The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Blown away by lunch in a Pan Asian paradise
Brad Barnes on the lunch time offerings at hot new restaurant
Iwas lucky enough to have lunch recently at Katana, Peterborough's hot new Japanese Pan Asian restaurant.
It is a stylish, ultra-modern and immaculate venue with its own cocktail bar that not surprisingly has become very much the go-to place in the city centre at weekends.
It is impressive, but I was blown away by the food on offer (which is after all what we were there for) and to be fair the price - £14.95 for two courses seemed excellent value for money.
And now the venue, which opened in Broadway in December, is looking to make the place even more accessible by introducing two new £9.95 onecourse menus – including teppanyaki dishes – at lunchtime from this week.
“The launch and the first two months or so have exceeded our expectations, " said a spokesman.
“It is crazy. Everyone wants to come at the weekend and we have reached the point where weekends are now getting fully book for the next couple of weeks.
“But we don't want to see people missing out on the experience of dining with us, so at lunch times, when customers maybe don't have as much time, we want to make the restaurant even easier to try with these new £9.95 menus."
They won't be exclusive lunchtime guests will still be able to dine a-la-carte, enjoy the experience of being cooked for by a chef around a teppanyaki station or take advantage of the two-course lunchtime menu which only launched in January and drew me in.
So if you are yet to visit, here’s what you have been missing out on.
The lunchtime menu we had offers plenty to cover all tastes with starters including chicken or vegetable gyozas, California, tempura, tuna spicy or vegan rolls from the sushi station, as well as chicken, prawn or salmon skewers and prawn or sweet potato tempura.
Our gyozas, served in the steam basket, had lots of filling and flavour, while the tempura prawns had a lovely crunch and also came with a tasty little dip. My favourite was the Korean karaage, lovely soft coated thigh meat with a sauce that really packed a punch.
There's half a dozen or so mains to choose from and pretty healthy sized portions too.
The beef yakisoba was terrific - amazing flavour in the sauce, tender pieces of meat and lashings of lovely stir-fried noodles. Top drawer.
10-year-old Jasmine is a big fan of panko chicken katsu... and now has a new favourite place to enjoy it.
The chicken breast was beautifully tender and was a delight mixed with the soft rice and that unmistakable not too hot, sweet and moreish curry sauce.
Finally, fish-loving Donna had the seabass pennang curry and wasn't disappointed. A succulent and big fillet, perfectly cooked and served with Japanese rice and a luscious Thai curry.
Faultless food, beautifully presented, friendly and helpful service and a truly stunning lunch setting - what's not to like?