Soba Central

If the Japanese advocate minimalism, Sushi Cafe takes it a little too seriously. This new Japanese den at Santacruz is essentially a bare white garage where lonely snow-drenched chairs park themselves and pine for company, whether in the form of lush wall art or even just a lush. Yes, we’re talking about you.

We visited the five-day old cafe yesterday to find that the restaurant has morphed out of Sushi Spice, a home delivery service we’d written about way back in 2009. The menu now goes beyond sushi, serving miso soup, rice and noodles, tempura and skewers. There’s even a section for those who want to venture out of Japan (although, why would you come to a place called Sushi Cafe?) featuring a random assortment of dishes like Singaporean Laksa, Syrian rice and Turkish dumplings. With both feet firmly planted in the Land of the Ricing Sun, we ordered.

Are You Big In Japan?

Our meal started with platters of spicy tuna and prawn tempura rolls, which arrived like two opposites. The former, neat, pretty and spiked with spicy paste, came with fresh tuna that thankfully didn’t taste like it was out of a can. The sloppy tempura one on the other hand, was loosely rolled and smushy, resulting in fat, hard-to-eat rolls from which we only ended up picking out the prawns. The golden tempura - light, crisp and not over fried - works as a good starter too. We were hoping to wash this down with green iced tea, but the beverage wasn’t available yesterday. Note to Sushi Cafe: Fierce wasabi that’s not out of a sachet, would be nice. As would servers who are better-versed with the menu and can make recommendations.

Boxy-moron

For mains, it makes sense to order a Bento box as it allows you to sample sushi, soup, rice or noodles, all for Rs 600. Besides, they’re so much more fun! The box features dark and delicious Miso soup filled with tofu that deserves a second order. Two smaller compartments feature sushi of your choice. We got the vegetarian California rolls packed with cucumber, avocado, and enough cream cheese unlike the time we’d ordered these from Sushi Spice. There was also salmon, spring onion and cheese rolls that would be interesting had they been better endowed. For the bento accompaniment we picked the yakisoba noodles topped with bell pepper and chicken, which seemed like a generic dish that could be found at any Chinese restaurant in Mumbai. Our fellow diner, trained in Japanese cooking, even suspected that they weren’t soba noodles at all. If you don’t care about authenticity though, the serving is tasty. What’s really cool about the Bento box is that they can be home/office delivered from Bandra to Andheri, and picked up the following day.

Our meal ended with a pot of complimentary green tea, and dessert of the day which was not tempura-fried ice cream but an Italian chocolate biscuit-like bar, yum and crunchy with nougat.

bpb recommends you visit Sushi Cafe when you need an inexpensive Japanese meal (get the bento with spicy tuna or veg California rolls), but remember to wear a splash of chaotic colour. There's only so much Mura-calmy the chairs can take.

Getting there: Shop No. 1, ground Floor, Sainara Building, North Avenue (Linking Road), Santacruz (W), call 26489573 / 9833650503 or view the Facebook group here, 11 am to midnight, Rs 1,300 for a meal for two.

bpb reviews anonymously and pays for its own meals.