Ai Yo!
By Chef at Large Contributor • Jan 5th, 2010 • Category: Reviews
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Contributed by a Chef at Large contributor who prefers to remain anonymous.
The Brunch agenda for Sunday was “authentic Japanese food” and “value for money”, we had already decided that this had to be a stand alone restaurant and not in a 5 star hotel. After reading various reviews we zeroed in on Ai at the MGF mall.
As the hostess escorted us to the terrace, we passed four tables of Japanese guests, my husband and I grinned at each other with a “this has to be good sign” look. The extremely warm and helpful waitress explained the aspects of the brunch “at your table” and the costs to us , we just had to let her know if there was anything we couldn’t eat. I believe this style of dining is called Omakase, where you simply leave everything to the hands of the good chef. The brunch is available with an alcoholic or soft drink package, unless you are heavy drinkers, buying your drinks al a carte may be more economical.
Three types of soup was served on a tray, the portion size being about double shot, so it is a taster and not too filling. I make a special mention of the miso soup which was excellent.
The starters just kept coming to the table, one after another, and there was nothing that we didn’t try. Sushi rolled in sheets of nori at the table side – allows you a full choice and to mix and match flavours and experience. It was nice to have bacon and beef sushi! The choice was excellent and the sushi master was as knowledgeable as he was skilled.
Next a selection of cold starters, closely followed by vegetable tempura , chased with terikaki of pork belly and fish and if this was not enough then there was the sushoi (steamed dumplings of mushroom).
Now at this point we would have paid and left, but then came the offer of main course, seafood, poultry or vegetarian casseroles with noodles (choice of several) and steamed rice. We went for a simple chicken but spying the prawn on the next table this may have been a mistake… yet maybe not, the curry was excellent!
Dessert anyone? well at this point you could have rolled us home, but my husband can’t leave a restaurant without dessert, we enjoyed a selection from ice cream, mint and chocolate cake ,sorbets to sugar glazed fruits roasted at the table with a blow torch ,our favourite was a chocolate lava like pudding ,you break the surface and the chocolate lava oozes out .
It truly was a wonderful experience, we felt pampered by the courteous and caring staff and look forward to going back.
Total bill for 2 :Rs 5005 (we had the alchohol package)
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Now that’s one place to try for sure….2.5K per head is worth it if the sushi is good (and if they do nigirizushi as well, not only makis which is what’s mentioned in this review)
@siddhartha: sakura has an 1800+ similar buffet, though i think the fare is more traditional than that at ai.
Sid, is the photograph on the homepage from this visit?…it shows nigiri but descriptions talks of only maki? Huge cost (and price) diffence between the two so it matters!
@Siddhartha: The photo is a creative commons photo and not of the actual location. Yup, it shows Nigirizushi and Temakizushi.
Having said that, places like Sakura and Ai include nigirizushi as part of the package, only making the distinction of serving the nigiri separately on your table instead of placing it on the buffet table.