www.sushi.lv
Hold the front page! News in from Latvia: while most of it is just as bad as I painted in my last post, it has been partly redeemed just minutes after the last entry was blogged.
I left the internet café like I’d leave a crack den: looking round furtively to see who’d attack me on the way out, and hoping the smell of the interior didn’t cling to me too much. Outside, it was raining: a cold slimy rain that hadn’t relented all day. I tramped through the old cobbled streets, deserted as they had been all day, and turned the corner – in more senses than one.
A block away from my hotel, to which I was headed in the hope of hiding myself away from the sheer misery of the weather, I passed a Japanese restaurant. Given the compact nature of Riga, it was about the fourth time that day I had done so, but the need for some good food I’d recognise drew me inside.
Hallelujah – a modern, clean restaurant where I was welcomed and shown to a table. So unlike the Riga I had experienced to that point; in fact, apart from the fact that the place was absolutely deserted apart from me, there was nothing in common with the rest of the city.
The restaurant is on a street corner, and bounded by floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. I took the table where these panes met, and had a look at the menu. I smiled on seeing that while the first half of the book was taken up with Japanese fare, the second half offered an Italian menu. I assumed that these were just menus that could be transferred between Kabuki and their next door neighbour, Macaroni: a shining example of a post-Soviet demand economy, I thought. Julija, the manager, disabused me of this notion and came to tell me that I was free to order from either menu. I decided to accept this novel challenge, and set about designing an early-evening Eurasian dinner.
The Italian menu drove me towards a beef carpaccio – something I rarely refuse when offered. It was topped with a dressed rocket salad, and the traditional shaved parmesan and lemon juice. Lovely. The rest of my choices came from the Japanese menu: Nagasaki soup – a chilli-spiced mushroom and prawn broth; some individual maki – two Maguro (spicy tuna), two Sake (spicy salmon), and one Sapporo (spicy scallop with flying fish roe and a tangy mayonnaise); and a serving of eight Sakura maki – consisting of salmon, flying-fish roe, crabmeat, avocado, red caviar. These were washed down by a pot of ginger and lime tea, and a bottle of Gerolsteiner sparkling water. I loved every morsel – very, very high quality sushi. Frankly, I was surprised – the previous 20 hours in Riga had prepared me for something worse.
By this time, the restaurant was still bare – there were two more tables occupied out of about fifteen. I decided to give into the temptation of the picture menu and order an amaretto coffee. Interesting touch: a little white chocolate disc on the side, imprinted in colour with the Kabuki logo. Best of all, it came with an interesting, intricate and memorable chat with Julija. As I told her at the time, her conversation was the pivot on which my view of Riga became less negative. Up till then, I had seen more smiles in the Occupation Museum (well worth a visit) than I had on the streets of Riga. Julija was the first person in Latvia who was actually nice to me: the voice of Latvia less often heard, but which had made all the difference.
Kabuki/ Macaroni is evidently positioning itself as trendy and high-end. Although most of Riga seems intent on charging Western European prices, and is obviously aimed at tourists and their foolishness in parting too quickly with their euro, Kabuki is actually worth it. Just remember that the staff are not the ones benefiting from the Western prices.
Total 33.15
_________________
The Score
4.5 Food and Drink
5.0 Service
4.0 Décor
3.5 Ambience
3.0 Value
4.0 Overall Rating
Hold the front page! News in from Latvia: while most of it is just as bad as I painted in my last post, it has been partly redeemed just minutes after the last entry was blogged.
I left the internet café like I’d leave a crack den: looking round furtively to see who’d attack me on the way out, and hoping the smell of the interior didn’t cling to me too much. Outside, it was raining: a cold slimy rain that hadn’t relented all day. I tramped through the old cobbled streets, deserted as they had been all day, and turned the corner – in more senses than one.
A block away from my hotel, to which I was headed in the hope of hiding myself away from the sheer misery of the weather, I passed a Japanese restaurant. Given the compact nature of Riga, it was about the fourth time that day I had done so, but the need for some good food I’d recognise drew me inside.
Hallelujah – a modern, clean restaurant where I was welcomed and shown to a table. So unlike the Riga I had experienced to that point; in fact, apart from the fact that the place was absolutely deserted apart from me, there was nothing in common with the rest of the city.
The restaurant is on a street corner, and bounded by floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. I took the table where these panes met, and had a look at the menu. I smiled on seeing that while the first half of the book was taken up with Japanese fare, the second half offered an Italian menu. I assumed that these were just menus that could be transferred between Kabuki and their next door neighbour, Macaroni: a shining example of a post-Soviet demand economy, I thought. Julija, the manager, disabused me of this notion and came to tell me that I was free to order from either menu. I decided to accept this novel challenge, and set about designing an early-evening Eurasian dinner.
The Italian menu drove me towards a beef carpaccio – something I rarely refuse when offered. It was topped with a dressed rocket salad, and the traditional shaved parmesan and lemon juice. Lovely. The rest of my choices came from the Japanese menu: Nagasaki soup – a chilli-spiced mushroom and prawn broth; some individual maki – two Maguro (spicy tuna), two Sake (spicy salmon), and one Sapporo (spicy scallop with flying fish roe and a tangy mayonnaise); and a serving of eight Sakura maki – consisting of salmon, flying-fish roe, crabmeat, avocado, red caviar. These were washed down by a pot of ginger and lime tea, and a bottle of Gerolsteiner sparkling water. I loved every morsel – very, very high quality sushi. Frankly, I was surprised – the previous 20 hours in Riga had prepared me for something worse.
By this time, the restaurant was still bare – there were two more tables occupied out of about fifteen. I decided to give into the temptation of the picture menu and order an amaretto coffee. Interesting touch: a little white chocolate disc on the side, imprinted in colour with the Kabuki logo. Best of all, it came with an interesting, intricate and memorable chat with Julija. As I told her at the time, her conversation was the pivot on which my view of Riga became less negative. Up till then, I had seen more smiles in the Occupation Museum (well worth a visit) than I had on the streets of Riga. Julija was the first person in Latvia who was actually nice to me: the voice of Latvia less often heard, but which had made all the difference.Kabuki/ Macaroni is evidently positioning itself as trendy and high-end. Although most of Riga seems intent on charging Western European prices, and is obviously aimed at tourists and their foolishness in parting too quickly with their euro, Kabuki is actually worth it. Just remember that the staff are not the ones benefiting from the Western prices.
The Damage (LVL)
from the Macaroni menu:
- 3.95 Beef Carpaccio
- 3.20 Nagasaki mushroom and prawn soup
- 2.40 Spicy Maguro Maki *2
- 2.40 Spicy Sake Maki *2
- 2.00 Spicy Sapporo Maki *1
- 6.00 Sakura Maki
- 2.00 Ginger and Lime tea
- 1.00 500ml Gerolsteiner sparkling water
- 2.20 Italian amaretto coffee
Total 33.15
_________________
The Score
4.5 Food and Drink
5.0 Service
4.0 Décor
3.5 Ambience
3.0 Value
4.0 Overall Rating
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