I met mel in The Crown pub on friday (work drink thang) which was heaving and not particularly enjoyable. We were also not in the mood to deal with Piccadilly circus and surrounding environment at that time so we hot footed it back up north to our patch. I had spied a Korean/Japanese place a few days earlier near Finsbury Park station and knowing that mel loves sushi we decided to give it a go. Research told me that Dotori had been open since the summer and seemed to be doing quite well for itself thank you very much despite its slightly dodgy location in Finsbury Park. On entering it looked busy and we overhead the one and only waitress say that people were having to share tables. I had already clocked a couple of "bar" seats by the street window so we asked for those. Drinks and menus came quickly enough and the choice looked good. The place was clearly crying out for more wait staff even tho it seemed like there was a random guy who came of the kitchen to serve food and take orders. Anyhoo we placed our orders and waited. I plumped for the variety of dumplings as a starter and Mel ordered the Agedashi tofu which is cubes of tofu fried in dashi (broth). Both very good, no complaints. Mel commented on that even tho fried tofu was a simple dish very often a lot of people do it wrong. In this case tho it was all good. Next up was the salmon, eel and tuna nigiri for mel and I ordered strips of beef served with soba noodles and vegetables. Red wine was also orderd which came slightly chilled. Mel's nigiri came fairly quickly and was quickly gobbled. Mel reckoned it was pretty fresh. I tried a piece and had to agree. No complaints there. However, I was still waiting for my strips of beef. And I waited and I waited. Mel had also ordered a spider crab roll which came and went while my strips of beef still eluded me. Okay enough was enough. I turned around and gave the struggling waitress one of my most pissed off looks and within seconds she produced another plate of on the house dumplings to apologise for the wait for the beef. The chef had clearly forgotton about it and they apologised. Fair enough. It arrived fairly soon after but I was pretty full after scoffing the extra dumplings so perhaps I didnt enjoy it as much as I could have. Despite the slow service we enjoyed the food and the experience and would definately try it again. The bill came to £43 which is pretty decent considering we had a beer and 2 glasses of wine each. Check it out!
Dotori Stroud Green Road Finsbury Park London, N4 2DF
