I must have done something good in a former life to find myself in a corner seat of the new Karma restaurant in West Shore Plaza on West Bay Road, savouring some much missed tastes of Asia.

Seated under a stone Buddha relief, my dining companion and I scanned the Tiffany blue menu and quickly ordered some edamame while we decided which other dishes to get. You can get the soy bean pods salty or spicy and we opted for the more unusual hotter version.

Having both lived in Asia for many years, we were looking forward to dining on some old favourites. We’d heard Karma was an “Asian fusion” restaurant, so we were a little apprehensive.

Many restaurants that describe themselves as “fusion” often offer up a confused mess of chilis, sauces, and toss a few bean sprouts in a dish or add spring rolls to the menu to make it “Asian”, but at Karma, each item you order is distinctly Japanese, or Thai, or Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese.

With the menu listing dozens of great sounding things we wanted to try, we decided to ask manager Morris Wilkes to choose some dishes for us, so we could get a good idea of the different flavours on offer and also so we wouldn’t sit there arguing all night about what we were going to order.

He sent out satay chicken with a sweet, peanut sauce which were tasty, but really just stoked our appetite.

Next some rather excellent Japanese dishes arrived. The salmon nigiri just melted in the mouth and was very fresh, while the dragon rolls, made with tempura yam, avocado, salmon and mango, were generous in size and packed a flavoursome punch. The dragon rolls also came with a nice touch – the Chinese character for “karma” in wasabi paste on the side of the plate.

Then our waiter brought us bacon-wrapped scallops on a bed of pureed onion sauce. The crispy, crunchy bacon was a perfect contrast in texture and flavour to the softer scallop inside, and we wanted to lick the onion sauce off the plate. If we’d had a spoon, we probably would have finished the sauce, but we couldn’t quite manage to round up every last ounce of it with our chopsticks.

For those who are not adept at using chopsticks, staff offer knives and forks, but where’s the fun in eating Chinese or Japanese food with a fork?

I accompanied my meal with a crisp, yet fruity Cono Sur Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. The 33 miners had been rescued from the mine in Chile that day and I felt I should toast their escape with a glass of wine from their country. My companion tried a Lychee Pom Pom martini from the extensive cocktail menu, made with pomegranate and lychee flavours.

For our entree, we shared a black cod dish, which came with Chinese greens, green beans and Korean kimchi fried rice. First, we tasted each item individually and found the flavours of the rice and vegetables very distinctive and a bit overpowering on their own and raised eyebrows at each other across the table. This one we weren’t sure about. And then I put some rice, vegetables and fish together on my fork and the flavours blended in a perfect mouthful of food. The spice of the rice, the slight oiliness of the strongly flavoured greens and the firm, meaty and tender white fish were ideal together.

Manager Wilkes comes to Karma from the high-end Japanese restaurant Bamboo, and judging by how packed the restaurant was on a recent Wednesday night when we had dinner, many of his former clientele have come to check out his new place.

“I wanted to do an art deco restaurant and I wanted cuisine that was not just Japanese but something that encompassed Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese and not only offered just sushi, but also entrees. That’s what I thought the Island was missing in its Asian restaurants,” he said.

The restaurant opened with a soft launch on 24 September and had its grand opening on 1 October and has been drawing large crowds ever since.

The decor is a combination of art deco fixtures, dark, comfortable seating, and soft lighting with an Asian twist. As well as Buddhist wall hangings and Chinese calligraphy, paintings by local artist Mikael Seffer adorn the walls.

There is also a chilled-out outdoor area with large sofas for those want to smoke and just relax with a cocktail and glass of wine.

The restaurant is open from 11.30am to 2.30pm for lunch and from 5pm to 10pm for dinner. From Monday to Friday, the bar stays open until 1am with a resident DJ playing Top 40 tunes after the dining finishes. On Saturday, it closes at midnight, with “Buddha lounge” sounds playing after dinner. Karma is closed on Sunday.   WH

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