It’s only about six attempts later but on Thursday I finally managed to have a meal at Japanese restaurant Inaho. When I used to live in Bayswater, I had several, obviously, failed attempts at dining at this place. It seemed so innocent – a very small restaurant, painted blue on the outside yet seemingly very popular when open. It’s definitely not open on Sunday, and only open Saturday evenings and I definitely recommend booking for dinner especially then. I’d probably even book for dinner during the week just to make sure.

To say the place is small is very generous – the restaurant only contains about eight or ten tables of which the majority only seat two people. Even still the tables that are inside sit very closely to each other, maybe at most ten centimetres apart. It feels almost canteen-like Wagamama style but not quite there.

Their menu offering seems quite broad and similar to the more authentic Japanese restaurants in London. Their menu includes a decent selection of sushi, as well as a small number of dishes such as udon, soba and Japanese salad. We ended up having my favourite unagi sushi, that tasted extremely fresh. The tender eel flesh was moist and just warmed through with just enough sauce to balance it out. We also tried the teriyaki chicken, some udon and kara-age (Japanese fried chicken) that all went down very easily. You do have to pay extra for rice as many of the main dishes do not come automatically with it.

Unlike many reviews I read, our waitress spoke excellent English and although service wasn’t forth-coming, we didn’t really have any problems ordering or getting the bill. I’m not sure if I would make a cross town trip just to have Japanese at this place, but I would definitely eat there again if I was in the area.

Details: Inaho
Found on: 4 Hereford Road, London, W2 4AA
Contactable on: 0871 3327807
Highlights: Tasty Japanese food. It feels like a very friendly atmosphere and I can probably guess it is still family-run.
Room for improvement: Need to really plan ahead. The small handful of tables together with the tiny space mean that you end up quite intimate with a number of other diners.
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10