Sayonara Kiku

Kit says I’m forgetful. I debate that because when it comes to food, I have the memory of an elephant. For instance I remember that when dining in the Kiku Zakura outlet in MidValley when I was still Creative Airtime Manager at red.fm, I ordered a dessert which never came but which appeared on my bill. I was too busy talking to my marketing executive Leong Weng Kan (I wonder where he is – I loved him to bits) to realize it until much later.

Still, I didn’t bear a grudge, and have continued to patronize the chain and their outlets in the old Jaya, and in the past year or so, the one in Tropicana City Mall, having been brought there by good pal Pat Seow, (she surprised me last year by buying me lunch there and giving me a cell phone, just because!).

Since I am currently on a Japanese food craze, I knew it would be either Kiku Zakura or Sushi Tei for lunch. I hate crowds, so the bustling Sushi Tei lost out. Kit and I were the only other diners at Kiku. I like the cavernous feel of the Tropicana City outlet, and its muted lighting and stone wall water feature. I also think their service is very attentive. However, I am not loving its prices anymore.

My sudden price consciousness has nothing to do with certain clients assuming I have to give them a discount because they were not ad hoc clients. It has, rather, most likely to do with the number of times I have dined at Nagomi in the recent past.

Bento boxes and teishoku meals are Kiku's saving grace.

I was completely taken back that the smallest sashimi moriawase platter was RM90. Nagomi’s is RM60. I gave the outlet the benefit of the doubt – perhaps their sashimi was superior. However, from the selection in the set meal Kit and I shared, I think it is debatable. I know for a fact that many Japanese restaurants order two grades of sashimi. The better cuts go into the ala carte orders, while the other kind is sliced up for use in set or bento meals. I wonder if this is the case with Kiku, because while palatable, the tuna, salmon, salmon carpaccio and butterfish sashimi which came with the teishoku set was not what I’d expect from a restaurant of Kiku’s caliber.

The offending rolls are the ones covered in prawn roe.

Still, for RM42 the teishoku (set meal) was quite good value for money. There was certainly a visual spread. Apart from the sashimi, there was a selection of tempura with two large prawns. Faultlessly well done, although I was not hot on the amount of ginger in the tempura dipping sauce. There was also a small side dish of stir fried vegetables, coleslaw with Japanese mayonnaise, miso soup and two triangles of watermelon.

I ordered a medium sushi moriawase selection which was RM53 and featured a piece each of cuttlefish, soft shelled crab, scallop, whelk, prawn, octopus, salmon, tuna, butterfish, salmon roe, and two mystery rolls which were so cold they gave me brain freeze. The rolls were the singularly most unpleasant mouthful I’ve had to date at any Japanese restaurant. They weren’t cold, they were half frozen. It was as if the kitchen found a bit of unidentifiable thing in the back of their fridge and decided it would fill two pieces of maki nicely, so proceeded to slather it in mayo and serve it right from the cold depths of their chiller. The other sushi was passable, though I have to say Nagomi’s cuttlefish was so much more tender and creamy than Kiku’s.

I also took affront at the sushi rice. Sushi is always about the rice. No matter if it’s topped with a piece of RM100 abalone, if the rice ain’t right, you’re shite. Kiku’s rice was so dry and grainy that it kept breaking. It was impossible to ferry a piece into the mouth without collateral damage. It took all the pleasure out of those generous pieces of seafood.

You can almost count the pieces of cabbage in this dish!

The last chance I gave was in the form of an appetizer. Kimuchi is Japanese kimchi, without the olfactory assault of fish sauce. RM8 garnered me a saucer of white cabbage stems which were so badly done that there was an aftertaste of cheap chemical seasoning well after I polished it off. My friend Sharon can make me a jar of kimchi for this price. And when I think I had a plate of fluffy onion cakes for this same amount at Nagomi, I want to cry.

Granted the service is great. (After all with more wait staff than diners, it is quite do-able). I like how the server positioned the wasabi when she noted we were taking photos of everything. Still, I can very well do without the welcome cold towel and the warm after meal towel if it will help bring down prices any!

I stand by the fact that it is still a good place to eat in relative aural comfort. Its set meals are still affordable, but if it’s a sashimi guzzle session I want, I think I’ll stick to Nagomi. RM123.05 is not obscene for two diners at a Japanese restaurant, but it leaves me a bit green around the gills when the food fails to live up to expectations.