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Cheung Chau is the habitat of poets, photographers, musicians, pirates and writers - and the graveyard of restaurants.

  Over the past years, cooks have offered food from Thailand, Nepal, the United States, Italy - and all have failed. True, the quality has varied, but the prices are unvaryingly cheaper than those in town. And the community makes every effort to save the establishments.

  But to no avail. Ever so frequently, I hear about a 'fantastic' restaurant. But by the time I get out to the island, it has gone the way of the horse-and-carriage. Either the marketing, the advertising or the capital has gone.

  So when Sunday Post columnist Charles Martin mentioned a new Japanese restaurant, I vowed to get there - before it was too late.

  Sakura is worth the hour-long trip to Cheung Chau.

  Three of us - Charles and Kathy Martin and I - had seven dishes, including a huge platter of mixed sushi straight from Japan. In Hong Kong, this could have gone into the thousands. In Cheung Chau, the whole bill was $302.50 - plus the transportation fee on the ferry.

  The restaurant is tiny: five little tables, with a few seats on the side for drinking, though the licence for liquor has not yet arrived.

  In the back are the usual sushi compartments, where chef Dick Wong is busy hand-rolling sushi or placing grilled salmon inside seaweed leaves.

  While the sushi is nearly all imported, the cost is about $12 per fish. The mixed platter, all fresh with good helpings of wasabi mustard, consists of yellowtail, lean tuna, a sweet prawn, sea bream and eel. The rice was not glutinous, nor did it fall apart in the soy-and-wasabi. Quite delicious.

  But the menu is a bit confusing. Some dishes are in Anglicised Japanese, others with good translations. But waiter Wappy Chan could explain well enough.

  The hand-rolled seaweed rolls were typical, so we had two. In the cone-shaped leaves come rice, bits of pickle and, in our case, one cone of grilled salmon skin, the other of eel. Dipped in the soy and wasabi, they were excellent.

  Then came deep-fried tofu, but with a difference. The beancurd, creamy soft inside, was quickly deep-fried for a crispy exterior. On top were shavings of bonito fish, those wispy shavings which wave in the air. These, though, were fried with the beancurd, giving it that faintly fishy taste and a pleasant speckled quality.

  Most unusual was a dish simply called 'mushrooms'. These were extravagantly good. We know them as golden mushrooms, the slender creamy-golden stems with the little caps. Usually the flavour is delicately earthy, so when served plain in Japanese restaurants, they blend in with other simple foods.

  But Mr Wong has tried for originality, so here he has quickly boiled the mushrooms in a mixture of butter sauce and sake. When warm, the combination was indescribable. As they cooled down, they became a bit soggy. Eat hot!   Our waiter translated ajitsuke tsubu gai as shellfish. The result was snails out of the shell. Japanese snails, rather hard in texture, were cooked with peppers and were much spicier than anything I'd had before in Japan. An unusual taste.

  A wonderful vegetable tempura consisted of a big portion of battered carrots, eggplants, and so on. The usual. The cold noodles were nothing out of the ordinary either. But with the quail egg, soy, and chopped shallots, they made a fitting end for the meal.

  The set meals are even better value. For about $50, one can get sushi or curry set meals, with all the trimmings (soup, rice, pickles). Sakura also serves salads and other seafood of varying quality.

  The question is whether Sakura can last. Later I spoke to Andrew Wang, a businessman who opened this, his first and only restaurant six months ago. 'Not for great profits,' he said, 'but because I love Japanese food.'   Mr Wang says he enjoys variations on Japanese food, as well as traditional dishes. But he also confessed 'business is not exactly booming'.

  Without a liquor licence yet - and how much we could have done with a bottle of really hot sake on that chilly day - one can see why visitors may not go to Sakura. But for those on Cheung Chau, and metropolitan folks who love raw fish, green noodles and balanced bank accounts, Sakura is a blessing.

SAKURA JAPANESE RESTAURANT, 96 Tai San Praya Street, Cheung Chau. Tel: 2981-6877. Open: 11.30am-3pm, 6.30-11pm (closed Wednesdays) 



Japanese blessing for island dwellers