JuJu Japanese Tavern Restaurant

Recently I went out with the Nippon Student Association (NSA) Club to their end of session dinner. Which was to celebrate the end of university semester or the beginning of exams...however you want to look at it... Anyway, we went to a quite famous, well had good reviews, restaurant in Kings Cross called JuJu. It's a Japanese styled restaurant, with a great atmosphere. Although this post will mainly be about food, it's going to reveal how horrible I am at food photography. When people said don't use direct flash for food.... you would be wise to listen to that advice. I should mention that the lighting is quite bad for photography, hence I needed a flash. More yummy unsatisfactory pictures of food after the jump!!

 

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So the restaurant as I said above had a very nice atmosphere. Very warm, and had this very traditional feel to it, as it was mainly wooden. Also we had to take off our shoes before entering. Very traditional.

What we ate was their banquet, so it was about 3 entrees and 3 mains. Since the organisers thought we didn't have enough food, he increased the entrees by about 2 or so. Free of charge =D

So the first entree was Edamame (immature soy beans). They were quite ordinary, and you can't exactly change Edamame that much, so they don't warrant a picture here. More like because it was such a horrible picture I instantly deleted it.

Unfortunately, I don't know the actual names of some of the dishes, so I'll be describing them instead. Next up, was a nice tuna salad with a kick. It was flavoured with wasabi. This I thought made it quite interesting and I quite liked this salad. As you can see, the hard light from direct flash, sort of destroys the image. I still need to think of a reliable way to produce some softer light.

 

With the salad finished, we got served a platter of sashimi. It was good such that it wasn't bad. This image originally had a very bad flash angle on it, and half the picture was in darkness. I had to epically crop this just to get it somewhat presentable...

 

When you think Japanese food, you think sushi or sashimi. Since we had sashimi, out came the sushi. The rice was well cooked in my opinion, and there was nothing bad nor extraordinary about this dish. Doesn't warrant a picture.

The takoyaki which came out afterwards, was very nice. It has the soft insides with the pieces of octopus, which gave it texture. Also the outside was done just right, for it to not fall apart.

So many entrees. Gyoza, which are Japanese dumplings appeared out of nowhere. And were devoured instantly as well. I tried a few different angles with the Gyoza, trying to apply some food photography knowledge I picked up from Simon Park.

 

Finally!! Mains!! First up, Negimiso Salmon. Grilled salmon with special miso sauce, as described to them. The salmon was salted with the miso sauce being slightly sweet. This gave it quite a nice contrast. There are some flaws, such that I think it is too salty and slightly dry. But for the taste it, it was awesome and I recommend trying it! Photography-wise, I finally got out of my mind-blank and bounced the flash off the ceiling. As you can see, a much nicer lighting, although not perfect. Mayb I need to bring a diffuser or something next time.

Second main course was Yakitori and Tsukune. For those who don't know, its skewered grill chicken, and skewered minced chicken balls shaped into balls. The tsukune unfortunately, was quite disappointing. It was dry and tasted like something random just pressed together. On the other hand, I found the yakitori much nicer. It was moist due to the sauce, which was very nice. The chicken was tender. Just beautiful. I would have rathered the whole dish being yakitori.

 

And like the finale of some performance, we ended with the homely Sukiyaki. This is a japanese styled hot-pot, which is great for table conversations, and just bonding in general. It was a hotpot with beef stock, filled with tofu, beef and vegetables. They also, had some udon on the side for you to throw in afterwards.

And that is it in terms of food. What I got out of this more intense food photography experience was that hard light really fails for food. It really does make it quite bad. Before I go to a place for a degustation in a months time, I really need to do more practice so I can live up to the awesome food I will be eating.

Until next time! Happy shooting!