Or perhaps I should say: the rest of the pictures. There are plenty of other photos that didn't make it into my Friday Japan Times column. It's a visual place, not by dint of the decor but the opposite: It's sparse and simple but there's always plenty going on in the kitchen. Plus there's plenty of colour on the plates.
The entrance is suitably inscrutable: A flight of wood-clad stairs leading down to an unmarked door in the basement of an unremarkable building on the side of a busy highway on the outskirts of Shibuya... A vestibule of polished wood gives onto a spacious dining room so simple and spare in design it feels almost unfinished.
Just about the only decoration is this sign on the wall with the kanji characters for "Shokkan". What's it mean? "Shoku" means "food/eat"; and "kan" is taken from the name of owner-chef Sato Kan.
The first thing you will be brought will be a plate of crudités — a colorful selection of sliced vegetables — together with an attractive red dip made by blending tomato with miso. It's a surprising combination, savory with a hint of sweetness, but one that works well. Indeed, this has become one of Shokkan's signature dishes, and you can buy pots of this tomato miso to take home with you.
The selection of vegetables was as intriguing as it was colorful: A wedge of pink aka-kabu turnip; baby cucumber; slivers of yellow bell pepper and Chinese cabbage; what looked like celery but turned out to be from the stem of an ebi-imo (taro); and, most unusually, a slice of zasai, not the pickles served with Chinese cuisine but raw, grown locally, we were told, on the Miura Peninsula.
Our sashimi platter was as good as we'd anticipated when we'd ordered our sake.
We were kept happy and intrigued in equal parts by two dishes that followed: kinkan shira-ae, sliced kumquat oranges in a creamy tofu dressing...
...and smoked scallops, which arrived at the table along with appetizing smokehouse aromas and a dip of chopped-onion "mayo."
We were less impressed with the "grilled" negi leeks. They were in fact plunged into the deep-frying wok first before being seared, leaving them far too oily to enjoy with their mushroom-flavored miso dip.
Next time, we will instead order the bamboo shoots deep-fried a delicious golden-brown, which we saw going out to those who'd ordered the full course.
We could not leave without trying the other house special. Listed under the "Clay Pot Dishes" section of the menu, it is called Paella — though few in Spain would recognize it as such. Nonetheless, the combination of rice cooked with tiny dried sakura-ebi shrimp and topped with plenty of seafood — asari clams, small mussels and generous amounts of ikura salmon roe — was a winner.
Make no mistake: This is not kaiseki cuisine. In fact, it's closer in feel to an upmarket izakaya tavern than anything at the formal end of the spectrum. If you want to give it a name, call it contemporary kappo: reliable, entry-level Japanese cuisine presented with a handsome drizzle of style.
Ambiance, food, value for money. Shokkan ticks the boxes on just about all counts... It's got the look; the food is put together well; and there's no sticker shock at the end your meal. Best of all, it's a place you can take out-of-town guests — or even send them on their own — in full confidence they will feel they've discovered somewhere rather special.
Here is Shokkan's home page…
And here is a map link...
