Sushi aficionados will rejoice, interior decor enthusiasts, perhaps not. Maraia Fusion has been open for about half a year and is the sister restaurant to the more-than-a-decade-old Maraia in Lozenets. While the founding restaurant offers European food in a conservatively themed setting, the new venture aspires towards a stylish ambience, with Japanese dominance. They both tend to draw questionably expensive cars after nightfall.

Maraia Fusion’s decor, an eclectic-trendy, attempts to integrate a number of contemporary decorative elements all in one, choosing an ornamental wall with cut-out flower patterns as its focus. Accompanying it are a faux grass surface behind the stone bar, multi-hued lightboxes in the ceiling of the non-smoking room, cascading, sculptural crystal lighting throughout, and white and black furniture, resulting in what some may find slightly confused aesthetics. Although the bathroom is cohesively nice, as is, too, the garden seating.

The menu, while called fusion, it is not exactly that, as fusion means two different cuisines, intertwined in one dish, for example, Los Angeles’ Asia de Cuba restaurant offers an Asian fried rice with Cuban additions of plantains (starchy bananas) and avocados, all mixed together, creating a delectable outcome. Maraia Fusion instead has two separate menus, one Japanese, created by sushi master Hirotaka Machida, and another of Western gourmet offerings.

Thus, it is in fact, more like two good restaurants in one establishment, which does essentially adhere to their cuisine explanation, of "giving you a different Maraia experience every time".

A friend and I visited the immense restaurant, capable of seating 120 inside and 40 outside, on a blossoming Friday evening. We chose the non-smoking wing at the back, and took to the task of navigating the extensive menus. Maraia Fusion presents itself with three bilingual ones, one with all kinds of sushi, a much greater selection than neighbouring Tambuktu, another menu of Western cuisine, and the third for wines, cocktails and beverages.

The dish selection is good, with appealing options like prawns and calamari on arugula salad with chili, tomatoes and Parmesan, or a herb-crusted chicken fillet, with button and porcini mushroom ratatouille. Prices range between five and 11 leva for salads, appetisers are three to 15 leva, and entrees average 10 to 30 leva. The Japanese menu, consisting of various sushi made with tuna, sweet prawns, salmon, snapper, mussels, halibut, eel, butterfish, scallops, octopus, cuttlefish, mackerel and tilapia as the main fish ingredients, is priced between five and 46 leva, with most sushi items being about eight.

Our attentive waiter took our order of spicy tuna sushi, avocado sushi, Nameko-Shiru, a miso soup with mushrooms, tofu and seaweed, and a duck fillet with wild berries and baby potatoes. Yet after he left I realised that the waiter had not asked how I wanted the meat done, nor in what order we wanted the dishes served. Anyway the flavourful miso soup arrived first, followed by the sushi and its condiments; we consumed everything with delight, as it was fresh, and tasted and looked just as sushi should.

Once the table was cleared, the duck entree was presented on a large white platter with the fillet sliced and showing its pinkish medium-rare centre (just as I would have liked it had I been asked) and sprinkled with berry sauce. I enjoyed the meat for its succulent texture and flavourful sauce; furthermore, I am not a shy eater, I eat a lot, but I only managed half of the dish and asked for the remainder to be packaged to go, for the babysitter (my husband), who had previously named the duck as stellar.

Oddly, while we dined, and listened to pop hits, cleaning personnel appeared and mopped the tile floor around us, though no spill had occurred. Well, at least I did not detect a scent of detergent or bleach.

For our closing treat we chose a chocolate souffle from the dessert showcase, which was presented with a stiff caramel abstract shape, mostly inedible, and the souffle itself was not chocolaty enough, more cake-like.

Overlooking the style elements, Maraia Fusion offers good varied food, and with the extensive Japanese menu, it makes a fine choice for the sushi buff and novice alike.

Info
Address: 123 Rakovski Str, Sofia
Tel: 02/ 980 62 60
Open: 8 am to 2 am every day
www.BarMaraia.com
Credit cards: yes