Nanakusa Glasgow
There’s no reason why a Japanese restaurant run by non-Japanese can't be good. In London, the acclaimed Ichiban in Brixton is run by Colombians. Not as wacky as it sounds, given the long-established cultural connection between Japan and South America. In Aberdeen, top-notch Yatai routinely turns out fresh, high-quality Japanese food.
Its Scottish chef-proprietor worked in Japan for an extended period and absorbed the techniques.
Otherwise, we seem to be witnessing a spate of nominally Japanese restaurants in Scotland that are run by Scottish-Chinese. I guess that Chinese cooking here has got typecast in the lemon chicken and spare ribs role, so a logical departure for a Chinese restaurateur looking to extend his portfolio is to move into the Japanese market. Its image is hipper, younger, newer, cooler, as yet not burdened with the baggage of overfamiliarity.
And if I were in search of the hip, young, new and cool place to eat, then I'd probably love Nanakusa, not least for the place itself. Though the entrance is ordinary, the premises open out into what is a handsome, barrel-ceilinged hall with lines of bowed skylights. Into this space has been put the customary Wagamama-esque functional wood veneer furniture.
A potential absence of natural light (all those skylights not withstanding), has been addressed with a series of floor-to-ceiling glass panels, illuminated from behind with lights that slowly change colour. The effect is urban and contemporary. Amazingly, given all the hard surfaces, the acoustics are fine. The arrangement of the tables is clever too: some side on, others in a line.
But what of the food? I was distinctly underwhelmed.It was way, way short of the standard set by Yatai and poorer than Sumo, the last Chinese-run Japanese restaurant I reviewed in Falkirk.
Nanakusa didn't deliver the critical freshness I associate with Japanese, and indeed proper Chinese food.
A bowl of slightly sad-looking edamame beans lacked the essential new, green vitality. Many dishes - served on curious bakelite-type crockery - were decorated with a frond of yellowing parsley, which sort of set the tone. The fish on our tuna and mackerel sushi were curiously tongue-tied in their flavours, with none of the thrill of the sea.
Then there's a feeling of sloppy imprecision from the kitchen. I find ramen (wheat) noodles dull, so when ordering the vegetarian teppan noodles, I made a point of ordering soba (buckwheat) noodles instead. Blow me, up tips a plate of ramen noodles, and nestling in among them, besides indifferent fried peppers and beansprouts, are bits of chicken breast - a nasty surprise for dedicated vegetarians.
And what happened to the "teppan" thing? All the noodles have this word in their title, referring back to the menu's explanation that teppan (short for teppanyaki) means iron plate-grilled, yet nothing in my noodles showed any signs of being anything more than quickly stirfried.They were botched jobs too, as both ramen and soba had been overboiled.
The menu has its heart in the deep-fried department (not the essence of Japanese cuisine) and the kitchen managed to turn out reasonable, if slightly tough gyozo dumplings. The tempura batter on those meaty, over-firm tiger prawns was passable. Deep fried oyster in breadcrumbs had a crust not wholly different from a Bernard Matthews nugget, and the bivalve within remained cool, as it might have been had it been fried from frozen.
Some unusually soft-textured but not unpleasant marinated eel came on top of "Japanese" rice and a fried egg. The Japanese appellation made me expect the traditional, prized sticky rice, but what arrived was indistinguishable from a standard long-grain steamed rice.
More out of curiosity than anything, we tasted two "mochi" (rice paste) desserts filled with a sweet bean paste. I actually like glutinous Asiatic puds but these were only marginally less chewy than wellington boots. I can't recommend them.
There is one thing I really did like at Nanakusa: the toasty, nutty, brown rice tea. Not enough, though, to drag me back. It's one of those deceptively expensive establishments, so the bill might turn out to be considerably more than you'd anticipated.