The Japanese Johnny Rockets

I don't know who came up with the concept of a shopping mall dedicated to eating, but, heck, it's about time. In my mind, it's the perfect answer to the recession: I know that if I go to the mall to grab a Krispy Kreme and a Dairy Queen, I'll pass by x number of shoe shops and be forced yes, forced, I tell you to purchase something cute and totally unnecessary.

But if it's a mall stacked with fast-food outlets and some little dining gems — like Manga, which I'll come to in a minute — there are sure to be no accidents, except of the culinary kind.

So it's to Jumeirah Plaza, a new shopping centre where the weak-willed among us can eat a teriyaki wrap without feeling the need to add yet another wrap dress to our collections, that I recently went to explore.

I'm always on the lookout for places for solo diners to grab a bite to eat. If there are waitresses dressed as Japanese schoolgirls and chefs who can dance and roll sushi, that's just a bonus. Manga's got them. Sitting at the bar with my headphones in, Twilight tome in hand, I felt pleasantly like an anonymous Tokyoite as I picked my way through my sushi. Up on the walls of the futuristic interior, which is so black, blue and mirrored sometimes you don't know what's up and what's down, are screens playing anime cartoons. The name of the joint's reflected in the many illustrations on the walls, and in the menu, presented as a comic book, complete with overly excited young characters falling over themselves to order the signature dragonball roll.

I went for it too, after a tidy portion of creamy tofu, deep fried and topped with tangy pileds of grated radish and ginger, and a shower of spring onion got my appetite going.

Roll your own

In a nod to our increasingly solitary society, Manga's rolls come in full and half sizes, although that might also be because the rolls are massive, multi-faceted creations. The dragonball, for example (named after the cartoon, which plays on the restaurant's big screen) has snowy-sweet crab claw, avocado and sweet Japanese mayo spiked with chili. And then a top layer of barbecue eel. It's nigh on impossible to devour in a single bite. I mixed it up, moving between bites of dragonball, tofu, sips of miso and another roll, the yakuza.

Manga names all its dishes after the more colourful aspects of Japanese society, in this case, the country's extensively tattooed and notoriously violent gangsters. The roll itself is tamer — shrimp tempura and asparagus. It's tasty and well-balanced sushi, but that's not really why you'll come to Manga. It's for the moments when a particular Japanese pop song (don't ask me which) comes on and all the staff perform a dance routine. Or when a waitress brings you your snapper sashimi with ponzu sauce (delicate and zingy), and you notice she has an intricate and sparkly design covering one side of her face. Welcome to the Japanese Johnny Rockets.