New restaurant reviews, plus a calendar of food and restaurant-related events in Tokyo, including wine tastings, guest chefs, and restaurant openings. Also includes Brews News, a newsletter on microbrew beers in Japan.
The Georgian chef at this tiny bar-restaurant turns out a good range of tasty dishes from his native land, with flavors that are quite exotic for Tokyo. The menu favors the meaty, well-spiced dishes of the Eastern half of Georgia, incorporating plenty of cilantro and other herbs, nuts and garlic. Georgia is also famous for its wines, and several varieties are available by the glass.
Authentic Georgian and Russian food is prepared by native chefs in this unpretentious basement cafe. Georgian- and Russian-themed set menus (Y3000-3200 for lunch or dinner) are a good introduction to the kitchen's most popular dishes.
This mini-branch of one of our favorite Belgian beer bars sits at the Yoyogi end of Southern Terrace; convenient to Shinjuku station but sufficiently removed from the bustling crowds. Despite the small size they boast an excellent beer list, with a rotating selection of ten on tap, plus a respectable food menu featuring roast Iberico pork, grilled horsemeat and of course mussels and frites. There's some outdoor seating.
Ibiza calls itself a "fisherman's diner," and this unpretentious neighborhood spot offers a great selection of fresh-caught fish and seafood. Simple home-style recipes rely on the high quality of the ingredients rather than showing off any dazzling cooking tricks.
Shamo is a breed of game bird known for its tasty, slightly chewy meat, and it's the bird of choice on the busy grills at Kokkekokko. This modest-looking yakitoriya serves the usual selection of chicken parts on skewers - all very high in quality - along with beautiful grilled vegetables and appealing side dishes, including chicken sashimi. Besides serving birds of distinguished pedigree (always fresh, never frozen), they also take pride in the quality of their charcoal (kishu binchotan from Wakayama) and their gourmet salt (sea salt from Bretagne).
If you're not well acquainted with the subtleties of horsemeat cuisine, Bakuro can be a revelation. The food here is fantastic, showcasing a surprisingly wide range of flavors and styles. The atmosphere is lively and fun, the drinks list is well put together, and prices are very reasonable for this level of quality.
The setting here is bistro-style (closely spaced tables and a counter) and very casual, but the food is a cut above the usual bistro fare, with dishes like beef cheeks and anago eel stewed in red wine; sauteed fish in grapefruit sauce; game-meat pies; and well-prepared steak frites. Three-course prix-fixe dinners are Y3980, or you can order a la carte. Wines are fairly reasonable and not exclusively French.
This casual cafe-bar serves Brazilian-style burgers and snacks - coxinha (deep-fried chicken dumplings), empadao (pot pies), empanada (stuffed pastries), feijoada (pork and bean stew), and churrasco (grilled meats). Fruit juice smoothies (Y500) come in a variety of tropical flavors - Andean blackberry, acai, guanabana and many more - or you just can add tequila or rum to create exotic fruit cocktails.
This lively neighborhood drinking spot is a branch of the long-established Fujintei izakaya a few blocks away, and the spacious, comfortable second floor is the place to be. The menu is disarmingly eclectic - Taiwanese sausage, charcoal-grilled prawns, shashlik kebabs made from premium Yamagata pork - and everything we've tried has been first-rate. The sake list is small but serviceable - this is the kind of place where you find a label you like and stick with it, rather than exploring different breweries.
Seafood is the star at this reasonably priced counter shop - the owner is a fisherman and he often serves his own catch alongside the daily selections from Tsukiji. The sake list is well above average for a place this size: five regular labels plus five guest slots reserved for seasonal brews. Lunch is a great deal - Y900 gets you an excellent kaisen donburi with anago, salmon and negitoro. Dinner runs around Y3500 with drinks.
Luxuriously spacious and modern in feel, this combination bakery-cafe is a comfortable place to relax with a coffee and pastry, or a quiche, cup of soup and salad. There's also a bit of outdoor seating overlooking the adjacent canal. Take-out breads include tempting savory creations like gorgonzola-walnut and bacon-rosemary rolls, as well as focacia, whole-grain loaves, bread made with beer yeast (from TY Harbor Brewery next door) and assorted pastries and cakes.
Reviews of
Preston Ales
and
Nagano brewpubs
in the July/August issue of our Japan beer newsletter.
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