Japanese food is one of the few international cuisines that are ubiquitous in Da Nang. But for those who know Japanese dishes so well like myself, simple Makizushi ("rolled sushi", typically with cucumber, avocado, crab meat) or Nigirizushi ("hand-formed sushi", commonly associated with raw fish) aren’t appealing enough. After 4 years living in Japan, sometimes I feel like a Japanese expat living in Da Nang now that 2 years have passed since I left the country. And like what a typical expat does when her craving for home country food is at its best, I wandered through google images, trying to search for that one authentic restaurant, that one dish that could make me feel ‘home’.
One of the restaurants popping up in the search results immediately caught my attention: Kachou Fugetsu. The name screams out authenticity: no sakura, no sushi, the owner apparently didn’t give a damn about the locals not able to remember or pronounce, let alone understand that long, unfamiliar foreign name (this lesson I learnt from Vietnamese restaurants in Australia: “Phú Quốc”, “Quê hương”, “Âu Lạc”… are likely more original than “Saigon”, “Vietnam” or “Pho XYZ”). Then the very first image of their sushi dish won me over, it looked exactly like what I would order in Japan. Needless to say, I gave it a go two hours later.
The indoor décor of Kachou Fugetsu was less Japanese and more Vietnamese than my expectation. However it was full of Japanese customers chatting in their mother tongue, which helped to create the atmosphere.
My friend and I were so starving that we didn’t give a close look at the menu and ordered right away some decent food that we used to eat a lot in Japan: my friend yakinikudon and I a set of unakyu (eel and cucumber rolls). I’m not sure if it was because of the hunger or my longheld addiction toward eel sushi, but my first bite at the unakyu was OMG, spot-on, for a second I thought I was in
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| Unakyu - Eel and cucumber sushi |
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| Menu |
Despite the
poor quality menu photos, I knew what would be good: Salmon cheese sushi. I salivated
just by the look of it:
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| Sake cheese sushi |
15 mins later my friend's yakiniku don arrived. It looked good but unfortunately didn't taste good at all. First it wasn't grilled beef (yakiniku means grilled meat). Second the flavour was very Vietnamese. Third the rice was very wet. The only good thing was the accompanied miso soup which was very authentic.
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| Yakiniku don - Cơm thịt nướng - Rice with grilled beef |
The yakinikudon mishap was my friend's problem. I walked out of the restaurant enchanted, fully satisfied, and already in my head planning for the next visit.
Where: Kachou Fugetsu - 85 Nguyen Chi Thanh
- Yakinikudon 96k
- Unakyu 50k (6 pieces)
- Sake cheese 40k (2 pieces)
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