Restaurant Review: Nobu, Berkeley Street

I've been having a bit of banter with my friend, Publawyer, about going for dinner at Nobu. He threw me off the scent by saying that it was too expensive and then goes with his wife behind my back!!

I therefore jumped at the opportunity to go to Berkeley St Nobu when invited by my friend Mike on Tuesday night this week.

The restaurant is very stylish with a bar on the ground floor and the dining room upstairs. It feels a bit more like a nightclub when you arrive, as you have to step past two bouncers and through a little red rope. Inside there are a lot of staff and the service is attentive without being overbearing.

I have to admit that I still find Japanese menus confusing and worry about choosing the right balance of dishes. I was happy to leave all of the ordering to Mike who did us proud.

The dishes came rolling out throughout the evening. We started with yellow tail jalapeno sashimi that melted in your mouth and had a lovely bite from the chili without over powering the taste of the fish.

Next we had three tempura plates. Succulent and juicy large prawns, pumpkin tempura and small and crunchy rock shrimp tempura that came with three different dipping sauces. To balance all of the fried tempura we had some miso asparagus as an accompaniment.

My favourite two main course dishes were the soft shell crab sushi roll which was delightful dipped in a bit of soy sauce. The chicken skewers were the highlight of the evening for me, which were so moist it was almost difficult to believe they had been cooked through (which of course they had).

For desert I had the chocolate tart, which came served as a sphere of chocolate nestling on a bed of crushed biscuits. The waiter poured hot chocolate sauce over my tart at the table which melted the top of the sphere, revealing vanilla ice cream hidden inside. My only slight complaint would be the crushed salted peanuts that were mixed in with the crumbled biscuits. I found saltiness a bit too much.

My comedy observation of the evening was that when the door to the men's bathrooms was open there is a clear line of sight to the urinals. Any lady going to the womens bathrooms at the same time would get a full view. Not a sight I am sure many people want to see. In a place were almost every detail had been thought of, it seemed an odd one to miss!

Overall an excellent evening and definitely a place I would like to go back to.