Not too long ago, you would have been more likely to find Lord Lucan before you’d find reasonably priced, well-made sushi in the UK.

Thankfully, that sad, lonely era is passing into history, and now there are more and more places where Japanese cuisine is easy to track down without paying a small fortune.

Atari-ya, opposite Ealing Common tube station, is one such place. It rose from the ashes of Sushi Hiro, a much-praised restaurant with a reputation for excellence, and is now a new branch of the giant Japanese seafood chain.

I can cut to the chase right now and tell you that it was good. The restaurant is small but bright, tidy and welcoming. As my companion and I take our seats at around 6pm on a Thursday evening, the place is almost empty but there are ‘reserved’ cards placed on several of the tables. People want to eat here, an encouraging sign.

We are directed to the sushi bar, where we have a front row seat to watch the chefs make the sushi, which always delights me. We are each given a menu and two small portions of nibbles, a nice touch.

We both order an Asahi beer while we decide what to eat. The beer is brought to our table in ice cold tins, and not only that, but we are each given frosted glasses to ensure our drinks stay deliciously chilled. Again, this a small but lovely touch and more restaurants should be doing this sort of thing all the time.

There is comprehensive selection of sushi and sashimi, with an a la carte menu as well as set dinners combining the best selections. However much you feel like spending, there should be something to suit your tastes as well as your wallet.

I go for the nigiri sushi selection while my companion opts for the sashimi. Each dish is about £10 a pop. What I’d like to accompany my dish is some sort of side dish, and herein lies Atariya’s only identifiable flaw.

While the sushi and sashimi menu is long and luxurious, the side dishes selection, such as it is, is absurdly limited. You can have edamame beans or miso soup. That’s it.

One can hardly go to a sushi bar and complain that they don’t offer much besides sushi, but I’m still a little deflated that even low-maintenance side dish staples like Japanese pickles aren’t available. Nonetheless, I must soldier on.

Happily, my sushi was just right; well-made and fresh, with simple-but-beautiful presentation. It isn’t spectacular, but for the price I’m paying I wouldn’t expect it to be. I enjoyed it and could easily see myself eating here again. Similarly, my companion enjoys her sashimi, with special praise reserved for the freshness of the tuna.

Though there were only ten pieces of sushi on my plate, I felt well fed by the end of it, and didn’t get any hunger pangs for the rest of the evening. You could quite reasonably point out that I might not even need so many damn side dishes and shouldn’t be such a greedy pig.

I can, however, whole-heartedly give me stamp of approval to Atari-ya. This is good restaurant and another great reason to eat out in Ealing. But maybe a few more side dishes to choose from wouldn’t go amiss.