Restaurant Matsuzaka is one of those places in Tsim Sha Tsui East that have long passed their use-by dates. With telephone numbers scrawled on peeling wallpaper, scuffed carpet, kicked-in doors and mouldy skirting boards, this is not the sort of place you would recommend to tourists staying at the handful of biggish hotels in the area.
Still, foreigners are probably their target customers, judging by the paper place-mats that include instructions and diagrams showing chopstick neophytes how to get a grip on things. Like sushi, which by their shape and size, we reckoned, would be the perfect food on which to practise one's technique. If only the crockery was of the sort that is as appealing covered with food as it is picked clean. Our orders of hosomaki sushi filled with natto (fermented soybean) and ume shisso (mashed sour plum with slivers of the exquisite leaf of the beefsteak plant) arrived on a plate so plainly ugly it made a mockery of the saying that Japanese cuisine should be eaten with the eyes. But at least the sushi was palatable, the rice moist, the plum tangy and the natto fortifying.
As was the grilled eel, which, together with a hearty miso soup, made up the $80 set meal. Melt-in-your-mouth soft, the flesh was gone in a flash, leaving a mound of rice sitting forlornly in its deep plastic container. This was helped down by the soup, served piping hot, and as usual with cubes of tofu and strips of seaweed.
Less satisfying was the fried bean curd (agedashidofu), which, although topped liberally with writhing bonito flakes and radish, was much too oily, the yellow batter cloyingly heavy.
Also disappointing was the side dish of grilled gingko nuts. Tasting faintly of chestnuts, the fruit (technically it's not a nut though it does come in a shell) had probably been cooked a minute or two longer than necessary, resulting in shrivelled, dry 'nuts' that were near impossible to prise off their skewers.
Though the menu was uninspired and the surroundings shabby, the service was as good as any you could hope to find in Tsim Sha Tsui. Waiters were courteous and attentive (there seemed to be more staff than diners at one point), a big plus when you consider the tourist traffic in the area. Should they ever want to attract Japanese guests staying at the nearby Hotel Nikko, however, they'll need to do more than offer a decent meal. First they should consider scrubbing the walls and replacing the carpet. Then they might think about how to keep customers from putting the boot in.
