DAIKIYA

DAIKIYA sits on Carrer del General Riera, just behind the Avenidas and a short way north of Plaça d'Espanya. The house describes itself as deliberately untypical: not a traditional Japanese restaurant, but a joining of inherited technique with its own way of making sushi. Read the menu and you quickly see what that means. Alongside sashimi and classic nigiri there is a whole page of maki especiales, where Japanese fundamentals meet ingredients nobody in Japan would roll into rice: buffalo mozzarella, basil and dried tomato in the Italiano Uramaki, avocado with banana and eel sauce in the Paulista, tempura prawn with spinach and courgette under curry sauce in the Thai Uramaki. Next to it the classic line runs on undiluted — teka maki, shake maki, nigiri of eel, sea bream, butterfish and ebi. Everything is made to order, and by the house's own account the rice is cooked and seasoned fresh every day. What DAIKIYA does at the sushi bar The sushi bar has a starter list of its own, and much of what defines this house sits there. Tataki carpaccio arrives as tuna with a confit onion sauce, aburi shake as flamed salmon with garlic, lime and shichimi. There are three tartares: tuna with sesame sauce, salmon with avocado, and the tartar chef, which sets ceviche, salmon tartare and tuna tartare side by side. The ceviche itself works with white fish and langostino, lime juice, cherry tomato, onion and coriander. The nigiri list goes further than you expect: beside salmon, tuna and ebi stand ikura, masago, foie and the kanotefui with salmon, salmon roe and quail egg. Gunkan are a fixture too, with tuna, salmon, salmon roe and foie. If you would rather not choose, take one of the combinations — the sashimi no moriawase fans out a good dozen cuts, from salmon and tuna to sea bream. From the chef's more recent hand come plates that make the fusion idea plainer: a gunkan of beef tenderloin on sushi rice in a nori wrap, a tiradito of Japanese yellowtail with ponzu, a scallop ceviche, and an uramaki with tempura prawn, spicy salmon and Iberian ham. Hot kitchen beyond the sushi The hot side is not a sideline but a menu in its own right. Out of the steamer come dim sum: pouches filled with roast duck, wheat-starch dough with prawn, and siu mai, whose translucent skin holds crab and seafood. With them go gyoza with chicken and vegetables or purely vegetarian, edamame, goma wakame and a miso soup with seaweed, prawn, clam, tofu and mushroom. The nido is a house idea: langostinos turned in surimi and wrapped in rice noodles until they crisp into a nest. Among the hot plates, duck leads — breaded in teriyaki, and as pato Daikiya in a red curry sauce with coconut and lychee. Then chicken curry with basil and coconut milk, a Thai red bowl with salmon, yaki-soba, yaki-udon with prawn and beef tenderloin, and fried rice with basil. On weekday middays there is a set daily menu with a starter and a choice of a sushi combination or teriyaki duck. The sweet ending is an unusual one: deep-fried crêpe rolls with dark chocolate, and a chocolate coulant with house-made sesame ice cream. Who is behind the house DAIKIYA belongs to chef Wei Zeng and his wife Elisa. He had his own Japanese restaurant in China before the couple moved to Palma and opened the first Daikiya on Plaça Fleming. Classic sushi, special rolls of their own design and a range of house-made sauces made the small place known in the quarter, until the room no longer sufficed and a move into a larger one followed. That the two pay attention to detail shows the moment anything reaches the table: specially chosen dishware, edible flowers on the plates, and on every table small duck figurines on which the chopsticks rest between bites. The room and the location The dining room is planted and elegant, the mood lively with it. From the Avenidas the house does not stand out; you have to turn into the side street, and that is exactly what gives it its character. DAIKIYA sits in a residential quarter in the north of the city, not in the restaurant row along the harbour.