We’re having a tropical moment. Heat rises from our mouths to our eyeballs squeezing out tears and gasps. We’re not in Marks & Spencers anymore, Toto. My friend is used to slathering M&S wasabi like butter over her lunchtime takeaway sushi. In J2 Grill and Sushi a speck of their innocent-looking green paste is enough to bring on an early hot flush.
My cage has been rattled already tonight. In truth I haven’t been expecting much from this place. It’s a glass box on Dublin’s North Wall Quay with a wipe-clean menu printed on a graphic of wooden boards. The building is called Unit A, The Campshires (I’m as flummoxed as you). The name, J2, sounds like an obscure visa rather than a restaurant. And the marriage of barbecue and sushi feels like a kind of his ’n hers proposition. Let’s imagine the eureka moment: a marketer strokes his beard watching a couple in an airport lounge sharing a meal: hers from a sushi bar, his from a steakhouse.
But it’s nothing as soulless as that. My prejudices are firmly back in their box. The first delight is the Liffey view from a comfy bucket chair at the corner table. Being in a glass box puts you as close as a gull to the water, with just the occasional jogger passing by. A silvery sun is just setting behind clouds and as I wait for my friend, the smells from the next table are more than promising.
Meat is a small part of the menu. It’s limited to a burger and steaks. Then it’s a swim through a typical sushi menu. My sights are fixed on a paper sign on the wall advertising the live lobster sashimi special. But no. The chef shakes his head when the waitress goes to ask. Not tonight. The boss isn’t at the helm. He must be the only one trusted to serve raw lobster. But the chargrilled whole lobster is not so shabby as a consolation dish.
Before that there’s a caterpillar roll, from the special sushi selection. It’s a set of sushi rolls with the caterpillar look coming from slices of avocado carefully draped over the top of the rice. Inside are chunks of meaty brown eel. We’ve poured milky sake from a pink bottle onto ice cubes in small glass cups. It’s the perfect sip after a mouthful of sweet rice, earthy eel and fiery wasabi.
Tara gets the wakame gunkan, a nori roll stuffed with a small layer of rice, some salmon roe and topped with tumbles of lurid green noodle-like seaweed. There are two cup-sized bowls of hot, nutty miso soup. It stirs up into billowy clouds of miso paste, with tiny cubes of tofu tumbling around.
The lobster is the largest I've seen outside of a Simpsons episode. My Mr Pinchy has a freakishly large right claw, the size of my hand. The shell is porcelain thick and slippery so the cracking tool just slides off at every attempt at a grip and crush. We're gonna need a bigger boat. Eventually I send it back to the kitchen. Whacking noises ensue. We imagine an angle grinder. They've cracked it. Inside the lobster meat is great, although I'd prefer less salt in the boiling water. There's a lemon sauce that's like melted lemon bonbons. And there are chips covered in melted smoked cheese. These are good in the baddest way. But the chips are best eaten hot, as the cheese cools to rubber. The only thing I don't like is a clump of soggy fried bean sprouts and thinly-sliced vegetables resting under the lobster's chin.
Tara’s Boston roll is another lovely plate of eight perfectly executed maki rolls of rice wrapped around fresh prawn, asparagus and cucumber. There are crisply fried vegetable gyozas and slippery salted endamame beans to be popped out of their slightly furry pods for nibbles on the side. Everything is served on beautiful glazed plates so it feels more like a sit-down dinner than a hasty bite in a takeaway like other Dublin sushi experiences.
The final pleasure is the bill. It’s not bargain-basement but we’ve dined really well for a little over €35 a head.
J2 is probably aiming itself at the Googlers and AirBnBers around this part of town. With food this good it’s well worth a trip down the quays for regular old Dubliners too. Dinner for two with a small bottle of Sayuri Nigori Sake came to €73.85
THE VERDICT: 7/10 A great new neighbourhood restaurant in a great new neighbourhood Facilities: Fine Music: Nice background pop Food provenance: Fish from Wright’s of Marino, meat from FX Buckleys Vegetarian options: Good Wheelchair access: Yes
