Zen, High Street, Southampton (From Daily Echo)

Zen, High Street, Southampton

3:41pm Wednesday 30th December 2009 in Restaurant Reviews By Peter Law, Feature Writer

TUCKED on the corner of Southampton’s historic High Street is an exotic piece of the Far East.

Escaping from the bitterly cold December evening, my partner and I arrived to find Zen full of life even though it was a Monday night.

Groups of friends were sat at the trendy bar enjoying a festive tipple, while in the stylish restaurant couples were busy trawling through the extensive menu.

Knowing where to start with a Japanese menu is often the hardest part as there are literally dozens of dishes to choose from.

So if you don’t know your temaki from your agemono or your sashimi from your yakimono, I would recommend asking for a little assistance.

The friendly, polite and professional staff at Zen will be more than happy to talk you through the dishes and in what order to eat them.

We started with a selection of prawn dishes, including amaebi (two pieces of sweet prawn on rice) and temaki ebi (prawn and rice in a hand roll) and maki dragon (eight pieces of prawn tempura).

All three were superb, good value for money and make an ideal starter, quick lunch or takeaway. If you’re feeling more adventurous you could go for tako (octopus), unagi (eel) or ikura (salmon roe).

Not to be missed is agemono, the famous Japanese-style of deep frying everything from seafood to vegetables.

To go with this we tried gyoza, which was essentially a couple of chicken dumplings.

They were much like the dumplings you’d expect in a Chinese restaurant, only delicate – and better.

Flipping the huge menu over it was time to tackle the mains, which range from Japanese curries (£9.80-£10.50), to stir fries (£9.50- £10.50) and soup-based noodles £7.50- £8.50).

However, we stuck to the “Zen set specials”, which are little more pricey, but in my opinion worth it as you get to sample a full Japanese spread.

Being a non-beef eater, my fiancé opted for salmon teriyaki, while I went for the stoned grill sirloin steak.

The steak was oven-cooked at a high temperature on a “bed of stone” – to my surprise it was also served on the stone.

The steak and salmon was expertly cooked, but the real star was the pickled vegetables, caramelised sweet potatoes and miso soup that accompanied the dishes.

To be honest we struggled to even contemplate dessert after such a feast, but cleansed our pallets with a selection of fresh fruits.

The next time we’re desperate to escape the British winter, even if just for a few hours, I know whose door we’ll