Taste of Japan

One of my japanese friends has introduced Midorikawa restaurant to me, telling me it was the best sushi place he had been to in Beijing. Following his advice I went there, and I have to say it was really worth the money!

Having lived in Japan before, I am a huge fan of Japanese food and especially sashimi. In the year I have lived in Beijing I have had the opportunity to try a lot of, so called, japanese restaurants. I've been to the buffet ones and to the "à la carte" ones, but none has ever given me full satisfaction until I discovered Midorikawa.

Not only is the fish delicious (and you don't get sick the next day), but the service is as good as in Japan. We went there in the evening and sat at the counter, right in front of the chef, Midorikawa san himself, who prepared us sushi and put them on our wooden plater slowly giving us the time to appreciate them. You don't get everything straight away and eat it wildly, no, you get the sushi in a precise order that allows you to appreciate the taste of every single one of them. No need to mention, of course, that the fish was the yummiest I had had in a year.

At some point I wanted to drink my tea, but the cup was too hot. The chef took it and cooled it down with a wet towel so that I could hold it and still drink warm tea. THIS is what I call service.

The whole atmosphere is very intimate and comfortable. Some people would say there is not much decoration but those people obviously don't know about the "japanese" style. I really felt like I was not in Beijing anymore but inside a sushi bar in Japan, the only thing that brought me back to reality was the sound of a loud customer who was making the noise of someone who is about to spit... This is when I realized that I was, sadly, not in Japan but in China.

Anyway, now that I have tried this restaurant I do not want to waste any more money in these cheap bad quality "japanese restaurant" that you can find all over town, and Midorikawa has now been appointed my official beijing sushi restaurant!