A “generalist” Japanese restaurant in Shinjuku, Tokyo (5 minutes from the metro station).
This restaurant offers a large choice of various kinds of dishes and the quality is, overall, extremely good, although each of the dishes is not particularly substantial. We had some beef (480 yen):
which was tasty and tender; I’m not exactly sure what the sauce in the middle is, probably made from some kind of radish. The sashimi plate we chose (980 yen) had some tuna, salmon, scallops, (half-cooked) shrimps and another kind of fish (not exactly sure). Next to it is a small dish of cucumbers (380 yen):
The sashimi was clearly of very good quality. The cucumbers were very simply dressed with just a bit of sesame oil (and seeds), very nice and simple.We also got some of their seashells (I can’t really tell any more specific name for these, 480 yen), I don’t think I ever ate those and they were pretty good, though not that far away, in taste, from mussels:
The tempura (680 yen) with crab, and some vegetables (mushrooms and, I guess, spinach):
were, I found, surprisingly light: even though this kind of deep-fried dish can be oily and heavy, these were at the same time tasty, “airy” (no heavy oil taste), and still crispy.Last but not least, we got some sesame ice cream (350 yen),
which proved to be, in my opinion, the best way to eat this. I had the same kind of sesame preparation in the shape of some “paste” (dilute a grey powder in water, heat for a little while, it becomes very thick) in China quite a lot and liked it, but it’s pretty heavy and it’s hard to handle more than a few mouthfuls of it. But making an ice cream from that paste makes it much lighter without sacrificing its sweet and very special taste. The few mochi balls around it and the whipped cream were very nice additions. I’m sure sesame ice cream must not be a speciality of this restaurant but it’s the best thing I discovered tonight!
In short, a very nice place, not that expensive for this quality of ingredients. Maybe not that substantial (the ice cream was very welcome, and even then…), but definitely a great place.