I try the top rated Japanese restaurant Bonzai in Leicester

Feeling adventurous, I had a look on the Deliveroo app to see which Japanese restaurants in Leicester city center were popular. There was one, Bonzai on Hotel Street, which had a great score and lots of delicious food.

Located in what used to be Le Petit Four across the street from the Market Street McDonald’s, it’s a place I’ve passed many times, but with the blinds down and the doors usually closed, it’s never felt so welcoming.

It didn’t seem like the kind of place that would get 4.8 stars, beating out both Yo! Sushi and Wagamama on the Deliveroo rating system. There were a lot of great things to choose from and I chose gyoza dumplings, some octopus balls and a main dish of duck teppanyaki fried noodles.

READ MORE: Chinese restaurant review: I try a feast of fiery flavors

Obviously, a big part of Japanese food is the presentation, but even when it arrives at my house in plastic containers, everything looks great. Dumplings, served with sesame sauce, were the first thing I tried, sitting in the sun trying to remember how to use chopsticks before remembering I never could.

The great thing about dumplings is that you can stab them. Poke them with a stick, dip them in the sauce and then eat.

I don’t know what Japanese dumplings mean, but they are among the most satisfying things to eat in the world. The insides were meaty and delicious and had been finished under a grill to give them a very lightly charred taste which added a whole other dimension.

Next came the takoyaki dough balls, which were covered in a small amount of sauce that gave a strong flavor, contrasting with the soft, almost milky dough. Inside were diced pieces of octopus, which would have looked like nasty pieces of cartilage if I hadn’t expected them.

I didn’t really like them to begin with, I’ve never had them before. But after I got used to the strange collisions of very different tastes, they were really satisfying – although not as easy to poke with a stick as the dumplings had been.

Next comes the massive main course – a large tub full of udon noodles in teriyaki sauce with large pieces of fried duck. Because duck costs so much in supermarkets, it’s a meat I hardly ever eat, but I can’t get enough of it.

It would take some concentration to ever screw up a duck dish, and this was a great one. Switching from chopsticks to a fork, I shoveled it in – the meat, the fat noodles and wafers that made my chin drool, all the bean sprouts, as well as the egg and cabbage.

Inevitably, it reached a point where all the duck was gone, and it quickly declined from being an amazing dish to just being a pretty dish. But luckily I had another treatment.

For a quite reasonable £2.99 I had also ordered a cup of freshly squeezed mango juice. It was sweet, cold and thick – but not too full of chunks of mango pulp to prevent it from climbing the straw. It was like a fresh and delicious dessert at the end of a great meal.

Verdict

Bonzai, which has a sister restaurant in Nottingham, serves great Japanese food, including lots of sushi as well as cooked dishes, and it all feels very authentic. Not that I’ve ever been to Japan, so I can’t say that for sure. But it sure tastes like it’s probably very authentic. 5/5.