Sushi Wakyo was a researched find on none other than Tripadvisor. I tend to approach these things gingerly as you never know what you may find, but fortunately we didn’t hit a duff note as the food here delivered on its promise. We were in the area from staying at the Brooklands Hotel and had a craving for something different, not wanting to have a repetition of the bum notes of the hotel’s 1907 grill from the night before. Inside, it’s all about faux leather banquettes, matching chairs, dark wood panels, lanterns and art work inspired by geisha’s and koi. All typically cliché. What I also couldn’t help noticing was distinctive dialect of Mandarin spoken by all of the staff. On the one hand, it would be cruel to be judgemental on whether the chef who may be of a different origin to the food they are cooking, but I know of other restaurants of this kind. Take Bento Cafe in Camden as a case in point. They have a list of Japanese standards from teriyaki , tempura, bento boxes and sushi. One thing that caught my eye was the dynamite Angus beef with dynamite chilli sauce, along with the baby back ribs with chilli-chocolate and coffee sauce!
Seaweed salad £4.50 had the right amount of acidic cheek pucker and crunch to kick-off proceedings. It was delicious.
Oriental vegetables £4.50 had a pleasing wok sear and a lubricant of oyster sauce too.
In the end we bottled it and went for the familiar, I say “we” I meant “I”. Since my belly can be a creature of habit which loves soft shell crab, the spider roll £7.50 had to be ordered and I’m glad to say it was one of the high points of the meal. The roll itself was wrapped in ribbons of crunchy cucumber which lent it’s texture and freshness to the party.
On the same plate, came the dragon roll £10.50 which was a tightly packed canon of tempura prawn avocado and unagi – that BBQ eel full of sweet-dark-soy notes. In fact the whole plate was drizzled with the stuff, we found ourselves smearing our rolls into Marmite like consistency, but it tasted nothing of the sort, it was nicer.
And since you can never over order unagi, we got some over rice too for £10. It’s worth mentioning that since rice is such an indispensable part of Japanese cookery, the cook of it needs to be spot on. They hit that brief here.
Verdict
When did I go? Jun 2017
The damage: Expect to pay £20/25 per head with a drink
The good: Ok so it’s not worth going to the other side of town for, but if you’re in the area then it’s worth checking out their interpretation of Japanese food. Their maki rolls and unagi are particularly good. In a way Wakyo reminded me of Wild Ginger which I frequented in NYC, but it’s better here and it’s bloody cheap.
The bad: Nothing to report here.
Rating: 4/5
Would I go again? What do you think?!
Address: 41 Bridge St, Walton-on-Thames KT12 1AF
Web: http://www.sushiwakyo.co.uk
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