I guess Tsuru Sushi is the kind of place that attracts the lunch crowd as from the time Laney and I sat down to the time we left there was probably a total of at the most three other customers next to us! Still, I hadn’t come to Tsuru Sushi for the ambience – I came as a reviewer had promised authentic Tokyo-quality tonkatsu (fried breaded pork cutlets.) I remember tonkatsu in Japan being these awesome juicy, crispy little parcels of goodness so I was very much looking forward to my meal tonight. Supposedly the curry sauce at Tsuru Sushi is also cooked for eight hours to really develop that good savoury flavour.

The service, at least, at Tsuru Sushi is truly Japanese. We were attended to very promptly and provided with some welcome wasabi peas. In fact the waitresses, non-Japanese, proved to be very conscientious of service indeed throughout the meal, for example, regularly checking if we were ready for the next course or, when Laney’s sushi was ready and the waitress was about to bring it out, the other waitress grabbed her to say no bring it out at the same time as the curry. I was very pleased with that.

Food-wise we started with some takoyaki. They weren’t too bad cold (they arrived hot but we were too busy gas-bagging to eat straight away!) so I imagine they would have been pretty good hot. Not quite up to the Osaka standards for these octopus balls but nothing to complain about.

For our mains, Laney says her sushi roll was delicious and fresh. I of course couldn’t go past the Tonkatsu Curry which I clearly had built up too much in my expectation because I was slightly disappointed! The curry sauce was tasty, though fruitier than I’m used to, and the katsu. It was alright. I would have preferred perhaps a less lean pork, fat is the vehicle for flavour after all, and a slightly thicker/heavier panko bread crumb coating.

Dessert, straight out of the freezer, was pretty cool though. Literally and figuratively – three little mochi balls (pounded sticky rice balls) with ice cream centre: green tea, sesame and vanilla.