Combining the careful precision of traditional Japanese cooking with the vibrant spirit of Peruvian food, Nikkei cuisine is the result that can elevate both.
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The best expression of this in Canberra is found on Bunda Street, tucked under a shopping centre car park. Good things tend to show up in apparently incongruous places.
And it's usually incongruous combinations that achieve good things. If the Rorschach ink-blot association test happens to look like a map of Japan, I doubt my first move would be to think of Peru.
But the countries share an ocean - sure, with some other countries and 15,500 or so kilometres to separate them - and more than a century of Japanese migration. There is a reason the language of food is one of borrowings and loan words: techniques and tastes enriching the vocabulary.
Sitting in Inka one night this month, I had plenty of time to think about all this in the 26.5 minutes my partner left me waiting. I break out in a rash at the thought of being late, she's much more laissez-faire about matters temporal - and is no doubt happier for it.
Luckily, Inka serves a properly excellent pisco sour ($22), refreshing without launching a boozy assault on your mouth. Both Chile and Peru claim pisco, a spirit made from fermented grape juice, as their national drink. But the pisco sour was first mixed in Peru - by an American.
This I sipped feigning an air of mystery in the moodily illuminated dining room, so as to prevent nearby diners from thinking the most obvious thought: the man who came in wearing a bright red puffer jacket had been stood up for crimes against fashion.
Not so at all. Soon both parties were seated and ready for Inka's $98-a-head tasting menu: nine dishes, including dessert, two people minimum. An a la carte menu offers more selections, but the two tasting menus offer a strong indication of the strongest options.
Normally, I don't know why we bother with edamame, the green soybeans, salted and cooked in the pod. They seem to be just a thing to keep one's hands occupied while waiting for the real food to appear. Inka's take adds chilli garlic miso and a healthy accompanying level of zing. These are more than edible fidget toys.
The starters are rounded out with Ahuaca-molli: plantain chips served with guacamole. The chips are wonderfully moreish; keeping them in finite supply is probably wise. The guacamole leans a little on the plain side.
Next up - and the food does more promptly, or is this catching up for the lost 26.5 minutes? - is a selection of six pieces of sashimi, arranged on a bowl of ice with the usual trimmings. Sometimes sashimi can taste like perfection: a food so good that not even cooking could improve it. The selection here didn't quite reach that level, but the fish was undeniably fresh and well prepared.
By this stage, if raw fish troubles you, you have come to the wrong place. Ceviche with kingfish is a faithful spin on the Peruvian dish granted global heritage status. The spiced marinade packs some heat, but the mixture of textures - it is served with sweet potato flakes and crispy corn - delivers a dish far more balanced than its appearance would suggest.
A tuna tostada was my highlight of the meal. Fresco cream mixed with ponzu, a citrus sauce from the Japanese side of the Nikkei equation, and the fish combined to make two bites of serious enjoyment. A simple dish, really, that demonstrated most clearly to me the success of the Japan-Peru combination.
For the main, as our waiter calls it, chicken and potatoes, with salad. The chicken - Tori Muneniku - was a spiced breast served with a mushroom paste and Aji Panca, Peruvian red chilli that adds flavour rather than heat. The small chicken breasts were tender and packed with surrounding flavours. This point of the meal was defined by South American verve.
The small potato pieces were crispy right into deep incisions, and the Peruvian yellow pepper sauce avoided the trap of becoming overbearing. The portions were contained - the right size, actually - but still felt hearty and filling.
The meal ended by returning to Japanese precision with a matcha cheese cake. The petite rectangle of souffle sponge is served with a miniature scoop of the most wonderful mandarin sorbet. The cake springs with resistance against our spoons, each resulting bite like a dense little puff. I could have eaten a much larger piece, but I'm thankful the discipline of Nikkei's Japanese influence prevented this temptation. All the better to savour it that way.
Less than 90 minutes after it all began, it's done. Service at Inka is nothing if not efficient. The tasting menu seems to be a preferred choice: I spy quite a few matcha cheesecakes being delivered to tables whose diners had forgotten their dessert course was due. It is always a wonderful realisation your set menu has one more surprise.
Inka is a great testament to the adaptability of food, its ability to tell a grand story about humanity's interlinked history, and indeed what it means to cook in a globalised society. With a great interior, a well-appointed drinks list and dishes you will actually want to try again, Inka offers more than an academic exercise.
It offers a taste of what is possible when cultures are brought together, rather than driven apart.
Inka
Address: 148 Bunda Street, City
Phone: 5155 0777
Website: inka.com.au
Hours: Monday, 5.30-10.30pm; Tuesday to Thursday, 11.30am-2.30pm, 5.30-10.30pm; Friday to Saturday, 11.30am-2.30pm, 5.30-11pm; Sunday, 11.30am-2.30pm, 5.30-10.30pm.
Chef: Michael Muir
Noise: No problem
Dietary: Plenty of options