27th May 2007
A fine fine place
Finding sushi in London is easy. Finding good sushi is harder. Finding good sushi in a central location at a resonable price is seriously hard -- but you *could* try Center Point Sushi Cafe.
Actually, it's real name is the Hana Japanese Restaurant but nobody seems to call it that.
Now, the CPSC is Korean-owned like everything else in the area, but unlike the average London sushi pit it has an ACTUAL SUSHI CHEF from Japan -- not a guy who just *said* he was a sushi chef, not a Benihana-type sushi chef, a *real* sushi chef.
The quality of the raw material is, well, it's good *for London*. It varies. They have a reasonable variety -- it's worth asking for things you don't see but there's going to be a slight element of luck involved. Non-sushi food is pretty darn decent.
But what really makes this place a treasure is the atmosphere. It's so quiet, so tranquil, and it's right exactly where you need a spot of tranquility in the middle of the West End. And it's a teeny bit quirky -- not quirky enough that it's all up in your face with its quirkiness, but a *little* quirky. For example the entrance is via the inside of the Korean grocery store downstairs. And the signs are almost invisible from the street, and nobody knows it's really called 'hana', and for some reason there's a life size replica of the Golden Crown of Baekje or something near the door, just in case you forget whether it's owned by Koreans or not.
There was a time when the CPSC was so deathly quiet I feared daily for its survival. No longer -- in the last few years, it's gradually been discovered by a fairly large crowd of babbling English student types, so it's not really all that peaceful from 7 or so onward.
But for an afternoon or lunch break, you can't beat it. What are you going to do? Sit in Starbuck's? Go to Yo! or something?? Don't be absurd! I give you the CPSC -- it's got an unwieldy name, you can't see it from the street, and it's great!