More Japanese: Kiraku

8 Uxbridge Road
Station Parade
W5 3LD
Tel: 020 8992 2848

Date of Last Visit: Sunday, 2 September 2007

The Victim: Me

The Damage: £20

The Background: This all started with a catalog. The Boden catalog, to be exact. It arrived randomly in the mail the other day, and I just loved everything in it. I'd never heard of Boden before. 

The Cardigans – Live and Learn

Ordering from catalogs makes me nervous. And well, I can get a bit lazy about certain things, and processing returns is one of them. So I thought, "Maybe they have a store somewhere?" And lo and behold, they do! But it's somewhere near a tube station called Park Royal, which I've never heard of before. (Yes, geographically illiterate. Completely. But this is not a London-specific-problem. I lived in Chicago for eight years, and left the city exactly four times to visit the suburbs: twice to IKEA, once to a colleague's Christmas party, and once to an engagement party.)

I get out the tube map and figure it out. I'm fine. I'll take the Picadilly.

But I can't take the Picadilly because someone has left a package unattended at Holborn at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday!!! So I get thrown off the Picadilly and have to figure out another way to get to Park Royal. The answer is Hanger Lane, and I have no idea where that is either. I consult my trusty A-to-Z only to find out that where I'm going is NOT in my A-to-Z, which ends somewhere in the west around North Acton. Great.

Well, I figure it will be an adventure. So I go, and actually the walk from Hanger Lane to Park Royal is very clearly labeled so I'm fine. And I sorta feel like I'm not in London anymore, which is cool.

This is the part that male readers might want to skip through…

I find Boden and I love it. I snap up three skirts and a sweater. (I like skirts. Never been a fan of jeans or trousers really; I think it's because when I was an exchange student in Austria, I wore the same 5 pairs of trousers every day for a year. That sucked. I do like corduroys though.) I find some other things I like, but either the color or the size is wrong, so I figure I can order those from the catalog. (Which I do, later. And buy five more things.) Here is one of my new skirts…

And here's another…

And of course, all of this shopping leaves me very hungry. I know that somewhere around Ealing Common, there are some Japanese restaurants that are supposed to be really really good. Yey! More sushi! (See, I'm telling you…that week in Sardinia did something to me…I don't want to see any cheese or pasta or pork for a while.)

(Male readers can tune back in now.)

The Entrance: Sushi Hiro across from the Ealing Common tube is on vacation. Kiraku is not. So I take a seat in Kiraku and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. For. Someone. Please. To. Take. My. Order. Please. I. Am. Dying.

There are three servers and they are all very busy. Putting together the drinks for ONE table of eight. And everyone else in the restaurant (the four of us, that is) is just sitting there, waiting to place our orders. It's awful. But–I am the only "Westerner" in the place, which I take as a good sign.

The Food: I've waited so long, I don't have time for questions about the menu. The lunch menu, by the way, is pretty much all in Japanese, with some very, very, very brief English descriptions. So probably not a good choice if you are not the adventurous sort. (The full menu has photos, which is good.)  I just go for the Sushi Combo for £12.50 and some tea. (I ask what's in the sushi combo and the server doesn't know.) Later I opt for a shrimp roll of some sort that looks nice.

The sushi combo comes with some miso soup, some salad, some chicken, and some fresh fruit, along with five pices of nigri and four pieces of a salmon roll.

And it's perfect. Delicious. Very very very fresh. It's like eating butter. In the best possible way you can imagine. I am very happy. And I like the Futomaki roll that I order too although it's so large, it's hard to eat in a ladylike manner.

The Loos: Spanking clean. Really. Some of the cleanest I've seen. The stairs could use a power washing though.

The Verdict: I was pleased with this adventure. I wish it were closer. And I wish the service was more attentive. (I watched one couple walk out when they were totally ignored at the sushi bar.) But the food was pretty darn good.