][1]A few years ago, your blogger interviewed the American chef, author and professional bad boy Anthony Bourdain.
I asked him some long-winded and convoluted question which boiled down to ‘How do you know a country has developed a decent restaurant scene?’
Bourdain’s answer was typically straight forward. Not one for counting Michelin stars or name-dropping celeb chefs, he reckoned that ‘When sushi bars are common place, then your country has a decent restaurant scene.’
I think we may have reached that point. Ten years ago, Yo Sushi launched their first Scottish branch in Rose Street; an opening that prompted dozens of wide-eyed press articles asking whether or not Scotland was ready for sushi.
Those seem like very different days. In 2011, sushi restaurants aren’t ten a penny in Scotland but they certainly aren’t the weird and wonderful novelty that they used to be. Off the top of my head, I can reel off at least a dozen sushi restaurants in Scotland.
They have just been joined by a new one on Dalziel Place in Edinburgh. Called Nagoya Original, the 22 seat newcomer is in the site which used to be occupied by the Old Penang Malaysian restaurant.
A hop, skip and a jump away from Meadowbank Stadium, it is run by chef Megumi-chan.
The menu has all the different sorts of sushi, sashimi, teriyaki and noodle dishes that you might expect but it also has an intriguing section which is simply labelled ‘home cooking’.
The menu doesn’t explain very much. For example, the description for nagoya tofu just says ‘pork, tofu’ which doesn’t exactly fill in too many blanks but it all looks worth investigating.
If you fancy getting your chopsticks stuck into some Oriental goodies then Bonsai in Edinburgh and Yen Oriental and Sapporo Teppanyaki in Glasgow are all 5pm members.