Tamura Onegaishimas …

Japanese food in “saadi dilli” is a bit of a rarity. In a largely vegetarian world, the demand for such food is low to begin with. Add to that the “eek” factor associated with raw fish, and then being affordable largely by the urban bourbon-drinking page 3 hip and plastic crowd, and you have a cuisine on which the exclusion factor has been really high. I chanced on it, or rather was force-fed on it, when my parents decided to move to Japan for a year almost 15 years ago. Since then there has been no looking back and I’m always on the lookout for places serving Japanese food. So I was super excited to learn from a cousin that a japani eating place had opened up in D-Block Market, Poorvi Marg, Vasant Vihar, called Tamura (ph: +91-11-26154082).

A typical japani diner awaits you in the basement with both traditional and western style seating. Traditional seating essentially implies sitting on legless chairs placed on “tatami” (chattaai) flooring with space to lower our feet under the table. Shoes need to be taken off after descending the stairs, as is appropriate on entering any Japanese house. Alternatively, you can sit on a table and a chair and this may be a better option for people who are worried about straining their muscles. I prefer the tatimi both because it’s more in the spirit of eating Japanese food, as well as because it has dainty curtains that give a greater sense of privacy than the table-chair set up.

Entering the eating space I was immediately hit by a blast from my past: three different tables were occupied by separate groups of Japanese customers who were clearly having a good time with and were merrily smoking away, eating tempura and drinking vattish quantities of beer sake. Quite the thing you’d see in a sushi-roku type (plain diner) in Japan. Some green tea — well actually, pale yellow tea (the japani green tea is a little different from its Chinese version) — and cold towels were immediately served on seating. In Japan you are typically given steaming hot towels, but given the heat, cold towels will do well in India. Nicely enough you don’t have to ask for chopsticks, unlike most other places serving Japanese cuisine. Waiters landed up with menus and the traditional three bows. My dad got all excited and tried to brush up his Japanese: “ahh – chotto …. diet coke-wa deska?” — an effort that was lost perhaps because it was so unexpected from an Indian.

After poring over the menu we figured it would be best to go with a plate of mixed tempura (includes mostly very tasty vegetables) as well as two ebi (prawn) tempuras, two plates of mixed sushi — one was a cut-roll and the other was loose rice with the ingredients on the side and seaweed on top, and very fresh wasabe and pickled ginger slices. We ended with a tempura soba soup (noodle soup) that was also really nice. It’s really easy to mess up the soba by under- or over-boiling it and then not cooling it down before dropping it into the soup — something I have found the hard way in my own japani cooking experiments. The waiters, who are all trained in their parallel outlet in Nepal, told me that they had family-size soups available too, but on special order, and they do sashmi on Friday and Saturday evenings. Shabu Shabu nights are also possible, but again with prior order, and this is something I am all eager to do.

Price-wise I consider this restaurant really good value for money, though clearly not an option if you are going out on a budget meal. With two bottles of beer (and the small 300ml bottles were overpriced at Rs. 120, with the larger bottles unavailable), we ended up paying about 750 per head. But I have no hesitation in going back to spend it once more since the entire experience was so nice.

On the whole, a good home away from home for a Japanese and an excellent place to start experimenting with Japanese cuisine if one is new to it. In terms of a recommendation, I think if Mr. Tamura were to offer a little Japanese food appreciation service, nothing more than like a little 5 min. pre-order chat for people still in their early stages of experiments with Japanese food, then it would make the entire experience very solid. Otherwise people may be left wondering why the sushi came before the soba soup noodles and what exactly to do with the wasabe. Another suggestion would be to perhaps do a demo of how to use the chopsticks, particularly for the uninitiated. I am looking forward to going back and trying more items from their menu. And yes … they do serve Ozeki sake!

p.s. They also have branches in New Friends Colony and in Gurgaon (named Kyoto).

14 Replies to “Tamura Onegaishimas …”

  1. I just discovered this blog and think its fairly competent given most of the trash that passes for food criticism online and offline in Delhi. Super late comment for a post from April 07 but I just have to disagree with your assessment of Tamura. The place is disgusting. It’s dirty, sloppy and no value for money at all. The food is foul and really not fresh at all. I find the menu limiting and refuse to be dragged there by anyone. The sad truth is that… there is simply no decent Japanese restaurant in existence here. Sakura does a fairly good job but their prices are criminal and they only get away with it because they have no competitors and happen to be located in a third-rate hotel. Fresh sushi but once again, totally unimaginative with the kinds of rolls on offer.

  2. reading your post makes me think that perhpas we went to completely different places! … sorry to hear that tamura didn’t work out for you. however, i am quite happy to stick to my guns – after having tasted sushi in osaka, tokyo, tsukuba and of course the many little dinners in los angeles and san francisco – this is a pleasant surprise in Delhi. after your comments ill definitely try and go there when i am looking to go eating out in delhi next and try seeing if i need to update my beliefs about the place.

  3. Hi Arnab,
    Could you tell me, if one is to go to tamura, what all should they order to get a taste of japanse food.
    Is there anything else apart from tempura and sushi.
    Waiting for reply….planning to go next weekend.

  4. Tamura rocks. I’d be interested to hear your take on Ai – a restaurant which I feel has insulting prices for nigiri and sashimi that comes nowhere close to the quality of Tamura. I liked a beef dish I had at Ai, but unfortunately have no idea what it was since I was eating off a post-party dinner platter provided to my friend who was the DJ for the evening.

  5. Well given that Hemanshu feels that Tamura should be classified as High Price … Ai has to as expensive as being ‘ai priced! i.e. when you go aiiie .. after seeing the bill! Good you got the DJ discount. the only thing i know about the place is that they are some sort of fusion sort of place with strong latin american influences on their japani cooking (possibly explaining why you liked their beef dishes, and not their more authentic dishes). In fact, according to the Indian Airlines magazine that i read earlier today they are going to have some sort of dance in which less than fully clothed women ( .. ok ok …. skimpily clad women) will be doing a fire dance – perhaps its worth a visit just to see that. and also pay extra for the dance … if you dont get to dance 😉

  6. hahahahaha ARNAB

    nxt night kab hai?:p
    never tasted japansw food in life but ab to jayun gaaa nd no beef for ME

  7. Great Restaurent. I have been there no. of times. Taste is good. Sushi & Sashimi dishes are good. Little bit expensive but taste of all soups are great, specially, Moso soups realy represents Japan taste. Overall good.

  8. I have always been a fan of tamura, used to frequent the NFC outlet, mainly bcoz i cudnt afford sushi at sakura (the Nikko) twice a week. But of course we now have sushiya for take aways which is a great boon. But tamura is still good if u need quiet and peace 🙂

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