Junmai sake with cheung fun, asparagus and shiitake mushrooms

It’s partly because not enough restaurants offer the option but I don’t drink sake often enough in Asian restaurants. (And yes, I know Asian is an imprecise term but that’s how many describe the food they offer)

Anyway proof, yet again that it is a reliable pairing at dinner last week at Wokyko Kauto in Bristol where I drank an Evening Sky junmai sake with a range of dishes including a brilliantly clever vegan dish of roasted cheung fun (rice noodle roll), apsaragus, shiitake mushrooms and Sichuan jus that had all the depth of flavour of a meat dish.

It also worked with an intensely flavoured onglet steak in black bean sauce (as surprisingly, did the tail end of a gin and tonic, made with their own Woky gin which has been developed for them by the local Psychopomp distillery and which is flavoured with nashi pear).

And - although you hardly needed a liquid accompaniment - with a moreish bowl of Korean fried chicken ramen with a deeply flavoured umami broth which is apparently made with serrano ham bones.

I’d like to try one of the other sakes when I go back (and it is a question of when rather than if. I definitely need that tang (umami broth) fix!)

I ate at Wokyko Kauto as a guest of the restaurant

Soft shell crab tempura maki and ‘Misty Mountain’ sake

I don’t that often order sake in a restaurant but when I do I wonder why I don’t drink it more often.

It was the perfect match for the modern Japanese ‘tapas’ I had at Kurobuta near Marble Arch the other day, especially with these fabulous soft shell crab tempura maki with kimchee mayo, a dish I’m already yearning to eat again.

It was also great with a really original ‘tuna sashimi pizza’ which had a crisp flatbread-ish base and with a dish of sticky miso grilled aubergine. Sake deals particularly well with sweetness in savoury dishes.

Needless to say I forgot to write the sake down, assuming they would have a drinks list on the website which they don't but the hugely helpful Aussie waitress I got on the phone told me it was ‘Misty Mountain’, a cloudy partially pasteurised Junmai sake you can also buy here. Apparently it also goes with blue cheese.

Kurobuta is a great place for a light lunch if you’re up the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street. They also have a restaurant on the King’s Road.