Soy Story

You do realise that having dinner at Edamame is like eating dinner in my hall,” my friend pointed out as we marched down the cobbles in Holywell Street, stumbling in the darkness.

Said friend’s hall is suitably modest as well, just to put you in the picture.

It was only 7.30pm and yet we were rushing because Edamame closes early, comparatively speaking, and diners need to be there by 8pm at the latest to get a table – last orders are 8.30pm.

Add in queueing time and you’ll understand why we were stumbling over the cobbles like Cruella de Vil on absinthe. But we fitted in perfectly. It was freshers week after all, where lurching and inebriated behaviour are de rigeur.

The early dining hours are just one of the enigmas about Edamame, because this stalwart Japanese restaurant makes up the rules as it goes along. It is closed on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, and all day Mondays and Tuesdays, which leaves Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights by my estimation and Wednesday to Sunday lunch.

Thursday night is Sushi night and lunch times feature noodles. Plus you need to have eaten and vacated Edamame by 9pm because it’s a residential street. Oh, and it also closes for a whole month over the summer.

My small brain just can’t cope with statistics like this.

It took the proprietors Peter and Mieko Galpin to actually contact me in person and persuade me to get over my information overload phobia and come for dinner. Friday night they suggested. And obediently I ventured over.

Holywell Street is perfect Sherlock Holmes territory, badly lit and cobbled – Victorian murderers would have a field day there.

Except, wait for it, a long queue of people snakes down the street near the end, just past all the bright lights. No phobias there then.

And there’s Edamame, whose reputation proceeds it. You name the publication and they’ve raved about it. The Daily Telegraph singled it out, Waitrose selected Edamame as one of its favourite UK Japanese restaurants, the Observer put it in its top five favourites and so on and so on, the list is endless.

Anyway enough about them. My turn. Battling to the front of the queue (well there’s got to be some perks, darling) we were squeezed around a tiny table by the kitchen from where we could survey the entire Edamame kingdom.

And what a fascinating place! Foreign students, freshers and families all huddled round the tiny tables on stools and chairs, totally at home, at ease and absorbed in the food continuously produced from the open-plan kitchen at the back.

It does take longer than usual to order at Edamame because you have to get your head around the menu first, by working out what it is, as well as whether you’d like to try it.

For example, the stir fried shredded burdock root, seasoned with sesame seeds in sweetened soy? The edamame soy beans in their pods? The plum wine in shot glasses? Octopus pancake balls? Where to start?

Luckily Peter masterfully took over at this point, galvanising the troops with Asahi beer served in frosted glasses and choya wine.

Edamame beans it was and the burdock root, accompanied by mixed pickled veg and cucumber sticks with miso and japanese plum sauce. Refreshing and different – a taste of what was to come.

Then a round of tiny bowls of miso soup, liquid comfort food. And more shots of plum wine. Next up was the remaining tuna and salmon sushi in cones of seaweed paper, like small ice creams, made with astonishingly fresh fish.

Then three small dishes of rice, a base for your chosen mains, which included tender squid pieces marinated in soy and ginger, the beef dish of the day (yakiniku – a stir fry of thinly sliced beef steak, marinated in garlic, spices and sesame), some baby spinach with japanese seasoning and a portion of crispy deep fried tofu chunks in sweetened soy.

And while it sounds a lot, it’s all manageable, your curiosity and the lightness and healthy aspect of the fresh, often raw food, preventing you from getting too full.

But what’s best about the whole experience is it’s novelty. There are no gimmicks here, but the food speaks for itself, and it all disappeared. If I had to pick Edamame up on anything I’d say the tofu was the only dish that raised a few disapproving eyebrows, because it was soft like curd inside with a skin of sauce, like old custard, which was slightly disconcerting. But otherwise the meal was flawless, utterly original and a great ‘experience’ and education all rolled into one.

And all for £20 a head.

And then we noticed that everyone else had vanished into the night as fast as they arrived, and so mumbling our apologies we backed out onto the cobbles, and wondered if we’d imagined the whole thing.

But that encapsulates Edamame’s charm. It’s a Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe experience. And anyway, when was the last time you dined in someone’s hall?

* Edamame is at 15 Holywell Street, Oxford, OX1 3SA.

Call 01865 246916 or go to www.edamame.co.uk