Best Food In China

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Alan Wong has added another mainstay to his Beijing-based Japanese fusion empire with Hatsune spin-off Haiku, modestly described in the PR leaflet as the “hottest thing to happen to Japanese fare since Wasabi”.

‘Hot’ is certainly a good way to describe Haiku’s décor – a swish neon-blue oval sushi bar makes up the centrepiece of the restaurant, while the contemporary seating areas are a inoffensive combination of white, glass and pale wood, and more comfortable than first impressions suggest. In general Haiku has a sexier, swankier feel about it than its big sister, and fits in well among its Block 8 contemporaries.

The menu is similarly stylish. It looks rather like a plush photo album; framed in soft suede with a smattering of appetizing photographs. Some of the contents overlap that of Hatsune (and presumably all high-end Japanese restaurants in the capital for that matter), but there is also a decent number of new creations including innovative sushi rolls and an extensive Yakitori (Japanese grill) menu.

We kicked off our meal with a seared tuna tataki salad (RMB55) – a large bowl of mixed fresh leaves dotted with poached quail’s eggs and slices of raw tuna, and drizzled with a sweet dressing that was pleasantly sweet but sufficiently powerful to make me glad I was sharing with three others. Our other starter – juicy popcorn shrimp dusted with pepper (RMB32), a Haiku speciality – was an absolute joy and a universally-agreed (on our table at least) highlight.

Traditionalists will enjoy the sashimi and nigiri sushi menu, which contains everything from sake (salmon) and unagi (eel) to amaebi (raw shimp) and inari (soybean skin). With the ingredients flown in daily from Japan and expertly prepared under the watchful eye of Haiku’s head chef Liu Xiaobo, everything was fresh, light and surprisingly affordable.

More delightful is the innovative “The Works” section of the sushi rolls menu, which contains the playfully-named “Moto-roll-ah” (RMB75), “Lucy Liu roll” (she once visited – RMB76), “El Capitano Cruncho” (RMB72), “Bubba Gump roll” (no prizes for guessing what’s in this one – RMB75) and “Roll-X” (RMB108), which comes topped with 24 carat gold. They arrive at the table drizzled, daubed and decorated to an inch of their lives so that they look rather like pieces of modern art, but I enjoyed the fact that Haiku is fully owning their flamboyancy, and it didn’t seem to affect their taste in the slightest – they were delicious.

If you’re after something a little heartier, and in fact even if you aren’t, give the Yakitori menu a perusal. It’s one of the most extensive in Beijing, offering classics such as chicken tsukune and chicken wings teriyaki, as well as the fusion-slanted bacon wrapped mushrooms and shrimp wrapped in chicken skin. The meat was tender and on the whole very well seasoned, making for an excellent warming bite to banish the winter blues.

When you’re stomach starts rebelling, slope over to adjoining Ruby Khi bar and stretch out on a canopé-d sofa while the unnervingly pretty bar staff concoct something colourful and alcoholic. Yes, it’s all very aesthetically pleasing at Haiku, but when push comes to shove the taste more than matched the looks, so I think we can let them get away with it.

-- by Jennifer Pooley

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