japanese

The reason why I wanted to go to Uni is because the Harden’s guide said it was one of the top 10 new restaurants that opened in London in 2014. My personal view is that it could not be further from the truth. Uni is a restaurant in Victoria serving Peruvian and Japanese fusion food, another restaurant that is trying to copy the success of Sushi Samba and Nobu, which arguably introduced this fusion food to London. Uni has even hired the former Nobu chef Rolando Ongcoy to recreate this sort of food.

Bone Daddies, the Soho ramen restaurant, as well as the group behind Flesh and Buns, the modern Japanese restaurant in Covent Garden, has launched another modern Japanese restaurant Shackfuyu, in Soho, distance wise, in between Bone Daddies Soho and Flesh and Buns. Shackfuyu, according to them, serves the sort of food that is popular in Japan at the moment. Translated from Japanese the restaurant’s name means Winter Shack and this restaurant is only going to be open for a year, it opened in February 2015, so you need to visit it before February 2016.
 

Ippudo is a Japanese ramen restaurant in London. Ippudo comes from Japan, where it first opened in 1985 in Japan’s ramen capital of Hakata by Shigemi Kawahara (who apparently is called the Ramen King). Now Ippudo has over 80 restaurants in London and is also present in Australia, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan and now in London, their first venture in Europe. Shigemi Kawahara has reinvented the Hakata-style tonkotsu (pork-based) ramen with its signature delicate, creamy broth, which you can get in Ippudo.

Ramusake is a private members restaurant and club on Old Bromtpon Road. It is located in the place where Old Brompton club (also private members) used to be, where I have been a few times. I am not a member at Ramusake and neither are my friends, but as it was our first time visiting them and the place is new, they let us into Ramusake to have dinner and then we could decide whether to join them. Membership costs £250/ year, which is not expansive when compared to what some of the other clubs in London cost, but I was not tempted to join.

Ramusake is a fun place created by Scott Hallworth (ex Nobu and Kurobuta) and Piers Adams (expert on cocktails, music and vibe). I love Kurobuta, it is one of my favourite casual London restaurants and the menu in Ramusake was similar, only shorter, and most of the dishes on Ramusake menu, I had either seen or had in Kurobuta. Also I thought prices maybe were a bit cheaper at Kurobuta, but I am not sure, and would not like to bet on it.

Kintan is amazing in every aspect apart from actually getting in and booking a table. I tried to go there for a long time. I once turned up on a Friday night and it ws fully booked, tried to call the next day, same thing, fully booked. Tried to call the following Monday, phone did not work, send an email, no response. Finally managed to get hold of them, it was full and I could not go on a Friday evening. In the end I managed to book a table for Saturday lunch, but it was a tedious process. They definitely focus on food and not on the customer experience, as even when we went there on the Saturday we had to wait to be seated for 5min until the receptionist finished a very long phone conversation and completely ignored us. However I forgot about all of this once I sat down and tasted the food.