The new menu at Wasabi,Taj Hotels Japanese restaurant,is a kamikaze between looks and taste Sonam Kapoor has competition when it comes to dressing up. Many dishes from the new Omikase menu at Wasabi by Morimoto,the Japanese restaurant at Delhis Taj Mansingh (Wasabi is also at Taj Mahal,Mumbai) have the stamp of faultlessly well-fitted and obsessively agonised-over couture. Co-created by Chef Masaharu Morimoto and Chef Hemant Oberoi,this new menu marks the third anniversary of Wasabi. Before you slide into a sake-abetted stupor,kinome and sansho crusted foie gras with maple tamari soy and crab biscuit arrives. It is followed by chilled purple sweet potato soup wearing chilli caviar that looks like golden,velvety pearls. Both are delicious. Contemporary cuisine must have a couture temperament says Chef Oberoi,a veteran Taj Hotels chef. As the game quickens between looks and taste,Oberoi talks about Japan,the authenticity of ingredients,the people,their disinterest in their own food contrasted with the worlds craze about it. Raw and real may be authentic Japanese,but it is modern that the global,dynamic gourmand asks for. The meal kamikazes from raw to cooked,bland to spicy,combining spices,garlic flavours,vegetables and good old sushi (unsurprisingly tender) to make sure that no palette goes disappointed. The champagne and rose sorbet is carried in on a bed of crushed ice wrapped in shiny cellophane paper and you wonder whether you should spoil it at all by tucking into it. However,it is the tempura combination pineapple tempura with pine nut and seaweed crusted otoro served with cheese fondue (Japanese fondue,yes,yes) that is a winner. Mimicking the delicate flavours of Japanese cuisine,the conversation with Oberoi is mildly spiked with insights about the food business in India; then it suddenly tempers down to talk about his two young sons training as chefs,his soon-to-be launched book The Masala Art and the sweet and sour life of a busy chef. If you are the kind who cant rationalise a Japanese experience without a Haiku,ask for the misozuke walnut tofu as a starter. It has brevity and beauty. The dessert? I would ask for Nikka Yoichi,the 20-year-old Japanese single malt whiskey.
