Japanese as you please

Japanese as you please

Housed in a hotel that attracts lots of Japanese and Korean guests, Takumi Japanese restaurant at Swissôtel Le Concorde is undeniably authentic yet delightfully daring and, most importantly, priced very fairly

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE
Japanese as you please

If there was such a thing as a popular award for Japanese restaurants in Bangkok, Takumi Japanese restaurant at ground floor Swissôtel Le Concorde Hotel along Ratchadapisek (MRT Huay Kwang) presents an interesting proposition for spending an indulgent evening or leisurely lunch.

Okay, it doesn’t have any pretensions about being fine dining or insist on only line-caught fish and hand-dived scallops. It isn’t particularly obsessed with being uncompromisingly classic either.

What it does brilliantly, however, is please most Japanese culinary preferences most of the time, from the occasional adventurer to the frequent partaker.

It’s not a matter of pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap so much as hitting the sweet spot between quality and economy as unerringly as a Stephen Curry slam-dunk. And in style, it says here.

With Takumi’s a la carte lunch and dinner buffets the mission is rendered all the easier by the premium products. After all, when we’re talking foie gras and Wagyu aburi sushis and Norwegian salmon and maguro tuna sashimi, compromise isn’t the first word that springs to mind.

Who would complain at all you can eat a la carte lunch (11.30am-14.30pm) at 930, and the same formula with more premium items dinner (18.00-22.30pm) at 1,048, both net with free flow hot or cold green tea and soft drinks? Typical Japanese set lunch menus are even more of a steal at Bt260-Bt740.

But the actual comprehensive a la carte, offering yet broader selections of appetizers, sashimi, sushi, grilled, boiled, deep-fried, tepanyaki, vegetarian, noodle, rice and dessert dishes, shouldn’t burn a hole in your pocket either — unless you’re with the dining partner I joined on a recent evening who reeled off an order so long visions of being waylaid till midnight flashed through my mind. Happily the food turned out to be so delish that we actually polished most of it off quite smartly. And the bill was hardly crippling.

We started with a rare dish Japanese and Koreans could share amicably — al dente Hokkaido scallop tongues in spicy kimchi sauce. From the sushi section came Shake Salmon (130), the first of a few selections where raw product is seared with a blow torch rather effectively. Ikura salmon roe (410), sweet red pearls of salty succulence secured to a raft of rice by a ribbon of tangy seaweed, was equally impressive but my personal favourite here were the suitably sticky, sublimely umami Unagi Terriyaki Eel (230). From the grilled dishes, Wagyu Amiyaki — 100g of grilled, sliced wagyu beef (100g), torched again and wrapped around crisp veggies liberally anointed with spicy garlic sauce (1,100) — pandered to our red meat cravings. Gindara Shioyaki — grilled snowfish with salt crust (or mustard miso sauce) (380), and Shake Teriyaki — grilled salmon with teriyaki sauce (220) hit the spot fish-wise.

Our sole Teppanyaki dish was wagyu tepanyaki — 130 gm of wagyu beef seared on the teppan (1,700), because you can never have too much wagyu, especially when as tender and juicy as here and complemented on the griddle with plump, grilled shitake, buttered asparagus and three sauces. And yet arguably the most enjoyed dish of all was a wonderful vegetarian, selection, Agedashi Tofu — soft-as-snow and twice as natural tofu with a crispy deep-fried tempura finish, served awash in ambrosial “Umadashi” sauce (130).

For desserts we lapped up two of Takumi’s famous homemade ice creams (80) — Carameru caramel and Macha green tea flavours.

Drinks are well done, too. Take a peach martini, shaken not stirred, with two olives (price), for instance.

Takumi loosely means “skilful” and you’ve got to hand it to head chef Songkran. He cut his Japanese culinary teeth at Bangkok’s first Fuji restaurant, progressing through Thaniya to the US and Britain before returning home a very astute assessor of local tastes which he duly panders to.

Thus the Japanese restaurant adjoining the cathedralesque lobby at Swissôtel Le Concorde (Ratchadaphisek Road, MRT Huay Kwang) presents an interesting proposition for spending an indulgent evening or leisurely lunch.

The all-timber décor and furniture is a cross between a sauna and a ranchy diner. Zen takes a back seat, with Japanese clichés limited to nobori-motif table settings and a sparklingly clean stretch sashimi counter.

Several private rooms offer sunken seating and picture windows framing a trellis garden of bamboo, illuminated emerald green by the sun during the day and floodlight to similar effect at night. Décor is kept simple as befits the Shinto sensibilities and the ambiance is undeniably charming.

A word of warning: this is not one of Bangkok’s best kept secrets. Booking is advisable.

Lunch: 11.30am - 14.30pm.
Dinner: 18.00 - 22.30pm.

Tel. 02 694 2222 Ext 1560. Email: bangkok-leconcorde@swissotel.com.

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