The long-established Nippon Kai restaurant brand's new branch, which opened a few weeks ago at the 9:53 community plaza on Sukhumvit Soi 53, has relentlessly drawn a crowd since opening its doors.
The restaurant is set on the second floor.
Nippon Kai Market is a hybrid restaurant and food retailer, with a limited ground floor dedicated to display fridges featuring fresh Japanese produce and packaged food. A sizeable area upstairs, surrounded by a glass facade, serves as a contemporary restaurant.
A Japanese food supplier itself, Nippon Kai's strong point is the profound connection it has with food producers in the country. This results are the restaurant's astounding supply of seasonal and artisanal ingredients, many of which aren't available anywhere else.
Besides an extensive collection of premium seafood — hamachi (yellowtail), otoro (fatty tuna belly), gindara (snow fish), unagi (freshwater eel), uni (sea urchin roe) and mentaiko (cured cod roe) — you can expect to find rare oceanic delicacies such as fresh giant cockles, mantis shrimp and even smoked whale meat.
The market also carries top-grade Kobe and Matsuzaka beef as well as kurobuta pork, along with a range of seasonings, snacks and beverages.
A number of specialities such as fugu (pufferfish), okoze (stonefish) and sayuri (needlefish) are seasonally available.
During my recent dinner visit, the restaurant had run out of most of its seasonal offerings, and it was a few hours before the next batch of fresh supplies from Tokyo's tsukiji market would arrive. Fortunately, there were a couple of needlefish (400 baht each) left.
Because of its freshness, the silver-coloured fish, which is approximately 25cm in length, is best eaten as sashimi. Served on crushed ice, the neat fillets exhibited springy, translucent meat that was enjoyed with Ponzu (citrus-based soy sauce) and Tabasco-marinated grated daikon.
Most items from the market are available for both takeaway and dine-in. An extra charge might be applied to the cooking of some selections.
Diners can always order from the restaurant's extensive menu, which presents more than 100 appetisers, salads, choices of sashimi and sushi, wagyu beef, chargrilled fish, and rice and noodle dishes.
We started off with the sashimi mori toku joe platter (990 baht).
Presented in a wooden, ice-filled bucket were exceptionally sweet and succulent slices of shima-aji (striped jack), tai (red seabream), hotate (Hokkaido giant scallops), salmon and ama-ebi (sweet prawns). The delicate texture of these goodies was perfectly complemented by springy hokkigai (Arctic surf clams) and octopus.
Next came the manuke saikyo zuke, or sweet miso-marinated red rockfish (190 baht), which presented a sizeable fish fillet exhibiting flavoursome, fatty meat and crispy skin.
Beef aficionados cannot afford to miss sampling something from the market's range of Matsuzaka. It can be served as sashimi, on sushi rice or cooked on a teppanyaki griddle.
Our order of 230g Matsuzaka tenderloin (2,600 baht) proved highly gratifying.
The steak arrived medium-well on a sizzling metal plate, surrounded by pan-grilled onions, green beans and cherry tomatoes. The platter was accompanied by three choices of relish — sweet miso paste, seasoned mayonnaise and buttered spring onions.
Though it was generously seasoned with soy sauce, it did not overwhelm the taste of the steak.
For those looking for a personal dish that's as stomach-filling as it is taste bud-pleasing, I recommend the saba misoni don (170 baht), a rice bowl topped with pan-fried mackerel, which had been marinated overnight in the restaurant's special soybean paste. The dish came with a marvellous clear soup on the side.
Dessert selections are represented by a selection of Hokkaido dessert cheese (280 baht).
Offered in four flavours — lemon, mixed nuts, vanilla and rum raisin — the soft and sweet cheese came in a round, six-wedged box, and was accompanied by crackers.
Customers are a mix of local families and expats. Service by Japanese and Thai staff was friendly and brisk.
Needlefish sashimi.
The sashimi mori toku joe platter, featuring seven selections of seafood.
Kobe and Matsuzaka beef is available for purchase.
Matsuzaka tenderloin teppanyaki steak.
A food supplier itself, Nippon Kai's strong point is the profound connection it has with food producers in Japan.
