Sashimi Bistro Lounge, West Kirby, Wirral

Mar 7 2008 by Glyn Mon Hughes, Liverpool Daily Post

SUSHI really is oh-so-trendy. It has long been the stuff to be seen with, from bars in Soho to expensive Knightsbridge eateries. So is West Kirby braced?

We’re not sure. Sashimi is a great idea and needs all the luck in the world to get established. But, for us so far, the jury’s out. The main problem seems it doesn’t really know what it is.

It serves food all day and the breakfast menu looks particularly enticing. It does lunches and you can drop in for a coffee.

But it seems the identity crisis starts after dark for, when it says it serves dinner, it’s not entirely obvious what constitutes dinner.

Maybe that’s the fault of the website which has a dinner menu but, on the home page, says Sashimi is open in the evening for "drinks and nibbles".

But we only saw they served dinner and went along expecting to order drinks with, perhaps, a starter, main course and a dessert with perhaps a bottle of wine thrown in and a coffee to round things off.

But it’s not that simple. Or it wasn’t the first time we went. (Indeed, we’ve been back just to make sure we weren’t casting some unfair blows below the collective belt of the establishment).

Our first visit was at the end of the summer, when the place had only been open a matter of days so teething problems were to be expected.

We asked for the wine list, but it had not been printed. "So what wines do you have?" we asked the waitress. "White and red," she answered, helpfully. Months later, the wine list had still not been delivered, and I found my dinner guests, Anne and Mark, peering over the bar at an array of wine bottles. The wine list is, however, available online and shows an impressive array of those reds and whites, the whites having a definite slant towards French offerings, though Chile, Germany and the USA are also represented; while reds are sourced from South America, Italy, Spain, Australia, the USA and France.

The first time we visited, we really did not know what to order from what seemed to be a restricted menu. But nothing ventured . . . so I dived in and asked for Russian eggs (£2.95) which, when they arrived comprised a basic egg mayonnaise with some lumpfish on top. Perfectly acceptable if rather a throwback to the 70s.

Mark and Anne hit the jackpot, though. Mark asked for Nicoise salad (£4.75) and was mightily impressed when the chef came to ask how he’d like his tuna cooked.

When it arrived, it was cooked to near perfection and the salad plentiful with a tart dressing. The best Nicoise he had ever had, he proclaimed. Across the table, silence descended as Anne was bemused by the sheer size of her meze (£4.15). Since that day, we’ve seen on the website that this is a dish for sharing. We all made valiant inroads but we were fighting a losing battle. The dish comprised feta cheese, olives, hummus, tzatziki, mixed olives, chopped tomatoes and pitta bread.

For the main course, we ordered sushi – and we waited . . . and waited. Apparently, all sushi is freshly prepared for the individual customer.

We were the only ones in that night, so heaven knows how they cope if the place is busy. When it did arrive – one California platter (£4.15) and one Sashimi platter (£8.45) – it was plentiful and filling – and it was the memory of this offering, plus the fact we wanted to give the place a fairer trial, which led us back.

The second time around, once Anne and Mark had selected their wine, we ventured back to the table to consult the menu. Things had changed since the last visit and, for dinner, we could select anything from the menu even the stuff not apparently available at that time of day. The wine arrived, a bottle of Bandicoot estate cabernet petit-verdot merlot (£12.80).

This time, I chose green-lipped mussels – amusingly appearing on the menu as greek-lipped mussels – which were plentiful and juicy and served in a pleasant garlic butter sauce. Mark asked for stilton and walnut paté – which was off – so settled for soup while Anne played it safe and ordered Italian-style garlic bread, which came with sun-dried tomatoes and oregano.

For main courses, both Mark and I went for the safer option. He ordered beef and reef skewers – eight king prawns and eight pieces of beef, served with garlic sauce, olives with sour cream and a side salad declaring them and the chunky chips which accompanied to be delightful.

Anne was brave and went, again, for the Sashimi Special, which included tuna, salmon, prawns, mussels, scallops, trout and caviare.

While the fish was very fresh and the variety was excellent, she was however disappointed to find it all cooked, confusing for somewhere trying to be a sushi restaurant.

The dish came with a soy sauce accompaniment, lemon salad and a new wasabi, imported from Hong Kong, certainly the hottest I’ve ever tasted.

Sashimi is certainly a new experience and, for friendliness and effort, they score very highly indeed. But I feel they need focus. And, in a testing market like West Kirby, that lack of focus could sink them, which would be a crying shame.

Sashimi, 15, Grange Road, West Kirby, Wirral, CH48 4DY

Tel: 0151 625 2287

www.sashimiwirral.com

Service: Friendly but a little slow

Value for money: Good.

Menu: Traditional to brave

Disabled access: Toilets are outside, down a couple of steps

Décor: Retro relaxed

Parking: On street

The bill: £41.10