Nanakusa Japanese restaurant on Sauchiehall street is fantastic. I could just leave this review there and be quite happy with it but I suppose I should really say exactly what I loved about it... hmm, well EVERYTHING!!! You see the thing is I've heard amazing things about great places to go eat in Glasgow and 99% of the time I've been very disappointed. It's a sad state of affairs but most people seem to rate eateries on their "cool" factor or even worse a reputation that they deserved 5 years ago and should really have been stripped from them as the food, service etc went downhill. There are the occasional diamonds though and Nanakusa could be the biggest of them all (IMHO).
Mmmm (n)ice cream!!
When I first heard about Nanakusa I was intrigued, even the tale of how the place came to be was pretty cool (Google it if you want to know more) but the more hype I heard the more my cynical thoughts bubbled to the surface, I'd already been bitten in the ass a few weeks before when I ate in the Left Bank, it had a really good vibe but horrible food so my B.S. detector was twitching like a mother-F. I was still open minded but prepared for disappointment.
Entering the premises we were greeted by hyper-friendly staff and a very clean, simple and contemporary environment. One other cool thing about the look was the fact that the upper parts of the vaulted room still retained the classic original features of the building. The atmosphere seemed very relaxed, it was busy but without the cattle market bustle and noise you associate with some restaurants cough-"Wagamamas".
Once seated our drinks orders were taken and dispatched in a timely manner, the staff were chilled but super co-ordinated and speedy. After a quick perusal of the menu we opted for different versions of the ever popular Bento set meals, we were being a tad greedy and wanted to try a little bit of just about everything. I opted for the Moriawase combo.
The food took just the right amount of time to arrive, not too fast (ie flash cooked from blanched stuff) and not too long, basically just long enough to run into an old friend who was dining there, make a start on our bottles of Kirin and get the conversation going.
Kirin - Beer, but better.
First up was the miso soup, it was ideal for getting me warmed up for the main event, and what an event. The food arrived in its no frills tray, a veritable feast for the eyes and taste buds ! The two types of sushi were sooo good and the batter on the tempura was so very light and crispy, the teriyaki offered a sweet contrast to the fresh uber-clean flavours of the sushi. In fact the food was so good that we didn't manage to snap a photo of anyone's meal intact, this half demolished pic is all I can offer you I'm afraid. Sorry, it was just too delicious.
Go Bento - the only way to travel!
We were happily stuffed after our mains but we decided to go for some green tea ice cream, I don't know if we really wanted to eat it or if we just wanted to stay there a bit longer... either way it was a somewhat unusual taste (not my usual thing) but none the less it was pretty good and the perfect way of rounding off our evening.
Even though it started to get really busy the staff never made any attempt to get us moving and we left there in the same way we entered, through a hail of great service from the staff. In short, I can wholeheartedly recommend Nanakusa to any and all of you, even if sushi isn't for you there are tonnes of other options check out their menu at
http://www.nanasuka.co.uk/ and see what takes your fancy. The prices are
very reasonable too. Thanks you Nanakusa, you're my new #1 place to munch!!
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