REVIEW: Murakami, St Martin's Lane

Specialising in contemporary Japanese cuisine, Murakami offers a wide array of sushi, rolls, sashimi and main courses from the robata grill throughout the week from their Soho location. Now, we all know how much I love a good Japanese restaurant and the robata grill offering certainly sold Murakami to my greedy tummy. 

As I mentioned in my last post I have started eating a plant based, mostly vegan diet - which ain't ideal for Japanese restaurants. So on this occasion I did eat a little amount of fish and lots of vegetables but no meat. My fiance and co-diner Alex enjoyed the pork gyoza and pork stew, while I opted for the robata grill asparagus and tempura vegtables. 

The restaurant is located in the heart of the tourist-centric Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square with plenty of passing traffic and local diners. That said, the prices are well judged and sit comfortably within the mid-range restaurants in the area. Enjoy the review! 

Where

Murakami, Soho

When

Friday night, 8pm onwards

What we ate

• Mixed vegetable rolls
• Volcano rolls
• Spiced mango rolls
• Pork gyoza (Alex ate these, I did not)
• Salted and spiced edamame
• Buta Kakunia (Pork stew, (Alex ate these, I did not)
• Vegetable tempura
• Grilled asparagus
• Boiled rice

Highlights

• Sushi: The spiced mango sushi was really delicious and had a mix of sweet and hot notes throughout. The mango was quite unexpected but really delicious.
• The dragon rolls had a great mix of different textures thanks to the tempura and avocado on top.
• The volcano roll was a pile of tempura fried salmon sushi (sounds odd, tastes great) with a wicked mix of hot, sweet and spicy sauces drizzled on top. A winning dish despite the salmon being now cooked, not raw.
• Gyoza: The gyozas were spiced well with ginger and the pork was nice and juicy. They could have been crispier.
• Pork and Asparagus (from the grill): The asparagus was our winning dish of the evening. It had a beautiful miso infused flavour which worked excellently alongside the iron-rich vegetable. The pork still had charcoal notes despite the stew sauce which brought another dimension to the plate.
• Tempura: These arrived about 30 minutes after the first dish. The sweet potato and red peppers were both delicious but the green pepper was horrible. I really don’t like green peppers so perhaps that is why!

Lowlights

• My Prosecco glass was chipped and dirty which was very disappointing.
• We were served by several different waiters throughout the evening meaning our messages sometimes got lost between dishes arriving.
• When we first ordered the volcano and spiced mango rolls we were told they were not available. When the manager came to our table the rolls were then made available. Apparently they are made in a different section – if I had not been visiting as press I am not sure I would have ever received them.
• The vegetarian rolls were dry, falling to pieces and generally disappointing. This was really sad as the other sushi was great!

Overall

This meal was paid for by the restaurant. Although I would probably visit if I was with friends in the area, as a vegetarian I did not feel well catered for and the vegetarian sushi were a real let down. That said, the asparagus was really delicious and worth the price.

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