(Cityweekend)
Updated: 2007-05-24 09:30

A colossal five meter barrel reigns over the entryway to Molika Japanese Restaurant, but it's just a tiny hut serving up budget lunches (RMB25-35) featuring sushi and grilled meats.

Dining at a cheap Japanese restaurant with a Chinglish problem usually starts with laughter (upon reading the menu) and ends in laduzi. Luckily for Molika, everything from the waitstaff to the décor is so cute that we happily waded through the extensive menu with our waitress and ordered away.

The California rolls (RMB55) actually came with avocado and were rolled liberally with roe. The scarily named green caterpillar sushi (RMB48) was a delicious combo of eel rolled in rice and topped with a thin petal of cucumber. The least impressive part of the meal was the assorted sushi set meal (RMB35) where we were assaulted by wasabi; however, the buckwheat noodles paired with it were quite good. The best part was that, after the meal, our wallets and our stomachs were both full.

A solid lunch and dinner place for those who work in the area, Mollika is small, but long on homespun charm.

Molika

Address:1/F, CITS attached building, 1 Dongdan Beidajie
next to the Peninsula
Tel: 010-6523-6744