EATING OUT

Oh-so-Tokyo

There's more to this huge Japanese restaurant than first meets the eye

The Grill Tokyo, Ground floor, Siam Paragon, Tel 02-610-9487, Open 11:30am-2pm and 5:30-10pm (Mon-Fri), and 11:30am-10pm (Sat and Sun) : The friend who recommended The Grill Tokyo to me said it had been the restaurant's distinctive silk thread curtains that first drew her to the place where she duly fell in love with the food and service and, over the last few months, has become a regular.

Ironically, it was those same decorative curtains, made with thousands of silky white strands, that had kept me away. Like many people, I can feel slightly intimidated by grandiose restaurant decor. I've often found - and years of dining duty has coloured my instinct here - that the most remarkable thing about fancy looking eateries is usually the bill and not the food. However, on this occasion I was happy for my preconceptions to be wrong.

The Grill Tokyo is the newest addition to the 20-year-old Nippon-Tei restaurant group. Contemporary in design, with state-of-the-art decor and intricate craftsmanship, the restaurant is huge in comparison to other Paragon eateries, comfortably seating up to 250.

The good news is that there are four comprehensive menus covering set meals, traditional Japanese fare, Western-style dishes and desserts. The bad news is that it can take quite a long time to settle on which to order from, let alone thoroughly explore all the options.

Broadly speaking, the traditional Japanese menu offers an impressively wide selection of sushi and sashimi as well as maki and temaki. Every day there are more than 30 selections of fresh, imported fish available - from A-grade toro (fatty belly tuna) to seabream and samma (Pacific saury). At The Grill Tokyo, compromising on quality is never an option.

We ordered super deluxe sashimi (2,000 baht), a generous portion of top-quality fresh raw seafood including uni (sea urchin), maguro akami (top loin of tuna), salmon, amaebi (sweet shrimp), toro, matsukawa karei (flatfish), hamachi (young yellowtail) and scallop. Not a single bite was less than excellent.

When the soft-shell crab maki (230 baht) and salmon skin maki (230 baht) arrived, it occurred to us that maybe the meal had already peaked. While the dishes were perfectly alright, they were hardly memorable and we felt slightly disappointed.

More than a dozen dishes combining traditional Japanese flavours with a European twist can be found on the "Grand" menu. First, we sampled the unagi cream cheese daikon maki (190 baht). This ingeniously creative titbit, featuring rolls of thinly sliced radish stuffed with grilled, well-seasoned eel and cream cheese, afforded a delicate flavour and subtle texture.

From the same menu, we also tried the marbled tuna belly on skewers (320 baht) and could hardly stop ourselves from whining for more. The fish - perfectly cubed, seasoned and grilled - yielded a naturally sweet, slightly oily taste and made for a mouthful of absolute joy.

Most people probably flock to The Grill Tokyo probably because of its set lunch, which offers enough to satisfy your palate, completely fill your stomach and not offend your wallet. At only 340 baht this is a great deal, the likes of which you don't usually find at such fine Japanese eateries. You get a four-course meal comprising a choice of appetiser, a meat or seafood dish, a pasta or rice, and a dessert.

I began with green salad with bonito fish, crisp lettuce topped with slices of rare skipjack tuna and sprinkled with mayonnaise. Following the delicious salad was fried soft-shell crab served with spicy tartar sauce, which was equally impressive.

Then, a bowl of vinegared rice topped with chopped marbled tuna belly proved a real stomach filler and provided a flavourful zest. The set was nicely wrapped up with black sesame pudding, which was velvety smooth and not too sweet.

We also found the Zen-style beef steak set (500 baht) to be good value. The set included a generous slice of tasty and tender Australian steak accompanied by a bowl of rice, soup and a dessert.

Here, you don't necessarily need to end your meal with red bean paste atop shaved ice (unless you want to). Unlike many other Japanese restaurants in town, where there's a very limited choice of sweet treats, The Grill Tokyo has as many as 15 selections on offer daily. That includes the popular glutinous flour ball with green tea powder, or macha mochi (160 baht), as well as a decent variety of homemade ice cream (100 baht) and sherbet (70 baht). Flavours range from white sesame, Earl Grey and green tea to mango.

To be honest, the two-hour long lunch left me feeling a lot better about all those oh-so-elaborate restaurants in the oh-so-colossal Paragon. In fact, I can hardly wait to return.

Bangkok Post
Friday February 02, 2007