Tsu Contemporary Japanese Restaurant (the front half of Tsu-Nami, the back half being reserved for teppanyaki trickery), has the aura of a debutant about it since it unveiled in August a new-look three months in the making.
Opened in 2004, it was time to reconfigure and recommit. As prior, there’s a blend of banquettes and dining tables with partitions providing privacy and a window wall opening onto a soul-stilling Zen-style rock garden that connects up steep stairs with the street and is piled high with steaming stones, hot spring-like.
The biggest difference is that the long and winding softwood tsunami wave sculpture that snaked between the two concepts has been diced and spread about in cages. In its former location is a row of translucent forest-green panels etched with arboreal and lantern motifs. A new hot and cold Sake Bar handcrafts cocktails. With monasterial matt-black tables and chairs, it’s still artistic but more aesthetically accessible.
Geysers aside, the guests who scamper down the stairs for lunch and dinner lend another layer of colour. There’s a democratic mix of tourists, local moguls and office workers who know value-for-money soul-stirring Japanese menus when they meet them.
And who wouldn’t love Chef Yukio Takeda from Hokkaido and team’s consummate compositions of authentic in-season ingredients?
Historically influenced by Chinese cuisine, Japanese cuisine has opened up to eclectic influences. Dishes like ramen and gyōza, curries and steaks encounter Japanese variants and Tsu’s new menu runs the gamut.
We started with a velvety smooth brick of neutral yet flavourful sesame paste tofu with a shallow mildly-salty moat of bonito broth. Truthfully awesome.
Our stretch sushi roll, tightly packed with French foie gras, cucumber and chawanmushi and wrapped in torch-seared, marbling 5 Miyazaki beef, seasoned with meaty teriyaki sauce is another show-stopper. Cheeks ne’er bulged so ecstatically.
Our salad was a Fuji-esque mount of Romaine laced with mayo and crab stick, strewn with tiny tempura-battered silver fish, drizzled with bonito teriyaki, topped with a volcanic burst of flying fish egg. Understandably jostling for the most-ordered accolade.
For soup, Chef’s Asari clams in bonito flake clear broth seasoned with mild mojjio sea salt again exampled culinary purity as pathway to perfection.
Next we reverted to A5 Miyazaki full-scale: the buttery meat teppanyaki-grilled, thickly sliced, served on piping hot stone, topped with Chef’s chunky miso sauce, deep-fried radish and asparagus tips. A better bit of beef is unimaginable.
But Chef wouldn’t let us leave it at that. Oh no, he had to have us taste his prawn, yam and shitake mushroom tempura with its frost-light perma-crisp batter and ambrosial dipping sauce. And in case we were still hungry, a bowl of Himi Udon hand-made flour noodles in consommé-clear bonito broth with tender slices of local Kurobuta pork and perfect little snow-white shimeji mushrooms.
Japanese culinary wizzes and foodies must further be lauded for their insistence that dessert is essential. Case in point: luminescent green tea blancmange-like pudding made with fuji matcha powder, wasabi-infused yomogi (mugwort) dumplings, neutral rice balls, red bean compote made with the strong-tasting Hokkaido red beans, and irreproachable matcha ice cream.
Alternatively, try the super-heated crispy tempura-coated yomogi flour slices spread with red bean paste, to forego which is also almost sacrilege.
Ready smiles and personable service rates another attraction.
Last time I looked Tsu ranked #12 of all the 11,674 surveyed restaurants in Bangkok. On the strength of this visit, it’s no surprise.
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