Sushi is king

When your plates look this good, it may be acceptable to Instagram your meal, says Alastair Paulin.

How much influence does presentation have on our appreciation of a dish? That’s a subjective question, of course. For one of my boys, the look is key: he eats with his eyes.

We all do, to some extent, and that is one of the appeals of dining out. Restaurants pay much more attention to presentation than most home cooks.

Ferrymead Japanese restaurant Kenzo presents such beautiful dishes that for once, I got over being embarrassed to photograph my food. Doing so is part of my job of course, but that doesn’t stop me imagining other diners judging me for being the kind of prat who Instagrams his every meal. I don’t, but some of Kenzo’s plates were worth it.

Take the first dish on our table, a pair of maki. The California roll was made with black rice, which turns a lovely shade of purple when cooked. Visually, that was complemented by large chunks of avocado, red and white surimi and dollops of orange tobiko on top. The unagi (eel) roll was sprinkled with black poppy seeds and the plate garnished with very thin, crunchy rings of fried onion. Our moods improved even before the first delicious bite.

We had got to Kenzo late, hot and grumpy as one of the hottest days of summer was just starting to cool. I had called to push our reservation back and been told it was no problem. And when we walked into the almost empty restaurant, I realised my stress was misplaced.

Kenzo is in a glass office park building overlooking the estuary, which at high tide made for a pretty view. Inside is all glossy surfaces and hard angles, which does not make for the most inviting atmosphere, but our welcome was warm.

Once that beautiful plate arrived, along with some edamame and cool drinks, we could study the menu. Kenzo offers a wide and varied range of reasonably priced sushi rolls, nigiri, sashimi and main meals.

I couldn’t resist a sashimi plate and it was another visual stunner. Thick slabs of salmon, both raw and lightly seared, seared tuna, and delicate gurnard and terakihi arrived on a thick platter made of ice. The serving platter itself is moulded the day before and frozen overnight. For a generous serving of high quality fish, I thought it was good value at $26.

I always like to order tamago nigiri at Japanese restaurants, as a test of baseline quality, and Kenzo’s was a stand-out. Long, elegant slices of the omlette were draped seductively over purple rice, and the egg itself was flavourful without being overly sweetened, as is often the case. I accompanied that with seared tuna nigiri (the waiter had let us know they were out of raw maguro and would only be serving tuna lightly seared) and those pieces were similarly large and elegant. The four pieces of nigiri came to just $10 and could have made a lovely light lunch.

My youngest is in a picky patch and insisted he wanted nothing but a starter of a teriyaki chicken roll (but two please). The resulting plate was a surprise – the kitchen had taken it upon itself to make one roll with white rice and one with purple, transforming what I had thought of as a pedestrian order into a most attractive plate. It was such touches of initiative and care that elevated Kenzo above other neighbourhood Japanese joints.

The non-fish mains were less successful. A beef yakiniku, thinly sliced ribeye beef with cabbage and onions, came on a sizzling plate kept hot by a small burner. It looked good but the beef was either overdone or became so as it sat on the burner, and the sweet sauce was undistinguished. It looked tired and after several other gorgeous plates, it was ironic that it was ordered by the boy who eats with his eyes.

A teriyaki chicken main was pieces of chicken thigh and perhaps because it was pieces rather than a whole thigh, was also overdone. And a tempura main of three shrimp and vegetables was good but not remarkable. The mains, which came with miso soup, rice and an excellent small salad, were good value but in future I’d probably stick with the sushi, where the artistry of the chef came to the fore.