Teri-Aki, Cambridge; 16 Feb 13

Sometimes you paint yourself into a corner. You’ve maybe taken a principled position or you’ve made an unfortunate resolution or you’ve simple been a victim of circumstance. Whatever’s happened it’s usually pride that stops you getting out. That and the absence of a good ladder of course.

And so it was for me and the wife at Teri-Aki in Cambridge. It must be a good 3 years ago and I suspect that it coincided with the introduction of the self-ordering system but we grumbled once too often and we were banned!

That’s a pity because the food was good even though the service sometimes left a little to be desired. And the restaurant itself of course is in a great location and easy to get too. I guess the self-ordering system was introduced to address some of the service issues but for me that’s addressing the symptoms not the causes of the problem because it deskills the job of the waiter which is not what you want to do.

Anyway we met the lady who banned us and got chatting. Very relaxed and cordial and of course she asked if we ever went to her restaurant. ‘No’ I said ‘you’ve banned us!’.

However the lady in question, Ursula Corcoran, is Irish and hardly likely to harbour a grudge if it gets in the way of good food and drink so the ban was swiftly rescinded and yesterday we returned to Teri-Yaki for lunch. And very pleasant it was too.

Teri-Yaki is basically a Japanese restaurant, it calls itself a sushi restaurant and bar, and majors in sushi and sashimi with an extensive menu featuring other Japanese dishes: tempura, noodles and other rice dishes. It’s an extensive menu printed on the paper place maps and alongside each dish is a number and that’s what you use with which to order. Yes the self-ordering system is still in place.

We had sashimi (that was for me) and maki, tempura prawns (with and without wasabi) and tofu (for the wife; I cannot understand why anyone would want to eat tofu). All fine and fresh and brought swiftly to the table.

There’s a decent selection of wines, I had a glass of McClaren Vale chardonnay, Kirin beer (which reminds me there used to be a sumo wrestler called Daikirin whom I reckoned was a Welshman sponsored by Mitsubishi which used to own Kirin) and sake plus most other drinks you might fancy.

It wasn’t cheap but I’d call it good value. Clean, good enough service and fresh food. Can’t complain too much. And we got effusive attention from Ursula who blamed our earlier problem on my being a virgo. Whatever: now we are unbanned and it’s good to have the freedom to go there again. There are other Japanese restaurants in Cambridge but Teri-Aki is just in the right place.