Shiki, 6 Tombland, Norwich NR3 1HE (01603 619262). Sushi and sashimi from £2 per piece, small dishes from £3, larger dishes from £10, beer from £3.50, sake from £6.50
We only get to truly value excellence by experiencing what it is to fall short. In politics. In sport. But also in food. How many times my heart has sunk as I’ve opened a miserable portion of fast-food sushi, limp and flimsy to the touch, dull in colour, the fish supposedly raw and yet partially cooked in its plastic enclosure. But when you taste the real stuff in all its glory, you know what you’ve been missing. So my excitement surges as our salmon sashimi arrives at Shiki, an independent Japanese restaurant in the centre of Norwich. Each of our four slices is plump, fatty, firm, glowing and juicy. Unusually, I dial back the wasabi in the soy sauce to let the fish dominate.
Yet it’s not the silky freshness of the salmon, unencumbered by an unnecessary dollop of sticky rice (which for me always makes sushi second-best), that most grabs my attention. It’s the staggering sight of my 86-year-old father, chopsticks tightly gripped, preparing to stab his fish – a technique unusual, not very Japanese, but not at all hesitant.
Born in Norwich, growing up with the rations-era restricted tastes of many of his generation, my dad is well travelled, but always prefers a roast, doesn’t really want chilli or spice in anything, and spent a decade living in Italy while claiming throughout that he didn’t like pasta. Until now, he has always matched Gordon Brown for raw-fish aversion, but no longer.
Gordon, another cautious eater who definitely knows what he likes and doesn’t, had a better excuse for fearing sushi. Once, at a finance ministers’ dinner in Tokyo, he made the classic error of mistaking a wasabi blob for a harmless garnish and then had to style out the consequent mouth explosion without causing a scene (beyond excessive sweating).
For my dad, the embrace of sushi and sashimi is a truly damascene conversion. Appropriately biblical, given this canteen-style restaurant is situated in the corner of an ancient and cobbled square in the shade of the towering spire of Norwich’s majestic cathedral. For close to 1,000 years, stalls and sellers have thronged these narrow “Tombland” streets, selling goods and victuals – though I’m pretty sure Shiki is the first restaurant across all those centuries to tempt passing worshippers to try a taste of Japan.
We’ve nabbed the only spare table in the cosy downstairs room, in anticipation of it becoming even more crowded in the more spacious upstairs. The menu is longer for dinner, but there is lots of lunchtime choice – from the sushi bar to an array of noodle, soup, bento box and meaty options. We follow our sashimi with some mackerel sushi from the specials menu. It is smoky and very soft with a subtle flavour that grows in the mouth and would certainly be overpowered by even a little wasabi. Exhausted by his harpooning adventures, my dad crunches on edamame beans as we discuss the Norwich City line-up (it’s two hours to kick-off at Carrow Road, a 20-minute walk away).
Annoyingly, Shiki is out of pork gyoza, but the vegetarian alternative, which I hesitate to order, is good, with a spinach-infused pastry and a mild vegetable filling that certainly benefits from wasabi in the soy sauce. We slurp excellent miso soup, spicy with proper seaweed, but without the bottom surface of gunge you get in second-rate places. We then order a portion of tempura, another dish that separates the best Japanese restaurants from the also-rans. The batter is light, but fabulously crunchy and clings well – no limpness here either. The choice of vegetables is wide – courgette, asparagus, sweet potato and red pepper – and all perfectly cooked. You should never have to chew tempura.
We wash our array of starters down with my favourite combination: cold Asahi beer and a small flask of warm and nutty sake. I know the connoisseurs say sake should always be drunk cold. But I’m not a connoisseur and I don’t.
As we munch, we reminisce. Japanese restaurants have a special place in our family rituals. My wife, Yvette, and I have been to the same yakitori bar every year to celebrate our now 26 years of marriage. A special family treat when the kids were small was teppanyaki – great shrimp and steak seared on an enormous hotplate, followed by flambéed ice-cream.
Indeed, it was in a Leeds Japanese restaurant that our then 13-year-old son famously broke from the food caution inherited from his granddad – a diet of sausages and nuggets – by ordering chicken yakisoba noodles with chilli. We all sat staring with open mouths, disbelieving but silent in case we jinxed it, just like I am today watching dad try sushi.
I remind him that Shiki in Norwich was the last restaurant I went to with my mum, before her dementia became too much and she moved into a Norwich care home. On that occasion, she had reacted extremely negatively to the idea of an outing to a Japanese restaurant, but thankfully had forgotten all about that by the time we arrived there an hour later. With dementia, you just have to close the wardrobe door, take a moment, then open it again. Culinary innovator of our family that she always was, she loved the food and the hugely patient and thoughtful staff.
During the pandemic, dad became a regular orderer of Shiki’s excellent home-delivery teriyaki beef – but it’s only available in the evening. So, today, he orders the chicken version to share, which I find a bit bland, a little too sweet for me and without the caramel richness I was expecting. By comparison, my beef noodles are stunning, vinegary with an oily sheen and wafer-thin carrot and pickle batons in the tangy sauce.
As we attempt to finish off the last grains of rice (dexterous chopstick scooping works, spearing definitely doesn’t), the restaurant starts to empty. It’s already 2.15pm, so I grab my yellow-and-green scarf and pay the unexpectedly reasonable bill.
Shun, Shiki’s proprietor, is nowhere to be seen. Born in Japan, but resident in Norwich since the age of 16, he graduated from the University of East Anglia and then went back to Tokyo to train as a sushi chef before returning to take over the restaurant his mother first opened.
When I ask if he’s in the kitchen, I’m told he’s already at Carrow Road having lunch with their young son (named after City hero, the Finnish striker Teemu Pukki).
Famously excellent as Norwich City’s catering is – still watched over every week by Delia Smith – I’m sure we’ve had the better pre-match meal today. But we need to hurry. I don’t want to miss the kick-off.
Ed Balls, a former Cabinet minister, presents Good Morning Britain on ITV and Political Currency, a weekly podcast with George Osborne. His book Appetite is published by Simon & Schuster (£8.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
