The Travel Critic

It came to my attention—because everything comes to my attention, particularly if it relates to food or travel or the steady erosion of my sanity—that in the ritualistic nightly conversation of “Where shall we go for dinner?”, there exists a subtle, psychological warfare between myself and the current Mrs Travel Critic (aka my long-suffering wife of almost 10 years, who, in that decade of endurance sport we call marriage, has never once failed to roll her eyes when I introduce her as “current”).

Now, you should know this: I eat a lot of Japanese food. Possibly too much. My blood type is basically soy at this point. And I suspect this stems from two deeply ingrained facts:

I was raised in an unusually international household, the kind where holidays didn’t mean a caravan in Clacton but three weeks on a rice paddy in Thailand. While my peers at school were tucking into sausage, beans and chips with the kind of nationalistic pride only British children can muster, I was scoffing chicken satay and something called Nasi Goreng before I could pronounce it properly.

But above all else, it was Teriyaki that stole my little globetrotting heart. I’d have bathed in it, if my mother had let me. Even now, left unsupervised in a kitchen, I’m liable to drown anything in soy sauce. Beans on toast? Splash. Scrambled eggs? Glug. Bowl of cereal? Well, I’m not an animal—but never say never.

My wife, meanwhile, is scared of rice.

Not averse to. Not not keen on.

Scared.

Like it’s a swarming pit of maggots that just happens to accompany her husband’s favourite cuisine. She will tolerate the stuff, provided it stays a safe five-foot radius from her nostrils. If she catches even a whiff of steamed jasmine wafting through the hotel suite, she gags like someone’s slipped a dead rat under the pillow.

Now I know what you’re thinking. She needs therapy.

And yes. But let me be crystal clear—she is, by far, the sane one in this relationship. I’m the one who built a career reviewing £400-a-night hotels while gleefully eating fried chicken on the bathroom floor at 2 a.m. She’s the one who remembers to pack paracetamol. If we start digging into her trauma, my therapist bills would rival the GDP of a small African nation.

So naturally, when I suggest sushi for dinner, it’s usually met with the sort of expression reserved for people who ask if they can bring their pet tarantula to lunch. But when you’re on holiday—and thus required to eat out every evening like some kind of expat Roman emperor—the tyranny of choice eventually throws you a bone. Or a wing. And that’s how Gohan made it past the judging panel.

Now, Gohan markets itself as an “upscale dining venue and bar featuring fresh and traditional Japanese cuisine”—which is both accurate and refreshingly free of the usual marketing guff about “culinary journeys” or “flavour symphonies.” Japanese restaurants do tend to nail that sleek, quietly sexy vibe—clean lines, low lighting, a touch of Tokyo neon—and this one manages to pull it off without feeling like a Nobu tribute act. Plus, you’re by the beach, so it’s Tokyo-meets-Tulum, which is frankly genius.

Service? Flawless. It’s the UAE, after all, where even the guy handing you a toothpick does so like he’s presenting the Crown Jewels. Not overbearing, not absent, just effortlessly professional. Like if Jeeves did sushi.

I kicked things off with the sticky chicken wings, which were exactly that: sticky in the way that tells you you’ll be licking your fingers like a toddler with a choc ice. They came with one of those chilled hand towels, which is always code for: “This meal will end up on your shirt.” And it did. I wore soy like cologne for the rest of the evening.

The current Mrs went with a calamari salad, which crucially contained no rice and therefore required no psychological debriefing. She declared it fresh, zingy, and “not terrifying,” which is her equivalent of five stars.

For mains: Salmon maki for me. Drenched in soy to the point that any trace of the salmon’s original provenance was lost to a briny, umami heaven. Would I let her near it? Absolutely not. Would she want to? Only if she could de-soy and de-rice it, which would leave… nothing. She had some sort of teriyaki chicken, which she picked at in a way that suggests she enjoyed it but didn’t want to encourage me to suggest another Japanese restaurant tomorrow. Classic tactic.

Dessert was sorbet and fresh fruit—a sensible, palate-cleansing affair that rounded off the meal like a cold shower after a sweaty summer night. You could almost pretend you were being healthy, if you ignored the gallon of sodium I’d ingested.

All in all? A cracking evening. The setting was chic without being try-hard, the staff were slick, and the food was joyous (if you’re not scared of rice). I’d absolutely return—ideally solo, with a soy-based cocktail in one hand, a maki roll in the other, and no rice trauma within a 10-foot radius.

Four stars. One for the food. One for the vibe. One for the service. And one for the miracle that my wife agreed to go at all.