Alas, it may have looked good, but it didn't taste quite that way.
Me and my other half rocked up to Moshi Moshi after deciding we wouldn't go to any of our usual favourite Brighton eating places and would try something new. After a quick peruse of HappyCow, we picked Moshi Moshi - although it's not vegan, or even veggie, it has a lot of options for both, clearly marked on the menu, and I was craving some sushi.
Early signs were mixed: there was a sushi train (I'm a sucker for picking my dinner off a conveyor belt, cheesy as it may be), the service was perky, and the red and black decor was ripped straight out of The Big Book of Japanese Design Cliches. The building was also in an oddly empty-looking square smack dab in the centre of Brighton. Where were the shops? Where were the people? Had 28 Days Later kicked off and no-one had told us?
As well as fake-meat type dishes, like Redwood duck teriyaki or Redwood fish udon, Moshi Moshi's menu had an all-vegan sushi platter called Faroes. It promised all sorts of vegan goodies: mushroom teriyaki & natto and spring onion gunkan; tofu teriyaki nigiri; inari sushi; ume plum & cucumber and tofu, mizuna, sun dried tomato, red onion & cucumber maki, as well as the usual soy, wasabi and delicate sliced ginger on the side.
I started off with the natto and spring onion gunkan. I didn't expect to like it, and I didn't. Nothing on this earth can convince me that natto isn't just a cruel joke of soy beans wrapped in snot, and Moshi Moshi's gunkan didn't dislodge that thought. The spring onions might have been able to mitigate the horror, but I couldn't see, nor taste, any. Just that snotty, snotty natto - not nice.
To wipe away the experience, I cracked on with the tofu teriyaki nigri. I love teriyaki. You just can't go wrong with it. Or so I thought.
The tofu teriyaki tasted of precisely sod all. There was a vague beige colour to the tofu that suggested it had once been introduced to some soy sauce. Perhaps they swapped business cards. It wasn't a successful meeting either way, leaving just some disappointingly bland tofu in its wake.
The lack of taste was a defining feature of the Faroes sushi set. Take a look at the mahogany wonder that is the mushroom teriyaki - looks good, right? It wasn't. It was another curiously underpowered sushi. I don't know what Moshi Moshi put in their teriyaki. And neither will you if you order it, because there's not enough taste to work it out.
The ume sushi didn't taste of ume, the inari was adequate, and I can't tell you anything about the rest of the sushi because it was so underwhelmingly uninteresting, I've forgotten everything about it, apart from the thought that nagged at me while I ate: "So this is why you never see sun dried tomato in sushi."
The other nagging thought that persisted for at least half the meal was "why is everything so cold?" I think the rice, or perhaps the sushi itself, was kept in the fridge before it turned up to insult my lunchtime. Error.
Keeping things cool blunts their flavours, and if you're making sushi that tastes of nothing, leaving it in the fridge will just compound the problem.
Moshi Moshi did have vegan desserts. Taking my sushi platter as a guide, I decided not to stick around to try them.
Moshi Moshi did suceed in killing my craving for sushi, but I wouldn't say it satisfied it.
Moshi Moshi
http://www.moshibrighton.co.uk/
Opticon, Bartholomew Square
Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 1JS
01273 719 195
Ba ha ha! It's unfortunate you didn't have a positive experience there, but on the plus side, this was a really entertaining review to read. And sometimes you just don't have a great restaurant experience - and when that happens, it's good to tell it like it is (instead of being overly polite).
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it - I think I enjoyed writing the review more than eating the meal too!
ReplyDelete