Friday night date with my friend Kimmy. We love our dates - we chit and chat and laugh and guffaw and drink cocktails and wine and order EVERYTHING our baby hearts desire. We like to graze, we enjoy seafood and we like to be looked after.
I chose Kenzan for our most recent date and we had a little cozy corner at the sushi bar where we also enjoyed some people watching.
We started off proceedings with fresh oysters with citrus flavored ponzu vinegar and a mojito each. Beautifully fresh with a gorgeous salty tang at the end; these were delicious and I could have eaten another serve easily!
I chose Kenzan for our most recent date and we had a little cozy corner at the sushi bar where we also enjoyed some people watching.
We started off proceedings with fresh oysters with citrus flavored ponzu vinegar and a mojito each. Beautifully fresh with a gorgeous salty tang at the end; these were delicious and I could have eaten another serve easily!
Spicy scallop and tuna salad — with Kim Wainwright at Kenzan Japanese Restaurant.Continuing with the raw seafood we enjoyed an entree sized portion of mixed sashimi comprising of the usual salmon, tuna, kingfish and slightly more unusual amberjack. Lipsmackingly pure and fresh.
Spicy scallop and tuna salad arrived next fragrant with sesame oil. Loved this - loved the chilli warmth, the Asian flavours of soy and sesame mixed with spankingly fresh scallop and tuna, the scallop providing sweetness, the tuna providing an almost iron like hit.
By this time we'd moved from mojitos to a bootle of Shaw and Smith Sauvignon Blanc which was unlike any other sauv blanc I've had. Creamier, rounder and less sharp it was so yummy.
Our steamed dishes came next - prawn dumplings and chawan mushi. The dumplings were plump and dense, sweet with prawn and wrapped in silken noodle threads. The chawan mushi was silky smooth and delicately flavoured as it should be.
Scallops and king mushrooms in a miso butter sauce with strands of fried chilli and two pieces of asparagus arrived next. Chunky mushrooms absorbing a buttery salty sauce complimented by soft, sweet scallop. This was a dish on the specials menu and we also enjoyed additional specials including a miso glazed butterfish. Definitely reminiscent of Miso Black Cod and flavourwise very good; the texture of the butterfish just wasn't quite as delighful as the slippery flakes of black cod. The butterfish was denser like swordfish and it didn't flake into individual morsels like the black cod so a different experience and just short of the esteemed echelons of Nobu's black cod but still pretty close to.
Our final dish before we decided to add more was braised Wagyu braised beef cheek with wasabi and it came out as a small serve of tender beef that fell into shred at the merest touch with daikon that had soaked up all the good juices and had been cooked so long it was soft and tender. The wasabi was like a salsa on top and provided a horseradish heat. Not a bad dish but not my kinda flavours. Intense and less clean and pure than the previous dishes.
We felt we could still eat and so we ordered some tempura (entree size) and grazed ont hat along with a second bottle of Shaw and Smith...
We felt we could still eat and so we ordered some tempura (entree size) and grazed ont hat along with a second bottle of Shaw and Smith...
Dessert time and we ordered a green tea creme brulee and also some ice cream (green tea and vanilla).
Japanese desserts can be a bit hit and miss and whilst the ice cream was fine but not special the green tea creme brulee was not so great. Texture was a bit too gluey on the tongue and it had that powdery creamy residue that remains in the mouth with the fake dairy desserts that are popular in Asia.
Overall Kenzan was great. The food started off amazing especially the sashimi dishes. There's plenty more to try on the menu too but desserts are probably the no no. We had a lovely waitress who was so sweet and keen to please. The temperature in the restaurant did get quite warm as it got busier so we stepped outside for a breather and our little waitress asked to come along with us! Very cute!
Japanese desserts can be a bit hit and miss and whilst the ice cream was fine but not special the green tea creme brulee was not so great. Texture was a bit too gluey on the tongue and it had that powdery creamy residue that remains in the mouth with the fake dairy desserts that are popular in Asia.
Overall Kenzan was great. The food started off amazing especially the sashimi dishes. There's plenty more to try on the menu too but desserts are probably the no no. We had a lovely waitress who was so sweet and keen to please. The temperature in the restaurant did get quite warm as it got busier so we stepped outside for a breather and our little waitress asked to come along with us! Very cute!
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