Mai Oh Mai: New Japanese at Westin Beijing
Matching the fare of Grange Grill, with its behemoth cuts of meat, seems a formidable task but where there is the brute force of beef, what better way to counter it than with the sophisticated nuance of Japanese cuisine?
Glimmering in gold, Mai sits across from Grange Grill and brings the heat with its cold fish. An easy entry point to the tome of a menu is through one of the sashimi and sushi samplers. The smaller of the two arrives with three kinds of sashimi and seven types of sushi (RMB 360) of the chef’s choosing – a long platter of pale yellowtail pink, deep tuna red, bright salmon orange and the burnt ochre of eel. We tailored it with our own favorites: sea urchin nigiri (RMB 78, two), tuna belly nigiri (RMB 178, two).
The menu encompasses the range of standard Japanese offerings with teppanyaki, if you prefer to eschew the raw, and a selection of noodles including a familiar udon (RMB 118), a more unusual green tea soba (RMB 78) and a rarer inaniwa (RMB 88), the slender variety of udon from Akita prefecture in northern Japan.
A seaweed and fresh greens salad (RMB 48) struck us as an odd pairing, but Mai does makes some successful statements. The salmon roe with grated daikon (RMB 48) is divisive with its saline bite, a pleasant diversion from the banality of standard hotel fare. Cat Nelson
Mai 舞日本料理
Mon-Fri 11.30am-2pm (lunch), daily 5.30-10.30pm (dinner). 2/F, Westin Beijing Chaoyang, 7 Dongsanhuan Beilu, Chaoyang District (5922 8880)
朝阳区东三环北路7号金茂北京威斯汀大饭店2层
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