Row, row, row your sushi
There was a time in this country when sushi was as rare as an ocean view in Warsaw. But these days, Varsovians are spoiled for choice when it comes to deciding where they want to eat their raw fish and rice. In fact, there are so many sushi restaurants in town, it's now a matter of deciding how you'd like to eat your sushi: There's the traditional waitress-at-your-table method. Or how about an articulated conveyor belt a la Inaba restaurant? You can go for the novel option of having your sushi float to your plate in a little wooden boat, or you can buy it in a lunch box to scarf at your work desk. It's available in supermarkets, in take-out shops and - if you can be bothered to mess around with sticky rice, sheets of seaweed and raw fish fillets - you can even buy the ingredients to make it at home.
We went for the "floating boat" option last week when David and I took our visitors, Brucey and Mary, for lunch at Warsaw's newest sushi bar, Sakana. Situated in the posh end of town, just off Plac Teatralny, Sakana looks like the kind of place all those World Cup soccer fans are probably dining at in Japan. But there were no lager louts on this day. In fact, when we arrived, the place was empty. But, thankfully, by the time we left, other diners had joined us, and pedestrians peered through the windows curious to watch the little wooden boats carrying sushi around the channel cut in the granite-topped bar.
This place is brand new: It was just three days old when we dined there. The paint was probably still drying on the walls, and the creases falling out of the banners that hang from the ceiling. The interior design is very much "blonde meets blonde" - from the wall color, to the banners, to the robust wooden furniture and floating boats decorated with fresh orchids. Even the kimono-clad waitress was blonde. A tape playing wind chimes added the finishing touch to this rather serene little restaurant. The four of us perched at the bar, rather fortuitously, right in front of the sushi chefs (including one lad who used to make the sushi at the Tsubame Japanese restaurant on ulica Foksal) so we could watch them playing with our food before we ate it! Sakana has a written menu, so if you're not familiar with the various sushi species and you were hoping for a point-and-eat photographic menu, you could be left guessing what it is you're about to put in your mouth.
But for those who can tell the difference between sake and shimesaba, this menu is comprehensive with all your sushi favourites - seaweed-wrapped maki, "fish 'n' rice" nigiri, California rolls, prawn-topped ebi, omelette-topped tamago, the veggie combo futomaki, miso soup, raw salmon and tuna. There are even bowls of kimchi - the Korean dish of spicy, garlic-laden fermented cabbage that Brucey quite rightly referred to as "electric cabbage." We ordered a large selection of sushi and watched the chefs at work, pressing the rice onto the seaweed sheets, adding the fillings, and shaping them with a bamboo mat. They were then placed on the boats in the bar, and we had to wait for them to float all the way around to us. (Some of them were nabbed by two other hungry diners who had appeared at the other end of the bar.)
As sushi goes, this is as good as anything else you'll find in Warsaw. It's made fresh right before your eyes so you get a bit of entertainment thrown in. It's also a little cheaper than a lot of other sushi restaurants in town. And as for location, this place has a lot going for it: It's a stone's throw from the Old Town. It's right next to Warsaw's opera, so you can easily grab a pre- or post-show bite. And there are some corporate offices nearby, so there should be a friendly lunch crowd on weekdays. Lunch for four, including drinks, came to zł. 280 ($70).
On the menu: Miso soup zł. 7 Tamago (omelette) zł. 9 Salmon maki zł. 11 Ebi maki (prawn) zł. 13 California Maki with crab zł. 13 Tuna belly zł. 18
