As we entered this manga-themed hole-in-the-wall on Roosikrantsi, I made a comment about the pink scooter parked out front, asking, "is that just decor?" and my wife heard two words that are homonymous with "decor" even though that would not make any sense in the context. She has a mind in the gutter even when we are indoors, but that sort of set the tone.
On the screen inside were music videos, but instead of ho's or 1980s retrospectives, all featured chorus lines or dance squads of Japanese schoolgirls in uniform, some acting underage, some actually around the federal age of consent in Japan. The name of one ensemble was G-Child, which is somehow a pretty disturbing pairing though the whole thing does suggest that Japan is a possible if not the only asylum candidate for Polanski.
A similar revue of people dressed as schoolgirls than appeared in a short clip. I thought they were in drag until I realized the setting was the front entrance and the girls were in fact the employees of Sushi Cat. All of them attractive Nordic women, mind, but so leggy -- they can't do the nymphet thing without looking grotesque.
Anyway, vive la difference, I guess. The atmosphere was refreshingly different -- I've found places like the Narva mnt Silk to be very desolate. I enjoyed poring over a copy of the Hiragana Times (where little hiragana in superscript are written above kanji for people learning Japanese) and drinking warm sake at rock-bottom prices on this rainy day.
The magazine rack also had a Tallinn tourist brochure, all in Japanese, with a message from Edgar Savisaar, in which, if my limited Japanese serves me correctly, he talked about giving away free seaweed from the Bay of Tallinn and the Centre Party's plan for a Schoolgirl Video Resource Centre. I'm still glad I didn't vote for him.
The sushi (all offered as sets with different feline names from kitten to lion, $6-18) was good, even excellent, though the fish species are limited, even more than most places. Tuna was long-haul, of course, but still good, only it was somehow a little a bit more like good raw beef than fish. Salmon was fine, cold-smoked eel was excellent, with a lovely browned glace on its skin.
Sake and plum wine were not top-shelf but as said, cheap - less than a pint of beer at any pub in Tallinn.
The house threw in complimentary miso soup and tea. The miso was the best I've had, the tea had some sort of roasted sesame flavour going on.
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11 comments:
The scooter is used for deliveries. They make deliveries to a limited area in the center.
You're lucky to have gotten a table. Usually I just get take-out from there since the grand total of 4 tables they have are usually full. Maybe it's not as popular lately.
Wow. You have some Japanese. You have that in common with mu naine. She wants to go there some day though the whole "inside-an-anime-feel" kinda turned me off.
I have some syllables. High school. DC community has diplomats' spouses and they need jobs, too, so they teach.
I don't think Sushi Cat will be clipping and posting this review, no. But it's good sushi and good service (slow, though). And it wasn't really all that disturbing.
What Tallinn is lacking is a bustling fish market area near the water's edge - restaurants, entertainment, a place to walk and watch the sea ... I wonder if Tallinn ever had anything like that? Linnahall is the atithesis of what I have in my minds eye.
Agree heartily. Fish market. Light years to go on that one, though.
The problem is that the Baltic Sea does not sustain that kind of subculture. You cannot have a bustling fish market that only sells heeringas and kilu. No oysters, no crabs, no octopus, no conch, no eel, no tuna, no mussels, no seabass, and on and on. Nothing. Vodka, herring and black bread no good tourist magnet make.
Lightyears? Once the global warming is on full blast, maybe it won't be light years. Just ordinary years. Couple of hundred before you can snorkel and enjoy corals and tropical fish off the shore of Kihnu.
If not a fish market, something with a couple Paat-type restaurants and some street vendors. Good fresh stuff goes a long way. Grilled räim with coarse salt was one of the best things I've had, totally equal to sardines at a Mediterranean restaurant.
High school. DC community has diplomats' spouses and they need jobs, too, so they teach.
I think we're from the same neighborhood. Churchill, Whitman, or Wilson?
Sidwell Friends? St. Albans?
Yorktown, in Arlington.
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