Who brings a baby to a media tasting? Me!

C’mon to be fair she was asleep the entire night so we’re making the most of the sleepy baby phase. This is not to say that Katana is a baby-friendly venue. It’s a place for adults, for a group of friends (adult friends), dates (with adults), night in with the girls (adults), you get my drift. Of course if you have well-behaved children (or a baby that will sleep through your dinner) that appreciates fine dining japanese, by all means bring them along.

On my to-go list for a few weeks now, after hearing rave reviews of this from various bloggers (click here for atozaatar’s write-up on it), we were again very excited (because we don’t get to go out much nowadays) to attend a media tasting of their Summer Sunset Menu last night. I read a fairly negative review from The National on the way the the venue, so I was sitting on the fence, and pretty curious with how our night will turn out. 

How did it go? Hmm.

Let’s put it this way. If the rest of their menu is as good as their summer sunset selection then yes, we’re coming back. Here are our thoughts, with a few little suggestions –

For 180 AED (pretty good deal I’ll say) – you get a set menu of the following :

Good start to a feast – the standard edamame with sea salt, garden salad – refreshing combination, love the soy vineigrette dressing, and salmon carpaccio – interesting mix with feta and shimeji mushroom – which we both thought was delicious.

Next were the skewers cooked over their open-kitchen robata-style – great for an instagram video – you’ll see this popping up on your feeds soon from various other media peeps 😉 Reminds me of Ken Yakitori in Auckland (C’mon, can someone please open a  yakitori bar in Dubai?). These were our favourite dish of the menu. The tiger prawn was perfectly spiced, with tarragon butter apparently – fresh, crunchy. The chicken and spring onion not too salty. The asparagus, grilled and seasoned just right. Oh, I’m hungry now. 

At this point G and I were thinking, this is good. Where is the sushi? And as he always goes – are they going to include salmon sashimi in the menu? Haha, tough luck. That’ll tip the price up I’m sure but instead of salmon, they have spicy tuna roll and shrimp roll.

We weren’t a fan of the spicy tuna roll. Too much tuna, tasted quite mushy. I could probably have just one and that’s it. Would suggest that they include something within the roll to take away the mushiness (is there such a word?). The prawn roll or as the menu goes ‘popcorn shrimp tempura with jalapeno’ looks bland but tastes okay. Not spectacular, just alright.

Vegetable tempura – which you know was made fresh because what can be worst than tempura served in buffets that’s left soggy and ugh. Interesting choice to use bak choy here – bonus points for that 🙂

At this point we were both pretty full, when out came the ‘main dishes’. I couldn’t help myself when I saw the portion of the yakiniku i.e short ribs in asian marinade. Reminds me of korean bbq bulgogi – and not to fret – it’s not as much as it looks but tastes perfect, especially with…

a bit of green beans and fried rice!

We both thought that it was a bit weird to introduce rice so late in the meal, it felt like they were trying to fill up the tummies for those who weren’t already full. Saying that, after having some of the beef, I kinda changed my mind as the saltiness of the beef is offset by the rice, and made complete with the green beans. Good try, Katana. Only word of advice : please bring out some spoons next time. We grew up eating with chopsticks but  when you don’t have a bowl to pick the rice out of, it sure as heck is hard to eat fried rice. Not being racist but I can’t imagine everyone else in the venue attempting to finish this plate with chopsticks / fork / or for the more adventurous – with a knife, without dropping it all over the table (Yes, we made a mess of our table too 🙂 )

Alright, the finale. We were asked what flavour ice-cream we would like and G went for lychee sorbet, and I went for vanilla. Again, bonus points for presentation – how pretty does this look?

and for having it in a bowl of crushed ice so it doesn’t transform into a melted pool of yuck. So pretty isn’t it 🙂 We loved both our ice-creams, and then out came the next deal..

Vanilla ice-cream, again? Aw c’mon Katana, you should’ve at least advised me that the main dessert comes with vanilla ice-cream 🙂 The fritter was however tasty – coated with what seemed like cinnamon and stuffed with apple and according to the menu – mango as well? I didn’t taste it though. We were wondering if it was banana, seemed more like doughnut-filling. Doesn’t matter, we liked it.

Surprisingly we finished everything minus the last bit of vanilla ice-cream. A menu well-designed to avoid wastage I’ll say! We left soon after, happy tummy.

Then took another few million photos outside because c’mon, you’ll never get bored of this :

And yes, that is Little S making another appearance in my blog. Good girl for staying asleep 🙂

If you were keen to check out Katana – go now whilst they have this deal. Do note that if you wanted alcohol you’ll need to pay an extra 30 AED for two drinks – which is a pretty good deal – 210 AED altogether. 

Were you there last night? What did you think of Katana?

• Katana Dubai
• The Address Downtown Dubai (but yes it’s still closed from the fire so park at Cinema Parking and walk out from LG, at the door next to Starbucks)
• +971 42778808
• info@katana-dubai.com