Shiki Japanese Restaurant, Norwich

Our first blog entry - how exciting - and it seems fitting that it should be about probably our favourite restaurant in the fine city of Norwich.  Tomorrow marks our two year anniversary so we decided to treat ourselves to a meal out on a lovely (not so lovely really, it was raining) May Day bank holiday Monday.

Shiki is a popular spot; it is well-established and has a loyal customer-base and recently received some unexpected praise in a review of another restaurant by Guardian food writer, Jay Rayner.  For a Monday night, the place was packed.  Most restauranteurs would be envious of the crowd that Shiki can pull in on what is traditionally a quiet night in the trade.  We chose to eat from their regular menu, although Monday night also brings the option of an all you can eat sushi buffet, which we have yet to try.

We were greeted warmly by the staff, including Shun the chef/owner, and shown to our table upstairs.  For those who haven't been, Shiki is situated in the heart of Tombland and overlooks the cathedral.  There are some nice views to be had from the upstairs dining room which has a minimal, understated warmth.  We ordered a glass of sweet plum wine (a must have) and a Blanc de Mer white wine whilst we pondered over the extensive menu. We are, however, creatures of habit when it comes to dining at Shiki and this meant that we honed straight in on the sushi and deciding what combination of pieces to order.

After a few minutes the waitress returned with our drinks and we were ready to order.  We picked gyoza (one pork, one vegetarian) to start and an array of sushi for our mains: vegetarian dream rolls, avocado nigiri and red pepper nigiri for the gentleman, and California roll uramaki, double salmon roll uramaki, Ebi Ten roll futomaki, and maguro (Japanese tuna), Hamachi (yellow tail), and Suzuki (sea bass) nigiri.  We are sushi gluttons.

The gyoza were served and unusually there was a bit of a delay between the veggie gyoza arriving and the pork gyoza following, but we didn't mind.  Unfortunately we neglected to take a picture of the gyoza but they looked like, well, gyoza so please picture two plates of three gyoza with a soy dipping sauce in your mind's eye.  They look tasty don't they?  Sorry, we'll make sure we get pictures next time.  The gyoza were incredibly tasty, the veggie dumplings contained a filling of minced vegetables (definitely some sort of cabbage in there and some bean sprouts too) and the actual dumpling was light and crispy.  The pork gyoza were steamed but still had a crispy underside adding a nice crunch, the filling was salty, savoury and slightly spicy - delicious.

The sushi arrived shortly afterwards and was a feast for the eyes - this time we remembered to take pictures:

The fish nigiri, double salmon rolls and California rolls (pictured above) are a real favourite and they did not disappoint, tasting even better than they looked.  The fish was beautifully fresh and had a melt in the mouth texture, especially the Hamachi which was probably the pick of the bunch.

The vegetarian dream rolls (above) were also superb, with a filling of baby corn, red pepper and fried aubergine.  They are served on a Jackson Pollock-esque combo of mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce and the roll itself is tempura battered and deep fried before being cut into pieces.  The tempura batter adds another dimension with that lovely crunch as you bite in.

The final platter contained the red pepper and avocado nigiri and the Ebi Ten futomaki.  The Ebi Ten contain tempura prawn and salad which, like the veggie dream roll, adds a really nice texture to the sushi.  The remaining nigiri has a lovely fresh flavour that went well with the richer, more substantial eating to be had from the dream roll.

After some brief deliberation we decided that we did in fact have room for dessert, which is often not the case when we come to Shiki.  Initially we had some minor trepidation were dessert was concerned - in our experience, Japanese restaurants can be a bit hit and miss when it comes to pudding but we had room and felt adventurous so took the plunge.  We ordered a green tea tiramisu and ice cream mochi.  The mochi come in three flavours - mango, coconut and yuzu - and a serving size is three mochi so we asked to have one of each, but sadly they had run out of mango so we settled on a combination of the remaining flavours.

The green tea tiramisu was a pleasant surprise - it had the textures and some of the flavour profiles of a traditional tiramisu (there were the classic sponge fingers, cream and some coffee liqueur) but with a lightness coming from the green tea.  Tiramisu can be a heavy pud and a bit of a slog after a big feed but this was just right.  The only criticism would be that the cream was under-whipped which meant that the texture overall was more liquid than it should have been and it was a little messy to eat.

The mochi looked a tad unusual when they arrived and we weren't quite sure what to expect taste-wise.  However, the flavour and texture was good - the mochi are like little gelatinous pockets somehow made from rice (maybe from the starch, we're not entirely sure) filled with a firm ice cream.  They were not too sweet and tasted fresh and not artificial.  The yuzu mochi in particular was a real highlight, yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit) is very 'in' at the moment and it's easy to see why as it has a distinctive taste that is somewhere between an orange and a lemon without being quite like either.  The coconut, whilst pleasant, was just that bit less punchy in comparison.

After polishing off our final course we asked for the bill and went to the front counter to pay.  We were pleasantly surprised that three courses each with a glass of wine each (tap water was also had at no charge) came in at not much over £50.  Shiki is by no means the cheapest place to eat in Norwich but the quality is consistently very high and at under £30 a head we certainly wouldn't have any complaints about value for money.

Shiki is a favourite of ours and even though we have flirted with Ciscoes (which also serves very good sushi), it hasn't stopped us coming home to Shiki.  If you've never been for a Japanese meal you should check it out - they do a number of other traditional dishes, including sashimi, noodles and some hearty meat dishes if that's your bag.

We've decided against doing ratings in our reviews so we will conclude with this: we will definitely be visiting Shiki again and would recommend that you visit too.

For more info and bookings for Shiki, click here.