THE sensation of truly fresh fish in one's mouth is
a tribute to the glory of God. Even I, who don't hold with the Almighty, can discern the sublime when I swallow it. Sadly, it is now almost impossible to find except in good restaurants, chefs being the only sufficiently demanding consumers.
This is particularly true of Japanese restaurants and chefs. In his foreword to Omae and Tachibana's Book of Sushi, the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal describes the acme of freshness:
In Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido, I've been served fish alive. The fish is like a small tuna with a firm flesh. After cutting a thin fil- let off the fish, the chef puts it back in the tank. It was a little difficult for me to eat while the fish was staring back at me from the tank. It didn't die. Perhaps this would be too disconcerting to a sensitive person. But think- ing about it, I came to feel that for a person who really loves fresh fish, the assurance of such absolute freshness strikes a sensible note and adds a certain pleasure to dining.
M. Rampal, mad though he appears, has a point. A limited number of species — sharks, skate and other rays, for instance — need to decompose for a couple of days before cook- ing. But in the great majority of cases, and particularly if it is to be eaten raw, fish can- not be too fresh. Hence the first rule of sushi: if it's cheap, it's poor value. Matsuri, a discreet basement just off Jermyn Street, is by no means bon marche, but neither is it terrifyingly expensive. It lacks a 'buzz', which I count as a point in its favour; the intricate ritual of Japanese dining deserves tranquillity. The clientele on a Thursday evening was a mixture of Japanese businessmen and open-necked, Dunhill-jack- eted Americans.
Even given a good smattering of authen- tic-looking Japs, I still feel sheepish in tep- panyalci restaurants, because they are not common in Japan, where tepans (iron hot plates) tend to be recessed into people's kitchen work surfaces rather than having restaurants built around them. Not that it's a crime to re-invent foreign traditions, but it does make one feel self-conscious. Ital- ians wearing long Barbour coats in the summer and Olde Englysshe or Irysshe theme pubs come to mind. The effect is exacerbated by teppanyaki itself being the least interesting food in such establishments. At Matsuri it was the eighth course of 11 in the `taiko' set-dinner (£55). Preferring the fish option to the meat yielded a succulent young lobster tail, a couple of king scallops which were fresh but not live, a skinny slice of salmon fillet, and some large mussels which probably came from New Zealand. That is a long journey for a mollusc, and I suspect they may have died en route. A mélange was quickly prepared, flash-fried and very briefly steamed on the outsize tepan. The juicy tang of the lobster compensated for the awkwardness of seeing it griddled. I favour the convention of segregating cus- tomers and cooks.
Other courses were more exciting. First came four tiny brown lumps of what I think was ox tongue .(it tasted remarkably like tuna) mixed with chunks of pickled ginger and garlic. On the outside it was rich and sticky like rillettes; at the centre it had the exquisite biteability of a baby's leg. The con- gruence of depth and piquancy was de luxe.
The 'hors d'oeuvre' (a meaningless mis- nomer on such a menu) was a charming rectangular plate of three morsels. To the left was a prettily-tied bundle of tiny aspara- gus spears, in the middle an unusually round piece of salmon nigiri-zushi, on the right a Lilliputian roll of rare beef wrapped around shards of spring onion. This was clean eating, and pleasing to the eye. As master Ka'ichi Tsuji has written, 'There is nothing more important in Japanese food than arranging it well, with special regard to the colour, on plates chosen to suit the food.' (Very roughly, it's square food on cir- cular plates, and vice versa.) Dobin mushi was a seafood consommé with good roundness of flavour. Dobin is the bamboo-handled miniature teapot in which the soup is served. Anything `-mushi' is usually a steamed dish; in this case I pre- sume it meant 'gently simmered'.
It is an excellent principle of Japanese cuisine that fish which is fresh enough to eat raw should never be cooked. Grilling tuna, for instance, is a stupid thing to do. Serving it as rare as is now customary in the West is a tacit admission that it shouldn't really be cooked at all. Sliced into deep, muscle-red sashimi at Matsuri, meaty yet smoothly acquiescent to the tooth and with hazy seaside undertones of iodine and ozone on the tongue, the notion of burning this delicate flesh seemed obscene.
After sashimi came sushi, which we had ordered in addition to our set-dinners. Again, my favourite was the tuna nigiri- zushi, though prawn, salmon and turbot were also excellent. Of the maki (roll) sushi, my wife particularly enjoyed the ikura (salmon roe). Wasabi was relatively mild, as was gari (pickled ginger), which virtually melted in the mouth. Such condi- ments are supposed to cleanse the palate, not blow off the head.
Aubergine, courgette and bell pepper tem- pura was judiciously deep-fried in crispy bat- ter and seasoned with a dark tentsuyu dip- ping soup, as it should be in this rare Euro- pean (16th-century Portuguese) migration to the Japanese tradition. Cold buckwheat noo- dles, served with a more pungent dipping sauce, were dyed green (traditionally with powdered green tea), washed entirely clean of starch and cooked seriously al dente. This made for a salubrious-feeling segue to a plate of valedictory fruit.
One is not supposed to drink sake once rice has been served. But on this occasion that happened so soon after ordering that I continued surreptitiously to slurp thimble- fuls of warm miyanoyuki. Others had glass- es of champagne or Japanese beer. We left feeling humble. A few minutes of teppanya- ki nonsense notwithstanding, this remains a cuisine which refuses to dumb down.
Matsuri, 15 Bury St, London SW1; tel: 0171 839 1101. £65 per head.
Previous page
