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.