Going out on my bike for lunch took a month or so's break, due to a mix of holidays, being busy away working, bike gears on the fritz and the weather. I went back to Unithai a week ago,finally, with fixed bike gears, and had an excellent pork ball soup with noodles - a rich dark soup with a touch of 5 spice I think.
Earlier this week I tried to go to Sushi Garden, having failed last time, when they were shut, despite claiming to open 7 days a week. This time the failure was entirely mine - I had not left myself enough time to sit down and eat and make it to my Ethiopian mentee's flat on time. So I ended up having a pasty on the bus, which was OK, but then I regretted it when it turned out my mentee had made me some lunch in her tiny kitchen.
Hubby suggested we try Sushi Garden again with a couple of friends who were supposed to be visiting us from London on Friday, but then they rang to cancel, having come down with the norovirus. Undeterred we decided to go out anyway. So, finally, I can do a blunch blog on it, although it wasn't lunch.
The decor was quite cheesy - a sort of 1970s Western view of Japan - all geisha and cherry trees and mount Fuji. The waitresses were dressed in some kind of Cheongsam Suzy Wong meets kimono outfit that reminded me of the split to the thigh outfit I had to wear when I was a student waitress at a Chinese Kosher restaurant in Hendon many years ago. Some of the waitresses were Japanese but some weren't and the menu had a few Korean dishes on it. I decided to order lots of little dishes izakaya style, and not from the almost too extensive, not very trad sushi menu, as it was too wintry an evening to be eating sushi we felt, although the menu did say that some of the sushi was hot. Hmm.
The chicken tebasaki (fried wing tips) was good but the gyoza more deep fried and dry than the boiled/fried potsticker version I like. The nasu dengaku (aubergine and miso) was not quite cooked enough. I also chose the bibimbap - a Korean rice dish I have enjoyed many times in Japan. In Japan they usually offer the version where the ingredients are mixed together in a heated stone bowl, so the rice goes a little bit brown and crunchy at the edges and the egg cooks slightly. Anyway, the Sushi Garden version was tasty, but I did miss the sizzling stone bowl bit.
Verdict - food OK, but the restaurant should be set out more as a place to come with big gangs of people from work (booths seating 6 type thing) rather than romantic tables for two. Also, given that in Brighton we already have Murasaki doing the izakaya thing, Yo Sushi and Moshi Moshi Sushi doing the wacky inauthentic sushi thing, E-kagen doing the Japanese home cooking thing and Pompoko doing the donburi thing, I think Sushi Garden would be better off concentrating on Korean food (and I suppose changing its name) as we don't have a Korean restaurant in Brighton, which seems a bit of an anomaly considering it's supposed to be the third best city to eat out in in the UK. And while we're at it, we need a Vietnamese restaurant too. Hubby and I were reminiscing about the fabulous meals we used to have at the Viet Hoa when we lived in the East End of London (nearly 10 years' ago now).
Comments