In all honesty, the well is running somewhat dry for this project and each new entry is requiring more and more effort to do. Paul found a place in Willesden (Sushi Masa, visited in a previous form: Sushi Say) but I didn't particularly feel like the journey so persuaded him to visit Dozo Sushi instead. We were going on a Monday and I'd never heard of it before the Sunday (the day before) when I walked past it. I often walk past Japanese restaurants and now I try to check the menu to see if I can add some water to the somewhat dry well.
Situated in Soho, on the outskirts of Chinatown, it had a good location and competition nearby in the form of Eat Tokyo (Holborn branch visited) and plenty of others further afield. This suggested it had to be good in order to keep competitive and there would be plenty of potential customers[1].
We met at quarter to seven on a Monday evening so I was surprised to see a fairly lengthy queue out of the door. This seemed a positive point to recommend it and the majority of those people had oriental[2] skin - this had to be good, surely. I checked inside about the queue and was told to wait outside which seemed obvious but is always worth checking in case people with bookings are queueing. This queue was constantly outside the door, even once we went in, so it was consistently popular throughout the evening. As Paul and I do understand, to varying degrees, Japanese, it took moments to confirm that the voices we heard in the queue were not Japanese and so, the chances were, that the people were not Japanese either. As I have mentioned quite a few times, this is not a factor that particularly bothers me but it is worth thinking about what you would think of a French restaurant that had groups of German people in the queue. Or an Indian restaurant with mainly Bengali[3] patrons.
Once shown to our seats (which were sunk into the floor in a pleasing Japanese touch), we were told that we had a 90-minute time limit for our seats which made the popularity of the restaurant even clearer. Ninety minutes isn't too bad but the fact that they have to say at the beginning, almost a caveat emptor, it really drove home how popular it was.
Of course, we ordered two gyudon and the sides were some yakitori and some nasu dengaku (a sweetened aubergine dish) that seemed to be a decent size. We didn't wait too long to have cutlery and soup delivered to the table. I'm not sure "delivered" is the right verb here, it was placed on our table without eye contact or words spoken. There is a school of service where you are invisible to the customer, placing things there as they need them without bothering them. This requires an understanding of how you may be inserting yourself into the customers' evening which is fine - this was not like that. Here the items were delivered to us, placed in approximately the right place but not with a comment, just put there. Not particularly carefully, and not subtlely either - it was the worst of both schools of service. I am not usually bothered by this, it is a kind of service I often like - quick and direct. The soup was, however, not particularly hot and although I wasn't bothered enough to mention it, Paul did actually ask for it to be replaced. The yakitori, which was pleasant enough, was next but was just a skewer each, as we knew, and so was more of an appetiser than a side/starter.
Next was the gyudon itself, quite a bit later and served in large, stone(ish) bowls that gave the impression of a bibimbap and looked like neither a gyudon nor a bibimbap but was definitely beef with rice underneath it. Other than the beef, there was quite a lot more to go with it with veg and egg to go with the beef and the dish is described as "sliced fillet of beef with shitake mushrooms, carrot, onion & seasoned egg on rice". These extras are not things that I have seen before in Japan or outside Japan so it was an interesting idea. In the end, it reminded me of a chicken katsudon (which has a chicken cutlet and soft egg fried and sort of scrambled with it to give a sweet combination) but with beef and some other veg too. The other food was off-putting and the chunky meat was absolutely not what was expected. It felt like all of the different ingredients were working against each other and the bowl as a whole seemed to lack flavour while, at the same time, being full of flavours drowning each other out. I remember describing Peruvian food as full of flavours being piled on – as if they were bored and just said: "oh put this in too" but that is done with some aim to get to an end goal. Here, it felt careless and lazy and like a concoction of leftovers without something that binds them together. Some of the best food around is made of leftovers but it needs something to make them work. After having almost finished, the nasu dengaku was brought out and this ended up being more appropriate than we had imagined when ordering as the sauce was so sweet! I rather liked it in the small doses but Paul scraped the sauce off after the first mouthful. I am a bit of an aubergine fan so I did enjoy it subjectively but it wasn't a particularly good nasu dengaku objectively. It had the sweetness of a dessert[4] and I am not usually a fan of Asian desserts. We did get given the dessert menu afterwards too, which was a nicely presented set of wooden boards, that I felt was quietly impressive.
Dozo Sushi is a strange restaurant and although I was not expecting much, I was not expecting that. It is so popular and that is something that I did not really understand from what I saw. The menu was reasonable but not cheap like a number of other restaurants – and so not cheap enough to be a proper USP. In essence, this felt like Chinese food dressed up to have a Japanese look which was not what we were after. The decor was appropriate enough but it did, after eating the food, feel less like a Japanese restaurant and more like a Japanese chain restaurant in China. That does not mean it would not appeal to lots of people and I guess that explains the queues and general popularity of Dozo Sushi - I can only assume that it has been to the taste of a guidebook writer that has added it to their list.
After finishing up, we had been there for an hour but less than the 90 minutes we had been allotted and we wondered whether we should stay longer to use the time[5] we had been given even though we had nothing left to order. We didn't. Also, rather tellingly I did not utter the words "gochisousama" (see link for explanation ) upon leaving for two reasons – a) the food was merely OK; b) I just don't think anyone would have understood…
I am not sure that I would go back to Dozo Sushi at all. The gyudon we have had has been fairly mixed in quality but this was definitively the worst and furthest away from expectation. Unlike at other restaurants where the gyudon has not been great, there has been a certain je ne sais quoi that makes me think that the gyudon is not a fair way to judge the overall restaurant (most notably at Machiya) but here, the gyudon really feels like it pointed to the approach here and it felt like Japanese food cosplay to some degree. Not what I am particularly after and I would not recommend to anyone else, really.
Cost of gyudon: £9.80
Dozo Sushi
32 Old Compton St, Soho, W1D 4TP
Situated in Soho, on the outskirts of Chinatown, it had a good location and competition nearby in the form of Eat Tokyo (Holborn branch visited) and plenty of others further afield. This suggested it had to be good in order to keep competitive and there would be plenty of potential customers[1].
We met at quarter to seven on a Monday evening so I was surprised to see a fairly lengthy queue out of the door. This seemed a positive point to recommend it and the majority of those people had oriental[2] skin - this had to be good, surely. I checked inside about the queue and was told to wait outside which seemed obvious but is always worth checking in case people with bookings are queueing. This queue was constantly outside the door, even once we went in, so it was consistently popular throughout the evening. As Paul and I do understand, to varying degrees, Japanese, it took moments to confirm that the voices we heard in the queue were not Japanese and so, the chances were, that the people were not Japanese either. As I have mentioned quite a few times, this is not a factor that particularly bothers me but it is worth thinking about what you would think of a French restaurant that had groups of German people in the queue. Or an Indian restaurant with mainly Bengali[3] patrons.
Once shown to our seats (which were sunk into the floor in a pleasing Japanese touch), we were told that we had a 90-minute time limit for our seats which made the popularity of the restaurant even clearer. Ninety minutes isn't too bad but the fact that they have to say at the beginning, almost a caveat emptor, it really drove home how popular it was.
Of course, we ordered two gyudon and the sides were some yakitori and some nasu dengaku (a sweetened aubergine dish) that seemed to be a decent size. We didn't wait too long to have cutlery and soup delivered to the table. I'm not sure "delivered" is the right verb here, it was placed on our table without eye contact or words spoken. There is a school of service where you are invisible to the customer, placing things there as they need them without bothering them. This requires an understanding of how you may be inserting yourself into the customers' evening which is fine - this was not like that. Here the items were delivered to us, placed in approximately the right place but not with a comment, just put there. Not particularly carefully, and not subtlely either - it was the worst of both schools of service. I am not usually bothered by this, it is a kind of service I often like - quick and direct. The soup was, however, not particularly hot and although I wasn't bothered enough to mention it, Paul did actually ask for it to be replaced. The yakitori, which was pleasant enough, was next but was just a skewer each, as we knew, and so was more of an appetiser than a side/starter.
Next was the gyudon itself, quite a bit later and served in large, stone(ish) bowls that gave the impression of a bibimbap and looked like neither a gyudon nor a bibimbap but was definitely beef with rice underneath it. Other than the beef, there was quite a lot more to go with it with veg and egg to go with the beef and the dish is described as "sliced fillet of beef with shitake mushrooms, carrot, onion & seasoned egg on rice". These extras are not things that I have seen before in Japan or outside Japan so it was an interesting idea. In the end, it reminded me of a chicken katsudon (which has a chicken cutlet and soft egg fried and sort of scrambled with it to give a sweet combination) but with beef and some other veg too. The other food was off-putting and the chunky meat was absolutely not what was expected. It felt like all of the different ingredients were working against each other and the bowl as a whole seemed to lack flavour while, at the same time, being full of flavours drowning each other out. I remember describing Peruvian food as full of flavours being piled on – as if they were bored and just said: "oh put this in too" but that is done with some aim to get to an end goal. Here, it felt careless and lazy and like a concoction of leftovers without something that binds them together. Some of the best food around is made of leftovers but it needs something to make them work. After having almost finished, the nasu dengaku was brought out and this ended up being more appropriate than we had imagined when ordering as the sauce was so sweet! I rather liked it in the small doses but Paul scraped the sauce off after the first mouthful. I am a bit of an aubergine fan so I did enjoy it subjectively but it wasn't a particularly good nasu dengaku objectively. It had the sweetness of a dessert[4] and I am not usually a fan of Asian desserts. We did get given the dessert menu afterwards too, which was a nicely presented set of wooden boards, that I felt was quietly impressive.
Dozo Sushi is a strange restaurant and although I was not expecting much, I was not expecting that. It is so popular and that is something that I did not really understand from what I saw. The menu was reasonable but not cheap like a number of other restaurants – and so not cheap enough to be a proper USP. In essence, this felt like Chinese food dressed up to have a Japanese look which was not what we were after. The decor was appropriate enough but it did, after eating the food, feel less like a Japanese restaurant and more like a Japanese chain restaurant in China. That does not mean it would not appeal to lots of people and I guess that explains the queues and general popularity of Dozo Sushi - I can only assume that it has been to the taste of a guidebook writer that has added it to their list.
After finishing up, we had been there for an hour but less than the 90 minutes we had been allotted and we wondered whether we should stay longer to use the time[5] we had been given even though we had nothing left to order. We didn't. Also, rather tellingly I did not utter the words "gochisousama" (see link for explanation ) upon leaving for two reasons – a) the food was merely OK; b) I just don't think anyone would have understood…
I am not sure that I would go back to Dozo Sushi at all. The gyudon we have had has been fairly mixed in quality but this was definitively the worst and furthest away from expectation. Unlike at other restaurants where the gyudon has not been great, there has been a certain je ne sais quoi that makes me think that the gyudon is not a fair way to judge the overall restaurant (most notably at Machiya) but here, the gyudon really feels like it pointed to the approach here and it felt like Japanese food cosplay to some degree. Not what I am particularly after and I would not recommend to anyone else, really.
Cost of gyudon: £9.80
Dozo Sushi
32 Old Compton St, Soho, W1D 4TP
1. In spite of this location, there was actually something about it that made me think it might not be that good, and had altered my expectations accordingly. It was probably the fact that I had not heard of it.↩
2. "Asian" for those schooled in the American ways.↩
3. This isn't a simplistic position, most of London's Indian restaurants seem to actually be Bengali - and they were the same country for much of the past.↩
4. This did not stop us from getting some actual dessert, in the form of ice cream, afterwards from Amorino. ↩
5. This discussion reminded me of a piece of research that I had read about in Freakonomics (http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/) where parents at a kindergarten would come later than they used to once fines were introduced to (ostensibly) discourage lateness. It was then seen as a price for lateness rather than unacceptable behaviour and treated, as large companies around the world do when they don't like laws, as an operating cost rather than a deterrent.↩
