For Sandra’s birthday we headed to Roka, Charlotte Street, for a meal.

Roka is an attractive restaurant with the open kitchen and the chefs in their black get up, overspilling bowls of fruits and veg and garlic, lots of tables and chairs outside and the floor to ceiling open air walls (basically the restaurant was opened out to the street). The front of the restaurant was a hive of activity which is why I found it strange that when we arrived for our reservation they brought us right to the back to an empty part of the restaurant – not sure if that’s where they place reservations as opposed to walk-ins but I found this actually a little off-putting.

Its been a while since we’ve had fine Japanese so we were very much looking forward to our meal and though we weren’t expecting a Nobu like experience (a comparison which is a little unfair) we couldn’t help but have the expectations.

To take the decision making out of the process we decided to go for their tasting menu – the tokujo menu sounded more appealing and seemed like decent value for £75 per person.

We started with Moriawase San Shu (3 sashimi selection with fresh wasabi – I was gratified to see that indeed it was fresh grated wasabi!); Botan Ebi (extra large sweet shrimp served with oscietra caviar) and Hamachi No Tartar (yellowtail, lemon, chilli and ginger tartar).

The three dishes all came served in a giant bowl of ice – it was really pretty – but in a pattern of what was to come this evening I was disappointed that the waiter didn’t really explain what we were eating. The sushi just kind of got put on the table and we were left on our own to work out what we were eating. We hadn’t even been left a menu to help us! I suspect if we’d asked the explanation from the waiter would have been a rote recital without a proper understanding of the food.

Taste-wise it was all very good and very fresh. I particularly enjoyed the Hamachi which was nicely dressed by the lemon, chilli and ginger.

Minutes later our Wagyu Gunkan (wagyu sushi, oscietra caviar, spring onion and fresh ginger) was served. I’m sure I still can’t tell wagyu from any other dish but this gunkan was delicious. I was left wanting more.

Next up was something a little more unusual, to me at any rate, in a Japanese restaurant: Foie Gras To Umeshu No Ume To Nama Nori (foie gras with umeshu plum and nama nori). We weren’t quite sure what the black fried to a crisp longish sticks which accompanied the foie gras were but they did well to give balance and contrast to the richness of the foie gras – something that I’m actually now getting used to eating, though of course morally I still object to the method of its production.

Our first hot dishes were next with the Gindara To kani No Gyoza (black cod, crab and crayfish dumpling) and Yaki Hotate (scallop skewers with wasabi and shiso). The gyoza, though extremely tasty and delicious, I think suffered from having too many ingredients such that I could actually separate out the flavour of the cod from the crab and crayfish which was a shame. However, I definitely wouldn’t have said no to another one of these babies! Roka is actually built around being a robatayaki (basically a grilling kitchen) so the scallop skewers were the first example of this in our tasting menu. They were perfectly cooked though I couldn’t really get the heat from the wasabi.

Kobu-Jime Kamo No Kunsei Yaki, Kinkan To Kaki (smoked duck breast with barley miso and kumquats) and the Kankoku Fu Kohitsuji (lamb cutlets with Korean spices) continued the grilling theme. Both were delicious though the duck breast was surprisingly tart. The lamb was surprisingly palatable to a non-lamb-liking palette as mine.

By this stage Sandra and I were starting to feel slightly full but we were faced with the heaviest dish of the night – the Kama Meshi (rice hot pot with king crab). There was a floating island of wasabi paste on top of this dish but once mixed in the heat really got lost in the porridge. Though I liked the idea of the hot pot the dish actually could have used a bit more seasoning. It’s a good portion though and we nearly struggled to finish it!

But we had one more dish to tackle …. the ROKA dessert platter!

In honour of it being Sandra’s birthday they put a rather nice candle on top and had the chef write out some birthday greetings to Sandra. The platter had on it seasonal fruits (including rambatan), a raspberry and white chocolate mouse/sponge, three scoops of ice cream, and the pinnacle of the dessert – a dark chocolate which had a surprising maccha (green tea) oozy liquid centre. Hot damn it was good!

Roka as an experience was nice. Service was no where near the class of what you’d get in a place like Nobu with dishes unexplained (as I explained before) and sometimes rushed to our table, water wasn’t topped up on a regular basis and wait staff did not appear to know about the food at all. Food-wise all the dishes were quite tasty but at a place like Roka I definitely wouldn’t go for the tasting menu again as I think you could get a bit more creative with other offerings on the menu, especially for the price we paid. There were, however, some standout dishes including the Wagyu Gunkan and the chocolate dessert which I would be happy to see repeat performances.