of processed seafood shaped to resemble crab legs.

The next on the platter were yakitoris, or grilled chicken sections speared on sticks. While the Japanese love chicken brains, Chef Koizumi served the more sedate chicken gizzard (stomach), and yummy liver and breast pieces. The tasty morsels came dipped in the sweet and sour teriyaki sauce, perfect for a Japanese cuisine initiation.

For connoisseurs, there were imported Gingko nuts, a delicacy all over the Orient.

"Teriyaki sauce is generally made with lamb or pork fat but keeping Delhiites in mind, I have kept the two ingredients out. So, this is a vegetarian teriyaki sauce," said Koizumi. We loved it anyway.

Next were flaky tempura rolls, deep-fried and crunchy, to be had with a sour tempura sauce. We loved the mushroom and the fish-flavoured nori sheet tempuras, but the award of the day went to the prawn tempuras, a must-try again. At the end came the sushis with a traditional miso soup. The soup was strictly vegetarian, without the trademark bonito fish flakes. And the sushis the strong mackerel and the more popular salmon and crab rolls were delightfully fresh.

Platter rates
SUSHI: RS 800 to 1,000
Yakitori: Rs 600 to 1,000 (TAXES extra)u00a0 per person
Restaurant: Pan Asian, Hotel Sheraton, Saket
Contact: 42661122