So, it seems last week’s review wasn’t actually my last. I leave Freebird and wander aimlessly around the city for several hours. The scorching sun slowly dips behind the horizon and a feverish blue moon takes its place in the firmament.
Suddenly, I realise I have walked all the way to Aeon Mall. Still a bit under the weather, I figure some Japanese food might cheer me up; a nice, peaceful dinner. But destiny, that capricious son of a gun, has far more interesting plans for me.
It’s late at night and the mall is a much quieter place. I climb to the second floor and head towards one of the few conveyor-belt restaurants in town, Kaihomaru Sushi. Ten bucks grant me the right to eat as much as I want for an hour and a half. I brace myself.
It looks legit. One detail stands out: a lone woman sits near the wall by the conveyor belt; a wild mane of fluffy curls and big eyes that are dreamy yet audacious. She’s sitting upright on her stool, shooting determined glances at the rotating sushi. Gracefully and with restraint, she reaches for a plate.
I want to sit on the vacant stool to her left, but I chicken out, instead half-heartedly occupying a seat next to a chubby Chinese kid with a voracious appetite. Bad idea: all the good stuff disappears into thin air as soon as it’s within his reach.
The pieces of sushi, on tiny elegant plates, aren’t as big as they could be. For $10, I expect my sushi full-size. The salmon (sake nigiri) and the scallop (hotate nigiri) have that smooth, fleshy texture and fresh taste that make sushi-junkies out of perfectly good people. But the tuna (maguro nigiri) is a weirdly bright colour, almost radioactive, and tastes dull. A bigger disappointment is that some of my favourites – freshwater eel (unagi nigiri) and corn sushi ship (tomorokoshi gunkan maki) – are completely absent from the conveyer belt.
Perhaps the kid has eaten them all. Finally, he leaves and I now have a full view of the girl, who graces me with a smile. I stand up and head towards the buffet area. It looks a lot better than the sushi belt.
You have miso soup, karaage chicken, potato korokke (croquette), soba, tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette) and okonomiyaki. The karaage chicken is perfectly crunchy and juicy. The tamagoyaki is good, but not as sweet as I remember it from my days in Japan. The miso is definitely a double thumbs-up. Almost everything here is delicious, and I can tell the food has been expertly prepared by Japanese hands; the chef, who I later meet, is a good-humoured fellow from near Tokyo.
I turn towards the girl, Magnum pose adopted, and hit her with my best line: “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice that you look a lot like my next girlfriend…”
Kaihomaru Sushi, Aeon Mall (3rd Floor), Sothearos Blvd.