Restaurant review: Dream deflated Not all that glitters is good sushi, Hanan Radwan concludes Ever thought of that one magical word that can cause you to jump off the couch on a languid afternoon, pace around madly and cry "Where? Where?" The word "sushi", I confess without compunction, has that power over me. A friend of mine received one such dose of my frenzy on a bitterly cold evening when she suggested that we try Itsumi, a new outlet that serves the Japanese raw fish rolls that have added a new definition to the word "addiction" in my dictionary. We dragged along another friend who winces at the mere mention of raw fish, assuring her of the probability of the menu including non-sushi items. Although Itsumi is subtitled "The Sushi Bar", there is no bar to be seen. The restaurant is comfortably spacious and decorated with simple unassuming flair, with warm overtones of grey tinged with cheerful yellow. But had it not been for the soy sauce bottles and silver chopsticks planted on each table, Itsumi could have passed for yet another of those proverbial cafés that have sprouted from the garages of most buildings in Cairo. Almost to prove this point, the menu sports a wide assortment of fruit juice concoctions, shakes and hot drinks in addition to sushi and other Asian dishes that have been thrown in. Glancing around at the numerous wall sketches depicting long-haired female silhouettes dancing with canes and listening to New Age music, my inner psyche could not help but ask: "Where are we exactly?" After what seemed like an entire day, our orders arrived. We all shared a starter of mixed fried tempura, an assortment of fried fish, shrimp and vegetables coated in delectably crunchy batter and served with sweet chili sauce. So far so good. We sat back in our velvet chairs and looked forward to a good meal. Just as I was starting to doze off and my appetite had given up on the prospect of more food, a sushi platter was finally eased under my nose. The pieces were carefully wrapped and bulged with colourful ingredients. But just as it takes an expert to pull together a Lamborghini, a sushi piece cannot be palatable unless its ingredients and binding sauces are balanced and harmonised with subtle perfection. Take the rainbow roll, for instance, a piece that is packed with salmon, tuna, crab, white fish and fried shrimp, all pasted with cream cheese and draped in a film of seaweed. Although the chef has managed to cram together an aquarium, he skimped on the binding sugar and rice vinegar blend that gives sushi its vinegar flavour, and the roll simply tastes of raw fish. Then there is the salmon temaki hand roll, a large cone of seaweed wrapped around slivers of salmon and avocado. Although the fish and avocado were fresh, the seaweed wrap was so tough I almost had the urge to call on the assistance of the waiter to help me pull off a bite. To top it all off, the restaurant was short of eel on that day, a misfortune that made many items on the menu off limits. Despite my disappointment, I dared not complain. Our mutual friend and sushi opponent was having a harder time with her sweet and sour chicken. She gasped with shock upon seeing her plate: a raw of grilled chicken strips with no sauce (and no pineapples as the menu promised) plunked beside a mound of fried rice with vegetables that had a creamy texture. "Reminds me of mahshi [stuffed vegetables] stuffing," my other friend teased after sampling a forkful. We trudged out of Itsumi, our expectations dampened and our wallets drained. Some things like sushi should be taken seriously. Our meal was mediocre, but in the world of sushi, this is tantamount to shameful disaster. Itsumi Mohandessin
