Nihonbashi opens Yakitori Garden

By Rashika Fazali

There have been numerous times when I’ve racked my brain thinking of all the food places – affordable places, that is – where I could grab bite after work. No one wants to go to the same place every single time.

Nihonbashi’s Yakitori Garden located at Galle Face Terrace happens to be the newest spot in Colombo for some yummy delightful Japanese ‘bites’ or street food.

In an open space filled with loads of bamboo stands a grill styled the Japanese way. The cooking done on this grill is famously called ‘Yakitori,’ which also means grilled chicken and they are usually referred as chicken kebabs. However, this is an easy-make Japanese dish of chicken pieces grilled on a skewer.

Nihonbashi Owner and Chef Dharshan Munidasa recently opened the world’s first one-of-a-kind Yakitori Garden that can only accommodate 14 people. He noted that at least he thought it was one-of-a-kind since yakitori stands in Japan are known as beer gardens.

For such a small space, the garden has been beautifully shaped. Situated in the heart of Colombo, the breezy wind adds to the appeal of causal dinning and the bamboo arranged at Nihonbashi creates a wonderful serene atmosphere. Almost at once you feel at peace. The tables and chairs are made out of cement which is firmly cemented on a classic granite floor with the grilling area featuring a granite countertop.

Overall, it looks like a striking dining place although yakitori bars in Japan are usually street bars with no high standards and sittings on wooden beer crates mentioned Munidasa.

Since yakitori is chicken, at Nihonbashi like any other yakitori serving places found abroad, their menu consists of all parts of chicken from chicken’s heart to the tail to leg meat.

These chicken parts are cooked either with salt meaning ‘shio’ in Japanese and lemon sauce or with sauce meaning ‘tare’ that may include char-grilled vegetables, soy sauce and other ingredients. These parts are then slathered with sauce and grilled until cooked. It only takes a couple of minutes to cook it to perfection.

So what should you try when you head to this garden? Tsunkune, a minced chicken meatball skewer with small onions and scallions is a tantalising dish to start off your evening. When you first bite into it, you can taste the sauce rich and smoothly infused into the meatball.

If you want a nice leg meat served on a skewer, then you should try the rich flavoured Momo Niku. This is usually a safe dish to start and is grilled until it is a nice golden brown on the outside and a nice white inside. A couple of these skewers could fill you up.

However, if you want to try something you’ve never tried before, you can opt for the chicken heart, hatsu, or maybe the gizzard, sunagimo.

Each skewer is priced from Rs. 180 above while certain skewers could go up to Rs. 300 each.

Amongst many different parts of chicken, Nihonbashi also served its usual sushi range – cucumber sushi rolls, prawn salad sushi rolls and Ten Sabi Temaki, a tempura battered crunchy prawn with wasbi rice rolled into a seaweed which was excellent in taste.

Munidasa revealed that he had been planning such a garden for many years, adding: “You can’t have one in Singapore or in Dubai with their many laws and we’ve grown bamboo for the last 17 years. You can only do this in Sri Lanka. It has a lot to do with the unique atmosphere here in Sri Lanka.”

The grill used at Nihonbashi is fired up with charcoal and Munidasa stated that the use of the grill has many advantages since it is low cost and highly effective.

But what makes the place stand out from most Japanese food places in the world is the quality of food. Foreigners have claimed it as being exceptionally good and better than Singapore. In addition he stated that do not buy frozen chicken as everything is bought fresh and kept only for a day.

Future plans include expanding the garden to include a seafood range.