Getting what you pay for with Kinokawa's supreme sushi

Getting what you pay for with Kinokawa's supreme sushi

By Laksmi Pamuntjak

JAKARTA (JP): Hardly a day goes by since I first went to
Kinokawa that I don't think of going back. For it does the best
sushi and sashimi you will find for hundreds of miles in any
direction.

And this means at least four things.

First, don't expect to find fancy-schmanzy names ("Sassy
Salmon", "Dynamite Roll", anyone?), ace-electric sushi and East-
meets-West mumbo jumbo that's just an excuse for favoring style
over substance. This, and I will say it again, is NOT California
Japanese.

Second, anyone who thinks sushi is not about gastronomy, but
rather about design, can go back to his or her basement-level
supermarket take-away futomaki. Though sushi is essentially a
visual food and much of its art is in the placement, color,
proportions and spacing, taste and texture are always of
uppermost importance. And all of this you'll find at Kinokawa.

Third, if you want the complete authentic experience, go for
dinner and sit at the sushi and sashimi bar. This is important.
Fourth, it will cost you. A lot.

Another distinctive aspect -- a bonus, really -- is the
restaurant's understatement. Most upper-end Japanese restaurants
in Jakarta, notably those in prestigious hotels or upscale office
buildings, would feel compelled to advertise, however little.

Not so Kinokawa, which is located in the parking area of
Menara Thamrin. Originally conceived as a semiprivate eatery for
the Kajima people who owned the building, it has thriven purely
by word of mouth.

This understatement extends to other basic things like entry
point. Get your vehicle to drop you near the parking lot
elevator on the ground floor and use that elevator to get to the
eighth floor. Once inside Kinokawa, you won't be bombarded by
shouts of greeting, either. And once at the sushi bar, the only
way to effect something more than a one-way street is to open the
conversation. Sometimes, if you're lucky and the sushi chefs are
not too busy, you just might find one who will guide you through
your meal.

Sushi and sashimi orders are strictly on an eight, 10 or 12-
piece basis and the pieces are served individually, one by one,
in steady, perfectly paced procession. What you get varies every
day according to the chefs' whims, which is not a bad thing if
you plan to come often. Two people are best to dine on two
servings of eight-piece or 10-piece sushi and one 10-piece
sashimi, or the other way around. And please do not overeat -- to
stuff yourself silly would be self-defeating.

The most awesome thing, of course, is that every single piece
looks and tastes like a work of art. There's something
meditative, even religious, about the way the sequence of
flavours works its magic; for one, it transports me. There's
absolutely no use employing such banal descriptions as "fresh",
"succulent" or even "imported" -- every Japanese restaurant worth
its salt imports its fish anyway. But the real burning question
is, what sort of imported fish and how do they treat it.

The operating word in Kinokawa is refinement. This means a
light, delicate but very thorough spicing technique, combined
with the use of superior ingredients. For one, I love the fact
that they serve muggier (fatty tuna) first. What a powerful
statement. Clean, simple, flavorsome, full of character -- a
thoroughly noble dish. A slice of raw cuttlefish on a bed of
moist, light, and full-flavored rice, finely judged as is the
norm, is dazzlingly perfumed with lemon rind; a piece of pan-
fried salmon, polished to perfection, swims elegantly in
exquisite broth; a slice of Akita beef, if available as a bonus,
tastes almost like the finest of Atlantic sea bass.

There's even horsemeat and whale meat, on a good day. White
snapper, red snapper, tuna, crab roe, prawn, crab, eel, flying
fish roe -- meditative ocean food for creatures of the land.

Even the complimentary dessert shuns easy cliches. On my last
visit, there were rich plums, blood-red grapes and excellent
ogura-filled mochi cakes that I couldn't get enough of.

The clientele seems to react to the air of haute simplicity by
keeping way below the usual accepted noise level, and there's no
-- thank God -- distracting Muzak or tingling of "Oriental"
kitsch. Although smallish, the place is clean, airy and compact,
with an open tatami room, four tables, two private tatami rooms,
and the sushi bar, all done up in traditional Japanese style.

At lunch time, Kinokawa transcends the attendant dichotomy of
serving such stunningly superior food by catering to those who
don't always want super-haute cuisine. This is where sops to
California are allowed (the California Roll is excellent) -- to
great effect. Other easy, basic, crowd-pleasing choices include a
crisp, expertly cooked tempura, a variety of udon and soba (thick
and thin noodles) and very wholesome selection of donburi (rice
bowls).

Though a bit expensive (lunch is around Rp 200,000 for two, a
dinner of sushi and sashimi Rp 750,000 and up), everything is
tasty and characterized by a clean, market freshness. Recommended
are the tempura udon, truly a noodle soup for the soul, and the
gyuniku teriyaki. The beef is lightly coated in egg yolk and
panfried to medium, the sauce sweetish in the Edo tradition but
always, always light, with an exquisite hint of sake. Minor
quibble: the staff can be inattentive and easily distracted.

No dish is second-rate at Kinokawa, so the prices are
justified. And, like me, you'll be kept in purple prose for the
rest of the year.

The writer is the author of Jakarta Good Food Guide 2001.