Touzai neglects the essential

This review was published in May 2001

Touzai's got a lot going for it: the cutting-edge location on the Shoreditch/Hoxton axis, the groovy design-open kitchen, wood veneer panelling (although I'm not so sure about the primrose yellow rag-rolling on the walls), funky young staff and a sort of pan-Asian noodle-based menu with something for everyone.

On the other hand, it's peppered with unfortunate elements: the aforementioned rag-rolling; cringe-making and gnomic aphorisms from someone called Noodfucius on the menu; and, somewhat unfortunately, the food. Between two of us, we ordered four starters and two main courses, a request met with horror by our stick-thin waitress.

Things started off well with an excellent yakitori chicken, tenpura (sic) prawns and passable cod-Vietnamese crystal spring rolls (no mint, unzingy dip) but then degenerated with gyoza, which, rather than the demi-pan-fried, demisteamed treatment that gives these little dumplings their delicious marriage of crispiness and squidge, had been viciously deep-fried.

A main course of Pad Thai managed to mislay its normally punchy flavourings of chilli, lime and fish sauce, the blandness emphasised by the slithery sliminess of the noodles; and seafood 'min' in oyster sauce featured once-crispy noodles that had coagulated into a clump, accessorised by whole crabsticks.

In its favour, it's very cheap - with wine, we paid about £20 a head. My date was plunged into a gloom by the absence of any 'afters'. Perhaps, on reflection, that wasn't such a bad thing.

Touzai
147-149 Curtain Road, EC2A 3QE