Somewhere towards the end of our lunch at Jazz House Sushi by chef Rick Biharie, he tells us about a journalist who has been to him in the restaurant. “They don’t reserve under their own name.” I keep my face in the fold and for the first time I feel like I have done something immoral, because I never passed on my name when making a reservation – for the honest experience possible. And we had the chef’s one and a half hours all the way for ourselves. We not only received his full attention, but he also told a lot of stories, not knowing that there was another journalist opposite him.
In the Rotterdam Jazz House Sushi, only open for half a year, Biharie brings Japanese cuisine together with Indonesian elements and adds his love for jazz and house. When we take a seat, we get three menus; There is also a smaller lunch menu, the chef says, but we don’t get to see that, we are encouraged to choose one of the three menus for us. After all the attention in the local media and a gold ladle, a regional price, Biharie has added an extra extensive menu, “for the full experience.” I don’t dare to ask how much that costs, because the first is already 120 euros and the second no less than 160 euros. I continue to be amazed at the huge prices that restaurants nowadays use, as if the world consists of 1-trocenters.
The heart of the menus forms the Nigiri sushi, the small snacks of rice with a slice of fish or a seafood. Biharie works with red ‘barrel-aged vinegar’ from Japan, giving the rice a light brown color. He makes his own reductions and places the fish himself. For example, there is a Nigiri with a red snapper, family of the sea bass, who is first inlaid for a day between the kombu and seaweed and then marinated in Yuzu, so that it gets a light cooking just like in a ceviche. The Snapper gets a lick of soy with lemongrass, which is the Indonesian accent here.
It is a successful Nigiri, the rice is good, the vinegar is not too sour and the fish soft. The lemongrass in the soy is subtle, but perceptible. It is the details with which Biharie hopes to distinguish itself. For example, there is a Nigiri with Hamachi inspired by Gravad Lax: at Gravad Lax the salmon is inlaid with beet, he does that with Lychee. It gives a discreet, fruity undertone to the butter -soft fish. It is all very modest.
Fruit and light sweetness
Biharie follows the tradition of the Nigiri Sushi as it has conquered the world from Tokyo, but adds small, personal accents. All good chefs do that: a flake of salt, a few drops of lime – it can make a huge difference.
Fruit and light sweetness come back to the salmon, which is inlaid in cherries and then burned in front of us, giving it a nice smoky taste. The mackerel gets the same fire treatment. I know that we all have to get rid of the gas at some point, but fire gives so much taste to eat. That cannot be replaced with an electric flame. It also looks spectacular, such a flame that briefly sears the fish just in front of you.
The scallops receive a royal treatment: they are marinated in soy with shiitake, are also roasted and then garnished with fresh truffle and a few flakes Maldon salt. At the small bite of Nori with rice and roasted Unagi (eel), we get, “because you have been to Japan”, as a gift from monkfish, the “foie grass of the sea.”
In between we get a ‘soto ayam’ as ‘Palate Cleanser’. It is Biharies interpretation of the Indonesian soup, but with Japanese ingredients such as Kombu (seaweed) and Katsuobushi, a aromatic and feather -light shaft of dried, fermented and smoked Bonito. It is a nice spicy broth, but we don’t get Soto Ayam out. If you combine something like that, the soul of the original, that wonderfully fragrant chicken broth, must remain standing and that is not the case here. This tastes like a Japanese dashi through the kombu and Katsuobushi.
The main course combines Wagyu with nasi of sticky marinated person (with which “secret of the chef.”) Sushi rice. There is a butter from coconut herbs and seroendeng, which I like, but of which my table companion is not broken. Wagyu is already powerful, but these slices also have large pieces of fat. This dish is as refined as the sushi was, if not refined. The dessert of coconut, chocolate and mango is then a fresh final.
Biharie is sympathetic and his enthusiasm infectious, but he also creates a kind of mythos around himself with his stories about top chefs with whom he has learned, loft expressions of famous chefs, and Indian granules who have inaugurated him into the secrets of Indonesian cuisine. Nobody in the whole world makes sushi the way he does, he says.
The young chef has unmistakable talent, and his approach is original, but he is not a Jiro or Saito. And the price is exorbitant for what you get, there is also more modesty.