Kurashiki Restaurant First Floor MLF Building cnr Colombo and Gloucester Streets Phone 67-092 Licensed

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 27

Kurashiki Restaurant First Floor MLF Building cnr Colombo and Gloucester Streets Phone 67-092 Licensed

(By

Bruce Roscoe,

“The

Press” correspondent in Japan who visited his home city of Christchurch last week.)

Japanese food is not all raw fish. To prove this point to a colleague, I decided to savour Japanese cuisine at the Kurashiki, which takes its name from Christchurch’s sister city in southwestern Japan. Diners are prepared emotionally for tasting Japanese delights by the authentic rock garden on a carpet of small stones to the left of the restaurant entrance on the first floor of the MLF Building. A Japanese-style lamp throws shadowy light against the rocks through which gurgles a trickle of water. Each rock is deliberately positioned to exude an atmosphere of compatibility with nature. We do not, of course, intend to eat rocks. But by observing the effect of their purposeful juxtaposition, we can later understand why it is that Japanese restaurants pay high attention to the way in which items of food are placed on a plate. Each item must visually be attractive and the arrangement pleasing. Top Japanese chefs are also to an extent artists and, no doubt, could excel at arranging flowers. They know that their guests devour food first with their eyes. The preference of the palate is of secondary concern. Inside, the round tables of solid white pine add to the

feeling that we have just stepped into a restaurant in Tokyo. The walls are adorned with what appear to be traditional silk screens. They are, in fact, cleverlyframed cuts of New Zealand wallpaper. The lightshades may seem to be Japanese lanterns but look again. Still, the effect is the same. Kumiko and Russel Black, the proprietors, tell us nearly all of the Japanese decorations have been made from locally available materials. Not so the food, of which Kumiko said about half was imported. Many of the items, such as green tea and pickled cucumbers, coming from Japan. My colleague, a little uneasy about going totally Japanese,, chose a set menu called Samurai ($19.80). This is designed to marry East and West. It provides diners who are unaccustomed to Japanese cooking with seven dishes — slices of abalone in a soy beanbased sauce sprinkled with ginger, barbecued lumps of chicken, mixed seafood deep fried, boiled rice, a clear soup, a salad and fresh fruit salad. I selected the Shogun set ($27), which makes no allowances for an uncompromising Western appetite. Having ordered these sets, we could compare cooking styles and offer judgment on which we thought most satisfying. This required sampling the other’s dishes to an extent

which one would not attempt in a restaurant of similar class in Japan, though at a truly Chinese restaurant it is the only thing to do as dishes are ordered for common consumption.

Tofu — in this case, a cube of deep-fried egg, not soy bean custard — began the Shogun meal, whereas the Samurai started with finely-cut slivers to fresh abalone.

My colleague commented that the tofu was delicious and I was equally impressed with the abalone which had been beaten and boiled (though the “mushi” in the Japanese name for the dish

— awabi no shiomushi — implied that it had been steamed).

The sets differed in their next offering too. Normally, I would have been served sashimi but, on the night, no yellowtail were available. Instead, I was offered the seafood hors d’oeuvre appetiser ($6).

This contained boiled crayfish, scallops and squid. The yellowtail, or whatever other fish was offered as sashimi, would have been taken in thin slices raw — not marinated — and briefly dipped in soy sauce before eating. In the Samurai set, barbecued chicken, each piece separated by leeks and other vegetables on a skewer, was presented instead of my appetiser. I sampled the chicken and concluded it was fresher and tastier than that served at many Japanese “yakitoriya” (restaurants serving only yakitori). Thoughtfully, our waitress, a Japanese-speak-

ing New Zealander attired in a colourful kimono, had set both spoons and chopsticks, and I confess to finding my next dish, chawanmushi, easier to manage with a spoon.

Russel Black told us that chawanmushi (simply, anything steamed in a cup) was the Japanese dish that New Zealanders tended to like least. Pieces of chicken and scallops were set in a steamed egg custard in bonito stock. My colleague, who by now was regretting going Samurai, tasted the chawanmushi and said it was superb.

In the Samurai set, nothing paralleled chawanmushi, which left me one dish ahead. The principle difference between the two menus, however, was most pronounced where the Shogun eaters were given tempura next, while Samurai takers made do with mixed seafood deep fried. Prawns, squid, orange roughy and scallops in the Samurai choice were fried in a fat much oilier than one would expect in Japan, and for longer. I thought this method of cooking spoiled the fish by making it too heavy.

Russel Black said the deep-fried version of seafood was not on Kurashiki’s original menu but added later to accommodate stubborn Western stomachs that did not feel full on food prepared in only a Japanese way. One had to admit that the oilsoaked batter was filling. For tempura, I had the same selection of fish, added to which were slices of pumpkin, zucchini and green beans. All was lightly coated in fine batter and fried in a fine oil for perhaps no more than a few seconds.

Mr Shin Toyama, the head chef, had produced as high a quality of tempura as one would expect from any

average tempura restaurant in Tokyo. My colleague would have preferred going Shogun for the tempura alone. Naturally, though, shogun would come out on tops, being a military governor while a samurai is a mere vassal. The fish selection was followed in both sets by boiled rice, a thin, clear soup of chicken stock, the fruit salad and green tea or coffee. A salad of onion rings, tomato, lettuce and finely-cut carrot, however, supplemented the Samurai set. The rice was, perhaps, not prepared or boiled in the same way as it is in Japan, but then it did not appear to be the same type of rice. Japanese boil shortgrain rice, not the longgrain variety popular in New Zealand, and cringe at the thought of some New Zealanders turning their rice into a pudding with milk and sugar.

Both desserts featured kiwifruit, rock melon and two types of imported orange.

How to rate Kurashiki? It is as good as any mediumclass, Japanese-style restaurant in Tokyo and makes probably fewer concessions for the non-Japanese palate than do many Japanese restaurants abroad.

Its faithfulness to Japanese cooking may be explained by the demands of the large numbers of Japanese tourists it serves. On our night, there were 107 guests, New Zealanders making up about half.

Describing only two set menus does not give readers an indication of prices for most dishes. However, for appetisers such as beef tataki or sunomono, budget from $5 to $6. The miso shiru (soy-bean paste) and clear soup each cost $2.20 and you can expect to pay about $5 for chicken karaage, pork miso yaki or others of the entrees.

Main dishes like teriyaki steak or marinated venison grilled all cost from $9 to $l5 and are served with salad and rice.

As a rule of thumb, you can confidently double all prices and get an idea of what these dishes would cost in Japan at a restaurant of similar class.

Dim