Pork katsu curry, mackerel nigiri @ Hibiki Sushi & Ramen
66 Renshaw St, Liverpool, L1 4EN
For a long time, and until fairly recently, there were really only two places to get Japanese food in Liverpool — the very solid but slightly staid Etsu just off the Strand (very good maki roll platters, BYO atmosphere) and Sapporo Teppanyaki, a magnet for wedding anniversaries as well as stag and hen parties (with the less said about the food the better).
So the opening of Hibiki on Renshaw Street a couple of years ago — within stumbling distance of my beloved Dispensary — was most welcome. It’s an Izakaya-style diner with a menu of donburi, ramen, sushi and gyoza — there’s few surprises here, except for the halloumi fries (but then this is Liverpool, where Italian restaurants offer duck spring rolls as a starter).
But everything is so much better than you’d expect it to be — in particular the pork bone ramen with black garlic oil receives rave reviews even from those who’ve had something similar in Japan (“obviously it still doesn’t taste as good as the worst bowl over there, but then nothing does”).
For me the pick has to be the pork katsu curry, served with sesame-seaweed salad on a bed of lightly tacky rice with grains so short they’re almost spherical. The breaded chop is tender with just the right amount of chew, the silky curry sauce is sweet, salty, aromatic etc. etc. but has a fantastically punchy anise note to it. Before this arrives though I’ll get a couple of pieces of sushi, usually the mackerel nigiri which — having been lightly cured in vinegar — is both rich and sour. Excellent.
