People are always drawn towards the shiny new thing.
It’s how this blogging schtick works and I’m no exception. A new restaurant opens and bloggers and influencers clamour to be the first to review it (or get a free meal). Everyone posts about it on social media. The next place opens and then the whole bandwagon moves along.
I last visited Ichiban over twelve years ago when I reviewed one of Cardiff’s oldest Japanese restaurants at its previous home on Albany Road in Roath.
Whilst we had a good meal, I always found the interior a bit dark and oppressive and the barred windows uninviting. So, despite walking past it at least a couple of times a week ever since, we never returned.
However, when we saw that they’d moved location along Albany Road to the former site of Zio Pin, I was of course drawn back towards the shiny new thing. What can I say, I’m a cliché.
The clincher was that they’ve done a beautiful job with the décor. Out is the dark wood and boxed in feeling. In is a calming palette of whites and light greys, light wood, fabric screens, and a rather cool display of daruma dolls. It's certainly one of the nicest looking Japanese restaurants in Cardiff.
Delicious ice-cold pints of Kirin lager got things underway before we were overwhelmed by Ichiban’s colossal menu. Featuring 171 dishes of sushi, tempura, teriyaki, poke bowls, yaki soba, salads, and ramen, it’s the kind of size which makes you wonder if everything can be rustled up with consistency time and time again.
Tuna and salmon sashimi (£12.90) was the first dish to arrive and it was prettily presented on a bed of crushed ice with shredded mooli and slices of cucumber. The salmon was beautifully pert and meaty and whilst the tuna slices were fresh and well-flavoured, they were marred slightly by a few bits of sinew that meant there was a bit more chew than I would have liked.
A top-drawer pile of vegetable tempura (£7.90) was the first highlight of the meal. An excellent mix of precisely cooked carrot, sweet potato, onion, pepper and aubergine were coated in a shatteringly light and grease-free batter. A bowl of hot, savoury and sweet tentsuyu sauce was a lovely dip and I must admit that I drank the leftovers.
The other standout was a pair of inari pockets, which are always one of our essential orders when we visit a Japanese restaurant. This time the sweet and soft tofu pockets were crammed with diced meaty salmon as well as the usual pile of well-seasoned rice. At £5.40, it was also the best value dish of the meal.
If you’re going to put your business’s name to a sushi roll then you’ve got to assume it’s worth an order. Ichiban special maki roll (£13) saw tender rice rolls filled with soft and fatty barbecued eel, crisp tempura prawn, and fresh cucumber that was glazed with a sticky teriyaki sauce.
I’d completely forgotten that I’d ordered the chicken katsu don on our last visit to Ichiban and it’s a sign of the inflation that we’ve experienced over the last decade that its price has gone up from £7.50 to £15.20.
Hearty is the word that I’d definitely use to describe this dish. A whopping bowlful of savoury and sweet dressed sushi rice was topped with a crumbed chicken breast that was subsequently piled with fried egg, sweet onions, mushrooms and carrots. It was all very tasty and comforting but much like last time, the chicken’s crumb lacked crispness. Still, at least they were consistent.
We had good dinner at Ichiban and like our last visit, some of the dishes were more successful than others. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be back in less than 12 years’ time for another bite to eat and it’s that beautiful dining space that’ll draw me back in.
The Details:
Address - Ichiban, 74 Albany Road, Cardiff CF24 3RS
Telephone - 02920 463 333
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