Simply sushi
By : Franny Berry
Made in Japan
Ul. Chlodna 2/18Hours: noon-last guestTel. 620-4229Reservations and credit cards accepted
Running (and patronizing) a Japanese restaurant in landlocked Warsaw must, by necessity, involve a few more or less benign compromises. Purists who need their Asian hit but won't touch sushi that hasn't arrived gasping for its last breath straight from the sea can always turn to the welcoming arms of tempura, noodles, or a (reputedly excellent) Japanese take on the hamburger. The realists have Inaba and Nippon-Kan, whose raw seafood offerings are as good as it gets in this beachless capital and that's pretty damned good.
Unfortunately, Made in Japan has neither diversity nor excellence to recommend it. A sushi/sashimi bar that serves nothing but, this was the first Japanese restaurant I'd been to on this side of the pond where I didn't polish off every sticky, chewy morsel. Instead, I ended up taking a doggy bag for a coworker who saw even indifferent sushi as an improvement over his homemade peanut butter and jelly lunch special.
High point: Food wise, the ikura, whose heap of jelly-textured salmon roe was the usual pleasing contrast to its papery, briny seaweed wrapping. My lunch companion and I also appreciated the airline-style warm damp towels that arrived in a little basket at the beginning of the meal, especially when the substantial hand rolls proved unnavigable with chopsticks and had to be engaged in hand to hand combat.
Low point: The sake and the salmon hand roll, which featured tasteless, juiceless, rubbery salmon draped or tucked in with equally flavor-deprived, dry rice. The same could be said for all the other types of sushi and sashimi we tried, from the tuna to the shrimp and the omelet.
The hand rolls were also unappetizing, due mostly to an overabundance of mayonnaise and large helpings of the abovementioned uncharismatic fish and rice combo.
If Made in Japan had anything else on the menu, i.e. tofu dishes, or miso soup, it could easily morph into your neighborhood Asian pit stop (and every neighborhood needs one), handy for dropping in for an inexpensive bite of exotica before once again braving the mundane. It's not there yet.
Miscellaneous: Things didn't improve on the liquid refreshment front, where we were faced with a vexing absence of saki (forthcoming, I'm told), a warm slug of which would have immeasurably offset the restaurant's chill, and green tea in the form of a Dilmah tea bag. Whereas the less than dazzling seafood is at least understandable, there is less excuse for not offering the usual loose leafy tea, given the proliferation of Asian delis and specialty tea stores such as Herbaty Swiata and Sikkim.
Atmosphere: Despite a nicely unpretentious decor that doesn't reach for some kind of cod authenticity, the unfortunate mixture of low ambient temperature, lack of other customers and overly loud, remixed Whitney Houston didn't make us want to linger.
The small space is also a bit oddly laid out, so that wherever you sit, you end up facing either (a) the draft-bringing outside door, (b) the bathroom or (c) the stairs to the basement.
Of course, neither the booming music, funky layout or the cold would be overly significant (especially once the saki arrives) had the food been any better.
Service: Extremely pleasant, helpful and prompt.
Prices: A substantial lunch for two of sushi and sashimi picked off the menu came to zl. 150 ($33).
When to go: Lunchtime, when you're in the area and incapable of looking your peanut butter and jelly in the face.
From the menu:
Individual sushi zl.6-22
Individual sashimi
zl.7-20
Sushi sets
zl.19-79
Lychee nut fruit cocktailzl.9
Ice creamzl.7
