Edamame: sushi night

When someone suggests eating a chunk of raw fish, you either smile or squirm. Until my visit to Edamame's sushi night, I was definitely in the latter camp. Although I'm a pescetarian whose range extends beyond cod and who isn't averse to grappling with a king prawn on occasion, the thought of tucking into uncooked salmon, tuna or even squid didn't exactly fill me with joy. But in the interest of research, I paid a second visit to Japanese restaurant Edamame on Thursday to sample their raw offerings.

Prior to this experience, the only types of sushi I could identify were sashimi (chunks of raw fish) and norimaki, commonly known as California rolls (tiny pieces of fish wrapped in rice and held together by an outside layer of dried seaweed). There was far more on offer than this, though: I let my sushi pro dining companions K, L and S talk me through the menu, and before long we had an array of beautifully-presented plates of nigiri (small  blocks of slightly sweetened sushi rice topped with salmon and tuna - we passed on the octopus and squid this time), gunkan (sushi rice rolled into little 'boats' wrapped in seaweed and topped with salmon and tuna with leeks, salmon eggs or avocado), temaki (also known as hand rolls: sushi rice rolled into small cones and filled with tuna and cucumber with mayonnaise, shredded cucumber or pickled daikon radish) and a special of spicy tuna rolls.

Gunkanzushi

Ngirizushi

Spicy tuna rolls

Norimakizushi

Sashimi

Temakizushi

Being more than a little inept with chopsticks, sushi posed another elegant eating difficulty, but the fact that it seemed acceptable to deposit whole pieces of maki in your mouth at once definitely helped. I started at the less scary end of the scale with a piece of tuna maki, but dipping it in the provided soy sauce, wasabi or ginger was a step too far for my clumsy mitts. Fortunately, it had just enough flavour by itself, which was more than I could say for my next choice, a piece of tuna ngiri. The salmon variety was topped with a small chunk of orange, infusing it with a delicious citrus taste and receiving particular praise from S, who had never seen it served this way in her former home city, sushi-loving London.

Sipping on my cup of rich-tasting miso soup, I pondered my next move. Suitably impressed with the taste of raw fish so far, I chose a spicy tuna roll and wasn't disappointed: there was no dipping or dunking required to produce a delicious depth of flavour, perfect for cack-handed individuals like myself. A Californian temaki (filled with tuna mayonnaise) seemed an easy bet, as the alternative name 'hand roll' implies that it's fine to get your paws involved. However, its dried seaweed wrapping was a little tougher than I anticipated: tasty, but not pretty. The avocado gunkan was a fish-free interlude (plenty of vegetarian sushi is available at Edamame) before my grand finale: a piece of salmon sashimi. Probably the most emblematic and the most intimidating style of sushi for novices to get to grips with, I understood the scariness of sashimi, but was pleased to discover it tasted rich with a smooth texture as opposed to slimy, as I feared. The quality of the fish is clearly high at Edamame, winning praise from my sushi pro friends.

So, sushi isn't so scary after all. In fact, it's pretty tasty. Light and fresh, sushi is ideal for a summer supper, especially accompanied with some miso soup and edamame beans. I can't say I'm a definite convert, but next time someone suggests sushi, I'll agree rather than making my excuses. And who knows, I may even pluck up the courage to try some squid next time.


You can listen to me talking about my experience of sushi and about other places to eat fish in Oxford on Jo Thoenes' show on BBC Radio Oxford on 29 July here.

Edamame is at 15 Holywell Street, OX1 3SA. Sushi night is every Thursday from 5 to 8.30pm. No reservations are accepted, and it's deservedly popular, so arriving early is advised.

Lovely photos copyright Sarah Haynes of The Pea's Kneas.

Edamame

I am a clumsy person. When it comes to hand to eye coordination, a one year old could probably teach me a thing or two. So eating with chopsticks was never going to come naturally to me. Caught up by the delicious-sounding dishes on Japanese restaurant Edamame's menu, I conveniently forgot to consider the difficulty of eating certain types of food with two wooden sticks, and managed to get myself in a bit of a mess. A tasty mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Apart from one experience of sushi several years ago which left me a little hungry, I hadn't tried any Japanese dishes before visiting Edamame. A one-room restaurant situated on Holywell Street, it offers 'Japanese home cooking', with sushi only available on Thursdays. Given Edamame's petite proportions and its popularity, it's a good idea to arrive early: 6pm may have seemed a tad keen, but when we left an hour later would-be diners were queuing out of the door. Earlybirds G and I had no such trouble, we were seated straight away on a little communal table. With its low ceilings and duck-egg blue walls, Edamame feels a little like someone's living room: relaxed and intimate.

The evening menu (available on Fridays and Saturdays) offers a choice of meat, fish and vegetable dishes (available either cooked in fish stock or vegetarian), as well as salads and side dishes. We ordered a portion of Edamame beans (podded green soy beans, £3) and some morokyu (cucumber sticks served with miso and Japanese plum pastes to dip, £3) to munch on while we waited for our mains. So far, so easy: no chopstick action was involved to polish either of these off. The cucumber sticks were well complemented by the nutty miso and sweet plum pastes, whetting our appetites for the main event. As I watched the couple sitting opposite us tucking in with their perfectly manipulated chopsticks, I started to question my choice of dish. Surely beansprouts and chopsticks were a match made in hell?

When my yasai tofu itame (vegetable stir fry of beansprouts, mange tout, baby corn, carrots and tofu cooked in fish stock, £6) and rice (£2) turned up, I bravely (but cackhandedly) got stuck in. Nobody else I could see had asked for a fork, so I was going to get this dish down my neck somehow. I can't say I exactly experienced chopstick enlightenment or ate particularly elegantly ('you have tofu on your lip', G informed me at one point), but it tasted so good that I ploughed on regardless: and half an hour later, I was done. I often find that stir fries can be oily, but this little number tasted light and fresh, slightly smoky and given substance by the tofu (a slippery customer when it comes to chopstick capture, by the way). The sticky rice was a good accompaniment, leaving me happily but not uncomfortably full. G's choice of Saturday's special, yaki niku beef (stir fry of thinly-sliced beef steak marinated in garlic, spices and sesame, £7.50) was so tasty it didn't hang around on his plate for long.

With fresh-tasting, high quality food on offer in a convivial environment, Edamame is well worth a try. I'd even put myself through a second chopstick trauma to sample more of the very reasonably-priced menu. Who knows, maybe it gets easier with practice?

Verdict: 9/10

Edamame is at 15 Holywell Street, OX1 3SA. No reservations. Check website for opening times and arrive early.