Roka

Add: 37 Charlotte Street, London W1T 1RR
Tel: 020 7580 6464

Website: http://www.rokarestaurant.com/

Serving contemporary Japanese food, Roka is known for its robata grill cuisine (open charcoal grill) and belongs to the same restaurant group as Zuma. Given how much the food at Zuma had impressed me, I was excited and surprised when Toni (from Germany) listed Roka as one of his must-haves during his short 5 days trip in London!

We ordered the Tasting Menu (priced at £75 per person!) on a whim but as it was meant for 2 to share, our server took the initiative to customise it for us with ala carte items so the portions would be big enough for our table of 3. That was really nice of him as we got to try most of the items on the Tasting Menu but the food bill only came up to £170 for 3 (and we were expecting to pay 3 x £75 originally).

Enjoyed almost everything that was served to us... lobster and black cod gyoza (dumpling), foie gras with umeshu plum, wagyu beef with caviar sushi... they are all really exotic combination! From the robata grill, we had huge scallops on skewers, black cod marinated in yuzu miso (my favourite!), duck breast, baby back ribs (which had a nice glaze but the meat was just too tough) and asparagus for a touch of greens.

And last but not least, the grand finale of their famous Roka dessert platter marked a memorable ending for a very satisfying meal! It is not quite obvious from the photo, but the platter was gigantic! It drew a big wow from everyone at the table when it was served. I really like the big round ball (on the right-hand corner). It's made of a light coconut-flavoured mousse and filled with cherry liquor and berries (which oozed out nicely once we digged in!). Even the seemingly normal chocolate cake had green tea sauce in its center as the surprise factor :)

On the drinks menu, they have a range of shochu tonic (one of which can help to improve memory?!) and interesting cocktail selection. The strange looking bottles in the background of the picture are shochu which you can buy and keep in the restaurant for future visits. They are priced at £260 which I think is pretty reasonable for 4200ml capacity.

It was a very good and pricey meal affair. Would go back again when I'm in the mood to splurge! ;)