Sushi With A Gateway View!

It took Japanese Master Chef Mori Moto to give Bombay Wasabi � its first Japanese restaurant. The Taj Mahal Hotel provided the view, says MARK MANUEL.

CHEF Masaharu Mori Moto, after whom the new Japanese restaurant at the Taj Mahal Hotel & Tower in Bombay has been named, is one of the great characters of the culinary world. The afternoon I had lunch at the restaurant � Wasabi By Mori Moto � he was behind the sushi counter dressed in white shorts, a Hawaii beach shirt, and baseball cap. I was astonished by the get-up because Mori Moto, I had read, sports specially designed Ralph Lauren chef wear otherwise. But then, he is also quoted as having said somewhere that going to a restaurant is like going to the theatre. Maybe he was dressed for a role!

The baseball cap I could understand. As a high school student in Hiroshima, Japan, Mori Moto was on his way to becoming a professional baseball player. A shoulder injury ended that dream. Fortunately, he was also thinking in terms of an alternate career as a sushi chef. He went on to study and specialise in sushi and traditional Kaiseki cuisine. By 25, he had his own restaurant. And he distinguished himself from other Japanese chefs by infusing European and Western cooking techniques and ingredients into his preparations.

Five years later, he sold his Hiroshima restaurant and moved to the US, where he settled in Manhattan. There, the great chef and restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisu recruited the young Mori Moto to open New York City�s Nobu restaurant. But by 2001, Mori Moto had opened his own restaurant (�Mori Moto�) in Philadelphia and followed it with another in New York. Today, he is undoubtedly Japan�s most famous export in terms of culinary genius. That�s why the Taj choose to work with him. But, at heart, Mori Moto still remains a sportsman. That explains the baseball cap. However, the white shorts and Hawaii shirt I could not understand.

Wasabi By Mori moto is above the old Harbour Bar in the Taj. Only this is not you used to know, which had charm and character and familiar faces for barmen and waiters. This is a spanking new bar in whose corner is a spiral staircase that takes you upstairs to the Japanese restaurant. My suggestion is to make a reservation or you will never get a table here. And if you want the proverbial table by the window, you will have to try harder, for this table looks onto the Gateway of India outside. It is a big hit with the Japanese tourists who come to Wasabi for lunch and dinner.

My friend Hemant Oberoi, the Executive Chef of the Taj, said Wasabi was not just a classical Japanese restaurant, but a classically done contemporary restaurant which offers a Japanese dining experience in Bombay. Unique for a Japanese restaurant, Wasabi offers vegetarian sushi and teppanyaki. The restaurant�s classy and contemporary crockery is stark white with a green band demarcating that which will be kept for the vegetarian clientele. �It�s a misconception that all Japanese food is raw fish,� Chef Oberoi said. �There are days when 50 per cent of the diners are vegetarians. And Jains who don�t want even onion and garlic in their meal. Mori Moto was most upset initially. But now Wasabi is ready for all such guests as well.�

And indeed it is, though bulk of its produce, but for the pomfret and red snapper, comes from Japan. Air-India, God bless the Maharaja, flies it down from Tokyo thrice a week. This includes 17 kinds of seafood, a variety of sauces, the wasabi which is indispensable for sushi, the sushi rice and four types of sake (warm and cold) which go into the making of 12 sake cocktails. From Japan have also come two of Mori Moto�s chefs to help Chef Oberoi�s talented team in the Wasabi kitchen, led by the smiling and bowing Sadiq, and comprising Tanai, Sourabh, Rajendar, Mahadik and Barbie. Chef Oberoi is a Japanese cuisine aficionado himself, he can eat this kind of food every day, but he prefers to leave the cooking to the Wasabi experts.

Not that Japanese food requires a great amount of cooking. At least, Mori Moto�s does not look like it does. He says his cuisine is like global cooking for the 21st century. Black cod marinated with miso. Tenderloin steak with tiger prawn tempura and wasabi sauce � he calls this dish Surf and Turf! An angry-looking lobster cooked in eight spices. Sushi and sashimi, with tuna, salmon, fresh water eel, shrimp, crab, flying fish, mackerel, red snapper, octopus (yes, octopus!), squid, sea urchin, sardine, and some Japanese variety of fish with names like kanpachi, aji, kohada, hamachi, ikura... Beautiful Japanese colour combinations and aromas (because the Japanese eat with the eyes first) characterise Mori Moto�s unique cuisine, while the preparations infuse traditional Chinese spices and simple Italian ingredients which he presents in refined French style.

Perhaps that is what Mori Moto means by the �theatre experience�. But there is no way of going past the curtain of this theatre and seeing what is happening behind the scenes in the kitchen. For like a traditional Japanese Samurai swordsman, Mori Moto stands guarding the kitchen, his custom-made knives at hand. These are produced by master craftsmen in Japan in accordance with the highest standards of Samurai sword-making. And vital for his globally famous cuisine. The handles are deer horn and each knife retails for between $4,000 and $5,000. It is said that he he never goes into battle without them!

Wasabi By Mori Moto
Taj Mahal Hotel & Tower, Bombay 4 00 001.
Tel: 5665 3366.