Bento Cafe

Bento Cafe 2

Another trip to the flicks, another attempt to snag a table at Bento Café in Camden. This time we booked to avoid disappointment, but after arriving bang on time we still had to wait for a good 15 minutes. I think we needn’t have booked at all really.

Anyway, the sushi here is exceptional but I decided to be adventurous and try a main course that I wouldn’t usually order. I had the hotate mentaiko (grilled scallops in a fish roe sauce).

These came served in the shells, grilled with seafood sticks. The appearance of seafood sticks (or crabsticks as they were known to me as a girl when I got them ‘fresh’ from the seafood van at the food market in my hometown every Saturday) in restaurants always delights but puzzles me somewhat. I feel guilty for liking these but here in a Japanese restaurant they serve them unabashed alongside fresh salmon, tuna, mackerel, octopus etc. I’m all for it actually.

To accompany my scallops I had a green salad which arrived first with a portion of edamame.

I loved the scallops but they were pretty rich, the roe sauce had crisped nicely on the top under the grill and the couple at a neighbouring table had serious food envy asking what it was I’d ordered. I was very pleased with this dish, the scallops were perfectly cooked and it looked impressive. The salad had a great mix of leaves, seaweed, sesame seeds and carrots and was well dressed with both sweet and tangy notes to it. I was pleased to be served a spoon with which to eat the scallops having sustained an injury to my right hand on the previous evening, chopsticks were proving a little tricksy and I was saved the embarrassment of asking for cutlery.

Thomas chose the grilled spicy beef for main with some egg fried rice and we shared some of the kinoko yaki (baked mushrooms in foil) that we always order here, the buttery sauce is delicious.

Thomas’ beef tasted good, it had a nice char, there was plenty of sliced red chilli (always a good thing) and the bbq sauce gave it a nice flavour but it was perhaps a bit too chewy.

On the way in I cast my beady eye over the table near the entrance before we were led to the back and I saw a bowl of ice cream. We have never sampled dessert here so I asked what flavours they have and we went for one each of the green tea and sesame. These are the only favours they offer.

They’re very interesting. The green tea one has a deep and changeable flavour. By that I mean at first it’s bitter, then creamy and then aromatic before returning to bitter. The sesame had a different texture, more like a paste and didn’t melt like ice cream usually does. It had an earthy flavour, I liked this one best and I like the way that in your head you imagine there will be a sweet element coming through but it never comes. This didn’t leave me disappointed and I’m glad to have tried them.

Again I was pleased with my meal here, the only downside being the wait and the fact that we ordered a salmon sashimi and they forgot it, when they remembered we were half way through the other dishes and didn’t want it anymore. Best to come here when it’s less busy, i.e. not on a Saturday night at 8pm but I love the sushi and a movie combination and their dishes are consistently good hence, I think them worthy of a second post.

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On Saturday night dinner was courtesy of Bento Café in Camden. Over the last year since living in North London I have become a frequent visitor here. It’s a venue that is amazingly good value for money yet provides top quality, fresh Japanese food, the ideal place to go when you want a reliably good feast with minimal fuss or effort.

Their speciality, as the name suggests, is Bento. I have tried these and they are super however what constantly delights is the salmon sashimi which is just the most tender melt in the mouth fish I have ever eaten. Served simply with some pickled ginger, shredded carrot and wasabi each mouthful is so incredibly delicious that it seems a shame even to mar the purity and delicacy of the salmon with any of the accompaniments. A dip in some soy sauce is all it needs if anything. I cannot rave enough about this.

As you enter the restaurant immediately ahead of you is a counter where the sushi chefs are preparing the fish. It’s a stunning display of all manner of aquatic beings and seeing these guys at work is always a treat, they are geniuses.

So Thomas and I shared a portion of salmon sashimi, yet again rendering us virtually speechless whilst we polished it off. Then came the kinoko yaki, or mushrooms baked in foil with a butter sauce. These were good, the aroma was notable when the foil was opened.

Thomas ordered chicken teriyaki and egg-fried rice, both faultless dishes. The chicken arrived on a sizzling hot plate, the child in me is always impressed by this assault on the senses, visually, audibly and aromatically pleasing. The taste more than lived up to expectations.

I opted once more for the special hot and spicy seafood soup. This offers a heady mix of scallops, squid, prawns, seafood sticks (I’m always amazed to see their use in Japanese cookery having associated them with decidedly non sophisticated eating in my youth) mushrooms, carrots and cabbage in a hot and sour broth with a big citrus hit courtesy of lime.

I love this. It’s always in a scorching hot bowl and I pick out the fish piece by piece then move onto the vegetables and am still left with a gloriously tasty broth, I can never finish the whole thing. I love how I can methodically plough through each element of the dish, exhibiting a slightly ritualistic way of eating which takes me back to my childhood when I would carefully deliberate exactly how I might tackle the food in front of me.

The service here is rather brusque, at times almost verging on impolite but in my experience I feel it matters very little. It’s an eat and run situation mostly when we pay them a visit but the service may irk others who are making an evening of it.

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I love Bento and think that it is def one of the best sushi places around. My friends and i love the food so much that we try to ignore the bad service. once the waitress actually snatched the bill from my friends hand! i dont think it would hurt at all if they put a smile on their face.. food is great though!!

THIS RESTAURANT IS A GODSEND OF FRESH AND FLAVOURSOME INGREDIENTS ! THE BLACK COD AND SOFT-SHELL CRAB STOOD OUT FAMOUSLY. THE SERVICE WAS IMPECCABLE AND FREINDLY. WILL DEFINITELY GO BACK AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK.

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First visit was nothing fabulous. Got a lunchtime bento box and food was nothing special. Staff seemed ok. Will try sushi next time and report back on that.