No frills Nobu

As a journalist, I'm the first one to say it: don't believe the hype. As someone who lives to eat, I'm also the first one to completely disregard my own good advice - when it comes to a legendary restaurant.

Which is how, a few days ago, I went from being a calmly indifferent person in Nobu's bar, to being a squealing, out-of-control compulsive eater once I was seated in Atlantis's most fabled restaurant.

I wasn't supposed to be eating in Nobu that night. (Yesterday, I rang to try and make a booking, and was told tables are booked up to the end of November.) Yet there we were, at the hotel.

Dragging ourselves away from watching Sammy the shark steal the show from all the sad grey fish in the aquarium, we thought we'd try the obvious: walk up to the maitre'd and ask for a table. If we don't get in - well, there's an Al Reef Bakery on the way home, at least.

Thirty minutes later, I sat at one of Nobu's informal (read: Ikea) table arrangements and a vast menu was placed in my hands. It was then I realised that I'm finally in a Nobu, the hallowed ground where Hollywood stars pick over black cod with miso (Nobu's signature dish). That's the point when I thought my head might explode.

But it really was the reputation, rather than the actual experience, that was blowing me away. The interior, if I'm being nice, resembles what I imagine a birth canal to look like, were it lined with wicker.

Disposable bamboo chopsticks? I expect that at Sumo Sushi, not a place where two regular beverages come in at Dh120. Splinters in the New-Style Sashimi? Not a fan.

But I was a fan of the sashimi itself. Thin slices of salmon are marinated in soy, ginger, citrus and sesame, then a small quantity of oil is heated to shimmering point and poured over the fish, searing it slightly. The fish is melting, tangy and nutty - delicious.

Nobu is famous for South American-inflected Japanese food - that magical place where raw fish stops being sashimi but is not quite yet ceviche.

Simple ingredients

Our next dish, octopus tiradito, is where the South American flavours come in. Seared chunks of chewy octopus take a cool bath in citrus juice, chilli and salt, and come out mouth-puckeringly refreshing. Another opener was a tuna sashimi salad, in which more of the same - seared fish, onion, citrus and sesame - combine.

Perhaps our ordering judgement was clouded, although it was one of the "must-have dishes" recommended to us by our all-knowing waiter, straight out of one of Nobu's American outposts. It's nice, but when you look at the simple ingredients and cooking style, it's not crazy to think: I could do this.

Another must-have dish, was of course, the black cod with miso. What's black cod, you ask? Well class, it is a coldwater fish, which lives where South America meets Antarctica. (I will always stand by the fact that coldwater fish taste sweeter and meatier than any other kind. Tiny North Atlantic shrimp beat those tropical monsters any day.)

Sweet, firm and meaty it is, and if you mention black cod, it's likely someone will mention Nobu Matsuhita's name in quick succession. His signature dish - the London restaurants sell nearly 100 kilos of it, daily - sees thick fillets of the fish marinated for three days in a sweet-salty white miso paste. The fish is then grilled to caramelised perfection and served with a pink shoot of baby ginger.

Seriously underwhelmed

It's easy to see why this dish - inspired by a centuries-old Japanese technique for preserving fish - is popular. It's got the best of fish (sweet, flaky and tender) and none of the sashimi niggles that put some people off. Yes, it's a winner. But Nobu the restaurant was still bothering me.

It's a bit dark, quite noisy and the tables are crammed together, so I could easily hear, if not understand, the loud Russian conversation next to us.

And it was perhaps coincidence, perhaps serendipity, that I'd eaten at another celebrated modern Japanese restaurant newly opened in Dubai recently: Zuma. That eatery has all the class I expected of Nobu, with nicer surroundings and prices that don't cause heart attacks.

Venturing on, we had melting chunks of king crab with shisho, a minty, peppery leaf, and beef tobanyaki, a thick marinated piece of beef cooked on a hot plate. I expected something seared and blackened, but my dining partner had the perfect description: stewed. It was chewy and not impressive at all.

Luckily, desserts are where Nobu redeemed itself, as until that point we were seriously underwhelmed. The cheesecake is lighter than most, smooth and creamy with none of that stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth business.

A chocolate bento box features a classic fondant chocolate cake, melty on the inside, darkly crisp on the outside, with a slab of green tea ice cream on the side.

People think I'm weird for several reasons, and one of them is that I love moochi, Japanese sweet rice cakes. Usually they're filled with red bean paste (they go down a treat with a bitter green tea. Yo Sushi occasionally has shipments).

At Nobu they're pastel pretty, filled with ice cream. It's a strange cold combo of jelly-like rice dough and hard gelato.

So do I still believe the hype? The food is light, tasty and creative, most of the time; occasionally there's a dish you can't stop eating (black cod!) and then there are the times you wonder why you bothered to order.

There's an uninspiring interior, an atmosphere gaudily lacking in class (but not in cash); but the service is outstanding (the staff from the US will be there for a few more weeks only) and above all, it's Nobu, people. An expense-account-only must-do.

Checklist

Where: Nobu, Atlantis
Telephone: 04-4262626
Must have: New-style sashimi, black cod with miso, cheesecake.

3 stars