The Tataki of Tuna at Sushi Nami in Dartmouth had a rather busy presentation but the Tuna itself was excellent and worth a 5 out of 5 Rating.
As I mentioned in my recent post on the Beef Tataki at Sushi Nami Royale, a Tataki involves searing meat or fish at high temperature leaving it ultra-rare at the center, and then slicing it for service. After having tried the Beef, which was excellent, I also tried the Tuna version, which turned not to be grilled in the traditional manner, but was every bit as good.
Here you can see the full plate of the Tuna Tataki in its full length. I wasn’t really overwhelmed by the visual presentation here, and the long plates here were not something I would have chosen myself. The roughly chopped lettuce used as a bed was also a bit unsubtle and clumsy and didn’t do justice to what would otherwise be a pretty elegant dish.
The tuna pieces themselves were topped by what appeared on the menu as Japanese Salsa, which essentially consisted of chopped tomato, cucumber and onion in a light, and unmemorable, dressing. The menu did not describe the dipping sauce on the side, and my notes fail me on that point, but I recall it as being a Ponzu style preparation. Personally, I would have been happy with just a little dish of plain Soy Sauce instead.
As for the Tuna? Well… this really was excellent. The menu described this as being ‘lightly breaded and slightly deep-fried’, which, aside being an odd choice of words for the cooking process, rather begs the question as to whether this dish is in fact a Tataki or not. Still, I am not going to quibble over this point.
I didn’t really get the sense of any breading here, rather the tuna appeared to have been quite tightly rolled in a sheet of Nori and then coated with a very thin batter before deep-frying. Whatever the process, the slices had a terrific slight crunch that contrasted well with the tender, very flavorful, and expertly cooked rare center. I didn’t think the presentation up to much here, but the rest of the execution gets top marks.