I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not. This is actually a teppanyaki restaurant, not tenpura. It’s pretty good, but that’s a little secondary to the fact that The Wolf, El Lobo, Ryu-jito, Double-R, R^2, etc. is leaving us tomorrow. This was his goodbye lunch, and as such we got a good part of the old band back together, including McNoonan and Rio. Custom-labeled nihonshu is always in good taste; nice job, ladies!
Well, back to 10 (Shin Maru 5th). We almost went there last week with Julito, but for dinner they only serve courses. The Y6000 entry point seemed a bit much, so we passed…and ended up at Indian. Let that be a lesson. For lunch they have those same courses (which feature Japanese beef, sea urchin, and other luxury ingredients) but also cheaper sets. These include two types of steak (sirloin Y3500, filet Y2500), tuna steak Y1500 and Hiroshima-yaki, sorta like an unholy alliance of yaki soba and okonomiyaki, Y1600 and huge. All come with a starter (one fruit tomato cut in half, better than getting this at the Kurosawa izakaya chain where they charge you Y600 for a similar tomato with some negi; a small pile of shredded daikon with a piece of cucumber and lots of tarako mayonnaise sauce), obligatory rice and soup (a little different because it was low-miso and included mozuku), a bowl of matcha (pleasing to look at, lousy to taste) and some rice ballz-and-red beans dessert.
The main beef was pretty good, I gots to say. Given the quality of the filet, I would have liked to try the sirloin, but the price…Quantity was quite large for Japan; I could even have been happy with less, and Koala couldn’t finish hers. The sauces for dipping were a ponzu with chopped daikon (nice, and a little different since the radish wasn’t oroshified) and a really, really awesome spicy sesame oil with pickled cabbage bits. Or at least that’s what I think it was. Great! All the grilling is done in the kitchen, which is a bit lame for teppan, but maybe there’s not enough room in Shin Maru.
Bit of a luxury lunch here, but it WAS a special occasion, and worth it. You’ll feel satisfied and healthy in a very washoku way if you visit.
Good luck, chief! We’ll miss you.
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