Pet’s Plates

Okurama International Taste
Triq Dragunara,
San Ġiljan

Food: 6/10  
Location: 6/10
Service: 6/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

I wasn’t sure where to look. It was an onslaught on the senses. My eyes darted from one thing to another and I didn’t know where to let my gaze fall... On the floor-length gown adorning the beckoning, overdressed hostess, on the colossal chandeliers, the faux marble, the gold and silver ornaments, the silver-framed television, the paintings intriguingly attached to the ceiling, the statues, the silver chaise longue... My eyes needed to adjust to all the blinding garishness. Monet’s Woman with a Parasol hung from one of the walls, doubtless bewildered by its outrageous surroundings.

Entering Okurama is like entering a gaudy Aladdin’s cave or a mad hatter’s playroom. It is as if a world of bad taste and excessiveness has been crammed into this one space in an effort to exude luxury and opulence.

It must be a hellish task to keep the place clean. The restaurant is an interior design disaster, but a happy one at that and very comfortable to sit in.

Sushi can be enjoyed anywhere, in spite of the environment in which it is eaten. A true testament to this is Sukiyabashi Jiro, a little sushi bar inauspiciously located inside a dimly-lit Tokyo subway station. The most divine sushi is prepared here by Jiro, a true master of his craft, considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef.

Despite the restaurant’s extraordinary location, Sukiyabashi Jiro has, nevertheless, been awarded three Michelin stars.

I love my fish raw and I absolutely adore sushi. It is melt in your mouth finger food and is as sophisticated as fast food gets. Traditional sushi in its purest form consists of a lump of vinegared rice with a slice of fish neatly nestled on top. Its simplicity is deceptive, given that sushi is in reality a work of culinary artistry.

Correct preparation demands the skill of a trained chef. Different fish require different cooking methods and modes of preparation in order to optimise appearance, texture and colouring.

This is sushi churned out in bucket loads to please the masses – conveyor-belt sushi, if you will

At Okurama we tried an assortment of contemporary sushi and some traditional nigiri. There’s ample to choose from. And apart from sushi you can move on to try a selection of Korean, Thai, Indian, Cantonese and Vietnamese dishes in the form of various soups, salads, stir fries and curries.

Our artfully arranged sushi arrived packed into a large platter. The salmon tartare sushi was an immediate hit, mildly sweet and freshened with avocado. The bite-sized portions disappeared within minutes. Raw tuna possesses a beautiful rich, dark colour and is mild in flavour. The spicy tuna sushi was good, pleasantly piquant and sweetened with the pungency of the spring onion.

The Seafood Deluxe roll was extremely dry and almost inedible. A dominant flavour of imitation crab meat overpowered all other ingredients so that the grilled scallop and shrimp went unnoticed. The salmon and prawn nigiri were nicely executed, although the texture of the prawn was rubbery.

We had chosen some cooked items, as well. Tempura prawn sushi is a favourite of mine and the one served up at Okurama did not disappoint. Topped with seaweed and egg flakes and seasoned with Teriyaki sauce, it was quite delicious.

The Bulgogi beef maki had been deep-fried to within an inch of its life. The grilled beef and fried onion combination could have made for a tasty morsel but the sushi was, alas, far too greasy. The Pecking Duck sushi, composed of tender duck breast was crisp and flavourful, packed with cucumber and onion. It was wrapped in cheap pink soy paper which had come undone and drooped untidily.

We were somehow tempted to order from the Fantasy Sushi section of the menu, the kind with terribly silly names that encapsulate the effect the West has had on sushi. This westernisation with regards to sushi regrettably signifies a bastardisation, not only with reference to names, but also, more crucially, as regards ingredients and flavours. Although I believe in the evolution of food, I am a purist when it comes to sushi.

The widely popular California roll was invented in America in the 1960s. The origin of sushi can be traced back to as early as the 2nd century A.D. while authentic Japanese sushi as we know it today dates back to the 1820s.

At Okurama, the Crazy Monkey roll comprising salmon, red pepper and sweet egg topped with spicy tuna and avocado was surprisingly good and fresh-tasting. On the other hand, the Sex on the Beach maki roll was an absolute train wreck. Rolled with grilled eel, avocado and cream cheese and topped with tuna, caviar and some more avocado, it tasted quite terrible and left an awful aftertaste of thick cream cheese. Japanese cuisine is all about clean flavours. And this is the problem with ludicrous sushi fusions made to please an ignorant Western palate. Over-worked, over-seasoned elaborate sushi means that subtle fish flavours are often lost.

We finished off the meal with some green tea ice cream and some yuzu sorbet which was nice enough.

The sushi served at Okurama is not refined sushi. I did not expect it to be. This is sushi churned out in bucket loads to please the masses – conveyor-belt sushi, if you will. The quality is not superior, it is adequate. Although our platter of sushi had been nicely presented, the food quality and the freshness of certain ingredients was questionable. This was reflected in the price we paid. We had partaken of the all-you-can-eat buffet and it cost us just over €20 per person.

Okurama International Taste is by no stretch a fine dining restaurant. Nonetheless, the waitresses kept, rather annoyingly, refilling our wine glasses almost robotically as if in a bid to rush us on to a second or third bottle. We felt hurried at the end.

It was 11pm on a weekend and waitresses began hastily cleaning and wiping down tables all around us, practically spraying detergent into our faces. We felt forced to leave and gulped down the contents of our water glasses.

You can send e-mails about this column to petsplates@gmail.com.

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