Paolo Tullio's Review
One of things that I like to do is find restaurants that are a little different, a bit out of the ordinary; places that might never get on to the culinary map without a little publicity. In truth, I don't find them that often, but when I do it's a real pleasure for me.
This week brought one of those surprises. It was a restaurant that wasn't easy
to find, that's tiny inside, very plain almost to the point of discomfort,
and which serves raw fish. You can see at once that it isn't going to appeal
to everyone. You won't find a starter, main course and dessert on this menu.
But if you're one of those people to whom surroundings matter less than
what's on the plate, read on.
Michie Sushi is down a lane off Ranelagh, a part of Dublin where you pay for
parking up to midnight, so be warned. As you might have guessed from the
name, it specialises in sushi and sashimi, the Japanese words to describe
raw fish with rice and without rice.
I'd arranged to meet Caitriona McBride there, a lady with a passion for food
that rivals my own. Having got a rare parking place, finding Michie Sushi in
Chelmsford Lane was easy enough, but getting in the front door turned out to
be somewhat harder. It took me a while to work out that it was a sliding
door, so pushing and pulling vigorously had little effect. I could see faces
inside turned towards me, watching the latest patron make a fool of himself
trying to get in.
Caitriona was already there with a pot of green tea and we sipped that while
looking at the menus. Helpfully, one of the menus has pictures, so even if
you have no idea what the name of a dish means, you know what it looks like.
A very charming waitress in a traditional kimono was serving the room of six
or seven tables. The tiny kitchen supplies not only the dining room, but a
takeaway service as well, so the delivery courier was in and out quite a
lot.
A poster of Mount Fuji was on the wall behind Caitriona and another had the
autumn leaves of Japanese maple scattered in a garden. That's about as far
as the Japanese theming went. The tables were white laminate and the seats
quite hard.
I'm a huge fan of Japanese cooking -- or, in the case of sashimi, the lack of
it. There's something that's both dainty and precise about the preparation;
it's hugely skilful and, like many Japanese arts, its beauty lies in the
attention to detail. It's part of the Shinto tradition that every act, no
matter how trivial, should be done with care and attention, a belief that
applies to cooking as well. It can take 10 years to become a sushi master.
I was converted to raw tuna a while ago at a dinner where tuna came both
cooked and as sashimi. There really was no contest: the sashimi won hands
down, the texture and the taste were far superior to the cooked version. So
one of our choices was salmon and tuna sashimi, the others were a 'small
set', Chirashi and ura maki.
We also ordered a small sake at €7, which our waitress suggested we should
have iced, so we did. Three half-litre bottles of sparkling water made up
the rest of our drinks. The first thing that arrived at the table was the
small set, which was a platter of six nori maki rolls and a tuna, salmon and
prawn slice on rice. The usual accompaniments of pickled ginger, wasabi
mustard and soy sauce were on hand to make the dressings.
As I said, almost everything in Japan is neat and dainty, but that doesn't
include my side of the table when I'm using chopsticks. I swear, it looked
such a mess that I felt like the proverbial gaijin oaf. I can deal with the
bite-sized pieces easily enough, it's the bigger bits that give me grief.
Anyway, after that was cleared away and the nice waitress had given me another
napkin to muck up, the other three plates arrived. The salmon and tuna
sashimi, which has four thick slices each of salmon and tuna; the Chirashi,
which is a varied platter of sushi, and the ura maki, which is sushi rolls
with the black nori seaweed on the inside instead of the outside.
Part of the fun of eating food like this is not just the struggle with
chopsticks -- although they do offer you occidental cutlery if you want --
it's also mixing up the wasabi mustard with the soy to make your own dipping
sauce. Quite how the Japanese manage to dip and eat without making the mess
that I do is something that I need to investigate.
You'd think that there's nothing much filling in this meal, but there was. We
had to struggle to finish it all, and yet despite feeling replete, we still
had a sense that what we'd eaten was somehow healthy and easy on the
digestion.
I know that the idea of uncooked fish is unpalatable to many, but if you can
overcome any residual reservations I would really encourage you to give
sashimi a try. It can only be done with the very freshest and finest-quality
fish, so at least you have the comfort of knowing that what you're eating is
the very best the sea can offer.
Another look at the menus dispelled any thoughts of desserts or coffee,
neither of which were on offer. Instead we finished our meal with another
pot of green tea, which rounded it all off very nicely.
I liked Michie Sushi a lot, despite its very simple and plain décor, and it
does offer you great value for money. The bill for all the various dishes
we'd eaten, three half-bottles of mineral water and a small carafe of sake
came to a very modest €54.14, which is precisely the takeaway price of
€47.70 with 13.5pc VAT added.
ON A BUDGET
If you wanted to give Michie Sushi a try without spending very much, I’d suggest
that you try the ‘small set’ that we had. This gives a little
taste of various sushi creations and, at €8 for the takeaway version,
it certainly won’t break the bank.
ON A BLOWOUT
A blowout isn’t easy at these prices unless you’re prepared to eat
a lot, which somehow defeats the delicacy of sushi and sashimi. There is a
specials menu where you can find more expensive dishes, such as soft-shelled
crab rolls at €12.50 and Chirashi sushi at €13.50.
THE VERDICT
FOOD 9/10
AMBIENCE 6/10
VALUE FOR MONEY 9/10
TOTAL 24/30
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