With 21 branches Nobu may be the McDonald’s of the McKinsey change consultant. Alone and in a different global capital every week, the Nobu sushi counter may be the most inconspicuous and comforting place to dine solo - with a dash of luxury. And then of course there is the Prozac of the preppy: the raw fish.
| Nobu +27 (0)21 431 5111 www.noburestaurants.com One & Only Dock Rd V&A Waterfront Cape Town |
After a day of turnaround strategy (read retrenching execs and workers), a little cheering up and a glass or two of sake at Nobu may be just the thing. (This scenario was wonderfully portrayed by George Clooney in Up in the Air, only it wasn’t McKinsey). Tellingly a third of the Nobu branches are now in emerging markets: if you have one in your country it is a signifier that you’ve arrived.
The six course Cape omakase menu at the local Nobu at the One & Only hotel may be R650 but when the future of an S&P 500 company is (allegedly) in your hands the expenses will cover this with enough left over for a hooker/stud or two. After the financial slip-up of Sol Kerzner paying all that money to you know who to ‘consult’ at the next door Maze and the slow start to his Atlantis hotel in Dubai, who knows, maybe the consultant is even doing the job for old Sol himself. (Incidentally I had a fine meal at Maze.)
The tragic loss of Kerzner’s son Butch is said to have been a real loss to the business too, but the marriage between the US-based chef Nobu Matsuhisa, Robert DeNiro and Kerzner appears to be doing just fine thanks on the evidence of tonight’s busy floor. Nobu is reportedly consistent and has been without the poor publicity of Maze (sometimes bad publicity is just bad publicity). Indeed the partnership between Matsuhisa and Kerzner is a tried and tested one, evidenced by the sustainability of the relationship at the older Bahamas Atlantis.
As you enter the staff chants a greeting in unison. Indeed you may be forgiven for thinking you are having a birthday at a Spur steak ranch. After this formality an East-Asian chef behind the counter greets me personally with a warm smile. I tell him I want the local omakase menu, asking what fish he has today.
“Kob, bluefin tuna, fatty tuna, yellowtail and salmon.”
I inform him I won’t eat the blue fin, which he accepts with only a brief pause but without rancour. This tuna species, which is not found locally, is threatened but Matsuhisa has said he will continue to serve it unless there is a ban. There may be questions as to the long-term sustainability of many local species regularly found on our tables, such as kob, but there is no maybe about bluefin. Stock levels are dire.
Other seafood I notice includes octopus, sardines, scallops, calamari and crayfish or is it lobster. I forget to ask if there is eel, which I’ve only eaten smoked at the lovely English Market in Cork (it tasted of burnt fish oil but I was young).
Omakase means it’s up to the chef to decide what you eat. It can also mean it is up to the chef to surprise and challenge you in this multiple course offering.
Before the first course, the sushi chef hands a taster over the counter, which he describes as crispy rice and spicy salmon. Two rice blocks the colour of coconut-covered marshmallow are as light as the sweet but taste nothing of the sort. These morsels are indeed crispy deep-fried and pair well with the salmon, which is spicy without being burny.
The first course emerges from the ‘hot’ kitchen though it is a salad. A mound of baby spinach, sprinkled with solidified crunchy specks of miso and shards of parmesan is placed in front of me by a waitress via the restaurant floor. Framing the salad are six cross-sections of poached lobster tail, each in a puddle of truffle oil.
The flavours are perfectly balanced, the parsimony with the parmesan only releasing a gentle pungence onto the greens. The truffle oil is a truly earthy-rich companion to the lobster. Truffle oil may be a synthetic ingredient but this variety is the most potent I’ve experienced and the kitchen generous with it.
Next up are three baby tacos, two filled with raw salmon and one with scallop, accompanied by a red (tomato) salsa, in a first hint that Matsuhisa looks west Peru and the rest of Latin America after turning his gaze from Japan. “No soya,” are the two words I understand from the chef’s heavily accented, though no doubt fluent, English. These folded tortillas (tacos) are brittle and the salmon I recall includes spring onions.
Then it is a fillet of halibut grilled on what I believe is a bamboo leaf. The fish is mustard yellow in colour with firm flakes. The skin is blackened sweet from heat applied to sugar. The server struggles to describe the ingredients it has been basted with. This is the only service blemish of the evening. A second and blonde sushi chef, of the four before me, pipes up in a marginally more decipherable accent (to my Western ear) that it consists of sugar, mirin (sugary low alcohol sake or rice wine) and sake itself.
Sweet apricot jam is a common local basting for snoek but lets just say halibut is lot less snoekie. The combination here works, particularly when followed by the pickled ginger, as instructed. No this is not the pink day-glo pickled ginger of your faddish sushi bar, but rather a more vinegary than gingery root.
“But there’s more,” only this is the TV infomercial you can’t get enough of. Wagyu breed beef with two sauces: teriyaki (sugary soya) and another nod to Peru, the chilli-hot anticuchos (vinegary and spicy sauce), accompanied by a bowl of sea salt (it needs it). The tender beef, including fatty bits for full flavour as it should, sits on a bed of what appears to be porcini-like wild mushrooms.
“Eat the beef dipped in the mild-sweet sauce first,” is the instruction this time. When I get to the anticuchos sauce I can immediately tell why. The deep sour-spicy sauce, while not habanero-hot, would turn the subtle teriyaki tasteless. By the same logic the anticuchos destroys the mushrooms. Slow-roasted in another bamboo leaf is a trio of veggies. More Latin America in the baby corn, broccolini and two baby tomatoes still attached at the vine. A bit of cutesy for those with a bent for it. Tonight it’s working.
By now I’m starting to build up a bit of a rapport with this blonde chef and as it’s time for my second and main sushi course he asks what I want.
“Is the octopus fresh?”
“Yes,” he says, his eyes lighting up.
Game on. Clearly the man is bored to tears preparing tuna and salmon rolls.
“I’ll give you octopus, sardines and lobster, okay?”
Now a sardine is not a fish I have ever considered eating raw. Although I have loved it grilled as well as Lucky Star-tinned it can easily taste like the wrong end of low tide.
“Sardines no soya, octopus soya and lobster no soya,” is the instruction on eating this nigiri. The rich oiliness of this little swimmer makes it work, the fishiness thankfully playing second fiddle. Whether it is fresh or defrosted I do not know but there is no hint of fermentation. Unlike the only-just-dead schools of fish that wash up on the South Coast in the July sardine run. Is Nobu’s offering what raw herring tastes like in a Dutch fishing harbour?
The octopus is chewy as you might expect but the suction pad cephalopod is devoid of flavour. Maybe it is all about texture? The lobster on the other hand has benefited from a ten second mini-marinade of chilli, ginger and lime juice. Surprisingly the micro-slivers are transluscent. Sublime.
“Like ceviche,” I say.
“Not quite, says he.”
“But there are many Peruvian influences here,” say I.
“Well Nobu lived in Peru for a long time and opened his first restaurant there,” he retorts.
Three creamy rolls of salmon follow rolls follow (even they aren’t improved by soy and ginger, which in this case I’m given ‘permission’ to use). A seafood broth that accompanies this sushi platter is the only poor dish of the day. The prawn and mushroom are okay but the fish tastes overcooked and there is no exotic crustacean flavour found in a simple spicy-sour Thai tom yum soup.
And then there is only one more: dessert. A traditional calpis (like Japanese yoghurt) and pineapple ice cream, with what appears to be dried strawberry and a stripe of jam of the same. It is accompanied by the decidedly non-Japanese Cape Dutch malva pudding with a love handle of sesame crunchie on top and a jug of that magically rich-but-light Crème Anglaise to pour over this sponge cake. Surprised? Don’t be. Japanese-born Matsuhisa recently told the Financial Times his “guilty pleasure” was chocolate éclairs.
The intention is to follow the meal with the cheapest little glass of chilled sake available at R120 but I’m terrified the booze will dull the memory of precisely what I have eaten over six courses and how it has been prepared. (As it is I already may have things a little cockeyed.). Green tea would be better.
You may think I’m ready to explode like the gluttons in the French-Italian movie Le Grande Bouffe. It is a lot of food but nowhere near excessive. You may also believe R650 is a large amount of money for food before even the first bottle of sparkling water. It is. But it’s worth it.
According to the website the omakase paired with sake is only an extra R50. Go with a friend (or alone) if you can and sit at the sushi bar. Watch the men work the magic with their knives and ask them questions. You can also eat for far less than this by ordering from the menu and light meals are offered at the bar. Currently there is a bento box special for R195 at the bar.
You don’t need to drink wine to have a great Japanese meal but if you like there are glasses of both white and red from R20. Most of the rest is much, much, more, including the French stuff, though enough local bottles of local white for around R200. A good list that doesn’t simply favour the big brands but I am hardly qualified to say more than that. Check it out the wine list yourself. Tequila options look good (as they are in the hotel bar).
Sake may be the trendiest drink to pair with food but it is prohibitive on its own as are the Japanese beers (starting at R70 for Asahi and Sapporo).
Like the other restaurant in the hotel, the interior is brown and dark but not so much so that you can’t see your food or companions. This makes it ideal if you want to be discreet, whether this is due to fame, tax evasion or modesty.
5/5 stars on the night. The food and service are not perfect but come pretty close but as an Afro-Western boy the exotic raw culinary experience blows me away. A Japanese or Peruvian diner might disagree.
For possibly the best piece of food porn on sushi read Ruth Reichl’s story about secretly following a stylish Japanese woman out to lunch and into the ultimate sushi bar. This in the chapter Looking for Umami in her book, Garlic and Sapphires: the secret life of a food critic.
For a more rudimentary understanding of Peruvian Cuisine read the introduction to the review of Camil’s. Camil Haas is no longer involved in this restaurant.
Tom Robbins
Posted August 27, 2010
Tags: Cape Town fine dining, Cape Town sushi restaurants, Cape Town V&A Waterfront restaurants, City Bowl restaurants, food of Peru, Japanese cuisine, Japanese food, Peruvian cuisine
