As soon as we sat to dinner at Ruka, we were presented with two soup spoons. Each contained a wobbling green paani puri sphere with a single boondi as the garnish, an amusing amuse-bouche for a fine-dining Japanese establishment from the Middle East. We were in Ruka’s second outpost located in the Ramee Guestline hotel in Juhu; the flagship is at the Ramee Grand Hotel & Spa in Bahrain.
Ruka has taken up 5,000 square feet of the Juhu hotel’s ground floor. Part of this is a bar, where a lone jellyfish (we suspect it was dead or plastic) is tethered to a rock in an empty fish tank and the staff look like members of the Blue Man Group on account of the tacky blue lighting. We dined next door in the oppressively dark, hotel lobby-resembling restaurant section, where we were the only customers and the brightest spot was another fish tank occupied by two lobsters. With no one to serve, the small army of cooks gathered in the open kitchen was experimenting with off-menu dishes, such as the baffling molecular paani puri, until we put them to work.
While Ramee Guestline is a four-star hotel, Ruka offers five-star service. It was a pleasure interacting with their sophisticated staff. They were well-versed with the menu, eager to please and quick to redress complaints. The sliced fish in our order of yellowtail sashimi (Rs1,150), which while dressed in a flawlessly tart garlic ponzu dressing, had a mildly funky taste. The manager, Naresh Bohara, offered to substitute it with a new dish and deducted it from our tab.
The menu at Ruka has to be read like an Urdu book, from the back where they list sushi to the front which features desserts. Their spicy tuna roll (Rs625) plumped with spring onion and tobiko was uncomfortably thick for a single mouthful; we had to cut it in half to eat it. It came with the pedestrian garnish of chilli miso, which was mayo-like in consistency, something that rarely elevates good tuna. The spinach, chestnut and date gyoza (Rs375) was a steamed dumpling as opposed to a potsticker and lacked crunch and flavour. The blanched spinach was saltless and mixed with too much of the sticky sweet date that overwhelmed the dumpling. Japanese cuisine’s mainstays of sushi and dumplings need work at Ruka, which surprisingly fared better with non-staples.
In between appetisers and entrees, the enthusiastic bartender who sat woefully idle in the restaurant, presented us a mocktail via a show and tell (without us asking for it). The complimentary beverage contained strawberry, lychee, chopped fruit and a lot of dry ice for dramatic effect. The finely balanced drink bode well for Ruka’s signature molecular cocktails, which we left for a second visit. Another incentive is their outstanding agedashi tofu (Rs325) comprising a silken pillow of potato starch-laced tofu in a pool of subtle shoyu dashi. Shavings of fragrant bonito flakes over the tofu deepened the flavour of the elegant preparation. Their salted, crunchy rock shrimp tempura (Rs600) was dangerously addictive as the tempura batter was light, crisp and non-oily.
As a cricket match played on hushed volume, Ruka delivered a hat-trick as the meal ender. The finale was led by the succulent and soft pork belly skewers (Rs500) with crisp skin varnished with a sweet soy glaze. Desserts are Ruka’s speciality. We got our day’s fix of Alphonso in the form of a delicious off-menu mango duet (Rs350) made up of mango sorbet and the fluffiest mango cheesecake made with minimal sugar. The green tea and banana cake (Rs350) was the most memorably moist banana cake we’ve laid a fork on. We’re indebted to the kitchen for introducing us to a flavour combination we had never considered, let alone imagined would be this good. The cake was soaked with a thick caramel-coloured green tea sauce and paired with banana flavoured ice cream, which made us wish that menus came with recipes.
Get: Agedashi tofu (Rs325); pork belly skewers (Rs500); green tea and banana cake (Rs350).
Skip: Spicy tuna roll (Rs625).
It is our policy to wait at least a week after an establishment has opened before we review it.
Prices exclude taxes.
Ruka, Ground Floor, Ramee Guestline, A. B. Nair Road, opposite Hotel Sun ‘n’ Sand, Juhu. Tel: 022 6693 5555. Open daily, from noon to midnight. Get directions here.