Bangkokians are spoilt for choice when it comes to all-you-can-eat Japanese buffets but newly-opened Nama sets itself apart with freshness, variety and ambience.
On the 24 floor of Centara Grand at CentralWorld where the Chinese restaurant Dynasty was once housed, Nama offers two tiers of all-you-can-eat deals — either a grey note or two grey notes — and guests can stuff themselves silly on 250 items on offer within two hours.
The restaurant, which can seat more than 200 people, offers a vibrant vibe where guests can walk around and check out five food stations in addition to ordering a la carte items via QR code from their tables. Each station is dedicated to a speciality namely sashimi, tempura, teppanyaki, seafood with DIY don and salad and desserts.
Before helping yourself to plenty of pre-made food at these stations, your meal starts with a waiter asking which one of the four exclusive dishes you would like. Whatever tier you pay for, your choices are Miyaki oysters, Sous vide beef tongue with foie gras, Maguro sushi set and Foie gras sushi set and you can choose one per visit. A special mention has to be made for the imported oysters as they come in as a sizeable set of three and each is topped differently with caviar and tobiko, sea urchin and ikura and, of course, served with seafood dipping.
A QR scan will send you to the online à la carte menu on your phone, which is broken down into various categories from sushi, sashimi (aburi included), handroll sushis, spicy salads, nabe pots, teppanyaki, skewers, steaks and more. You'll also spot some "deep-cut" dishes such as Awabi miso aburi sushi (torched abalone), Unagi chazuke (eel on rice with tea broth), Wagyu grilled on hoba leaf, Kani miso cooked on lava stone stoves and a grand sashimi set (worthy of IG shots), but, of course, you have to pay for the higher tier to get the uninhibited access to the full repertoire of Nama.
Those who love wagyu may salivate to learn that there are many wagyu wonders to savour — aside from the beef tongue mentioned above — such as Wagyu sushi (big beef blanket completely covering rice lump), Wagyu roll topped with cured yolk, Wagyu handroll sushi topped with foie gras and Wagyu teppanyaki steak.
Put in your order before you check out the five stations for a few things to warm up your appetite with. The line at the seafood on ice and DIY don station may be long but it'll be worth queuing up for especially if you want to make your own seafood don topped with scallops, ikura and salmon as much as you want.
Lovers of fish roe (guilty!) should be very pleased to know that you can help yourself to ikura (salmon roe) as much as you want on top of ordering à la carte sushis featuring tobiko (flying fish roe) and mentaiko (pollock roe).
Even if you're not big on desserts, save some room for them. The raindrop cake can be a refreshing end to your big meal or get a skewer of dango if you would like a savoury finish.
The first Nama lives up to its name, which means freshness in Japanese, and that shouldn't come as a surprise given that the team behind Nama, The Food Selection Group, has 50 branches of Shinkanzen Sushi and Shinkanzen Omakase across Thailand.
