For those of you who thought Wasabi was just a spicy Japanese horseradish, think again. Oriental fever is spreading across Budapest, and it’s doing it in style thanks to the “running sushi and wok” restaurants called Wasabi.
The three Wasabi restaurants dotted around Budapest hotspots (and one in Debrecen!) all offer traditional Japanese food like sushi and wok dishes. Yet the chefs draw their inspiration from other countries too, and present culinary delights with Korean and Thai influences.
Stepping into the monochrome dining area at Wasabi, there was no ignoring the centerpiece; a huge conveyor belt, snaking around the chopstick-happy diners, tantalizing everyone with its sumptuous selection of Oriental cuisine.
Opting for the all-you-can-eat buffet (3,990 HUF at dinner, 4,990 HUF at lunch), meant that we were able to sample any number of the multi-colored delights on the double-decker conveyor belt; top level for hot food and the lower level for cold. Lunch from a set menu was available too, for just 1,290 HUF and offered coconut and chicken soup to start, fried calamari salad for the main course and a strawberry dessert.
Despite being at the MOM Park mall branch of Wasabi, we could just have easily been at one of the self-contained restaurants, listening to subtle music, smelling the immaculately presented food winding its way around the tables and admiring the tasteful décor. Imagine dark wooden flooring, white drapes strewn across the ceiling, perfectly aligned black tables accompanying white chairs and flowers and other decorations tucked into intriguing nooks; all expressing more than just a hint of the Orient.
Here at Funzine, we’re not the sorts to push food around our plates saying that we’re full, far from it. After tasting everything from elaborate sushi rolls to cold apple soup, we realized that between the two of us, we had devoured no fewer than 20 plates (and two bowls) of Wasabi’s finest offerings.
Everything we tried got the thumbs up, but there were certainly a few standouts. Starting with a seaweed salad, dressed in a delicate cream sauce, we felt that we were onto a perfect appetizer. Naturally there were plenty of sushi rolls to remark on too, but this was more than a slab of tuna on rice. Our choice, hung on a succulent crab stick axle, was wrapped in shrimp and finished off with just the right amount of (bright green!) caviar.
A melt-in-your-mouth coconut and prawn curry introduced us to the hot offerings from Thailand, and didn’t disappoint, exuding just the right balance of cream and spice. A Pad Thai noodle dish also hit the spot with a light sauce and a generous amount of egg and meat. The cold soups in ice-cream flavors and colors looked particularly scrumptious and we chose coconut-tapioca and mango, not quite knowing what to expect from these almost luminous desserts. But they were divine, refreshing and incredibly moreish.
Our very attentive and multilingual waiter was quick to flag his favorites when asked; so on his recommendation we sampled, no devoured, some delicious kimchi (spicy pickled vegetables, Korean style) and mochi, a sweet and sticky Japanese rice ball, stuffed, in this case, with poppy seeds. On our own impulses, we also turned our palates to fried pork with ginger, sticky pork ribs, kalács (fried fish), spicy meatballs and banana fritters immersed in syrup, to name a few…
There are always around 100 dishes on the conveyor belt at any one time, and new delicacies appeared every few minutes or so, prompting us to ponder, “Do you think we could manage just one more?” Of course we could. And I think we may manage another few visits to Wasabi too. Hey, and did we mention they have home delivery?
Joanna Singleton
Cold
dishes
Seaweed salad
Sushi roll with prawns and caviar
Hot dishe
s
Fried pork with ginger
Coconut pork and prawn curry
Cold dessert
s
Sweet sushi rolls
Coconut-tapioca soup
Hot dessert
s
Mochi
Banana fritter with syrup
Wasabi
1037 Budapest, Szépvölgyi út 15.
Tel.: +36.1.430.1056
1065. Budapest, Podmaniczky u
tca 21.
Tel.: +36.1.374.0008
1123 Budapest, Alkot
ás utca 53.
Tel.: +36.1.225.3518
4025 Debrecen
, Dósa Nádor tér 11.
Tel.: +36.52.535.346
www.wasabi.hu
