There are perks of working in Dinings. Once we realised we’re all off this evening, Gracelett, Kris and I, we decided to hit Nobu Berkeley. Fuku san was kind enough to ring Oba san, who got us 3 seats at the counter and off we went.
Berkeley, all posh, 2 chicks downstairs with long legs, blokes opening doors for us, orchids in the reception, all posh, pretty, expensive, nice toilet paper and all. We kicked off with some mojitos, which were lovely, just as sweet as I like them and not a stingy size at all.
Oba san prepared a couple of starters for us, I loved the first one, a trio of salmon tartar with wasabi soya, toro hagashi- that rocked- and some sea bass sashimi that was ok.
Then we requested a portion of yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno and yuzu soy, which was just as delicious as I remembered from Ubon, but the presentation messy and looking like someone couldn’t be bothered…
The star of the show for me was a mixed plate of new style sashimi, the scallop and king crab still warm from the hot oil they were seared with, melting in the mouth.
Next we’ve had lobster salad with spicy lemon dressing, very nice, but the garlic chips on top were to be looked for with a magnifying glass.
Rock shrimp tempura nice, but not amazing, maybe on the pass for too long? The shitake, zucchini and eggplant tempura nice, but not not as nice as in Dinings ( our tempura section is probably the size of their rice container altogether, but it’s crispy and flavoursome, this one was hardly memorable).
We’ve also had a rib eye with anticucho sauce, which was not as good as I remembered, we all agreed that our Korean spicy miso tops it by far.
But the biggest disappointment, and no offence to a lovely man Oba san is, was the sushi. I only had a piece of salmon nigiri and ama ebi, which Oba san called jokingly ” Dinings style”, but when he presented them in front of me I thought he was taking the piss. It didn’t look like much and the rice had no flavour- a crime! The sushi rice in Dinings is at times more flavoursome than the topping itself, it is lovely to eat by itself, to me it even smells appealing. We also had a soft shell crab roll, it looked miserable in comparison with our beautiful, round, fat, full to the brim perfect rolls.
The desserts were nice, but not mind blowing, Suntory whisky cappuccino probably the nicest of them, the texture especially, but nowhere near our black sesame creme caramel.
We tried a selection of cocktails, from which only mojitos were up to scratch, the lime and lychee martini I had smelled of….bathroom cleaning products to me. Not good. The flower floating on top didn’t help…;-)
All in all we had a great night out, the best thing about it was the fact, that it left us all proud of our own bunker, with shitty, basic decor, a tiny cocktail list, claustrophobic toilets and noisy sushi chefs. Our food though, the stuff that comes from under Fuku’s hands is a Champions League in comparison with what they serve in Berkeley. Our seabass carpaccio when delivered to the table with fresh truffle aroma stops all conversations, it’s so pretty, none of Nobu’s dishes had that effect on us. Our unagi and foie gras signature roll is to die for, theirs are basic and lack excitement.
Dinings über alles!!
