tokyo food file

Dassai Bar 23: high-end sake sipping

Here's another good reason [besides Basara] for checking out the looming great Tokyo Square Garden building in Kyobashi.

The Dassai Bar 23 opened on Monday with plenty of fanfare, orchids and celebratory garlands. No common or garden izakaya this: it's got to be one of the swishest sake bars in the city. 

 

From the shelves of gleaming glasses and the polished cedar-wood counter to the impeccable inscrutable bar tender, it's one mighty smooth operation. But that's just as you'd expect from one of the most dynamic (in terms of promotion) kura in the country.

 

The menu is short but sweet: six grades of sake, including two varieties of its patent bubbly nigori-shu. But it's likely to be the top item on the list that grabs your attention and raises your eyebrows. That's Dassai's top-of-the-range brew — not per bottle, not for a 180 ml. ichigo measure, but for a slim wine glass just over half full.

 [click on the images to enlarge]

 

Can it really be that good? There is a way to find out without breaking the bank, by ordering one of the taste-and-compare flights (or "Trial" as it says on the menu): ¥2,000 for three small measures little bigger than san-san-kudo ritual sipping glasses, or ¥3,000 for five.

 

I went for the three-glass Trial. On the left: Dassai 39; in the middle Dassai 23; and on the right, that super-premium top-end product, Sono Saki-e (the name means something like "going beyond that point").

 

All of them are dai-ginjo class; each packs a powerful umami punch; but work your way from left to right and there's no going back.

 

It really is a remarkable brew. But does it taste three times more remarkable than the Dassai 23? Hmmmm… 

Here's a close-up of that label, unfortunately a bit smudged from drips:

 

Earlier this week there was a long slot on Japanese TV about Dassai and this new bar — and on their strong focus on exports, especially to the US. It's in Japanese but it still makes good viewing.

There's lots more about Dassai — the brewery, the name and the various grades of sake — on the Asahi Shuzo website here... 

UPDATE (May 13): Dassai Bar 23 is now serving lunch — like this…

Also, I overlooked their very simple website here, which gives the opening times.

I'll probably go back to Dassai Bar 23 one more time — if only to snap a few better shots. And maybe to try one of those nigori bubbly brews.

But really there's no need to. If I ever find myself in need of a drink anywhere in that neighbourhood, I'll just head round the back of the new tower to the now-aptly-named Towers for a quiet (and highly affordable) pint.

 

 

 

shinnenkai nabe party — and a toast of Dassai bubbly

There is no finer way to mark the new year than sitting around your horigotatsu with friends, prime sashimi on the plate, a nabe hot-pot bubbling on the burner in front of you — and a nice glass of bubbly to toast life, health and happiness, warmth in winter, our nearest and dearest and all other blessings...

That cloudy little number in the glass is a nigorizake that's brewed to come foaming out of the bottle just like your favourite sparkling wine...

 

It's brewed by the excellent Dassai, in Yamaguchi...

 

Serve very carefully, they warn you. If you don't keep it nice and chilled, it can explode on you even more dramatically than when you pull the cork from a Champagne bottle

In fact, the kura is so serious about nobody getting hurt in the process, they hand out a manga type explanation on how to serve this sake. And to make it cool, it's mainly in English. "You gotta be careful!!" it says. Because if you don't, look what might happen...

 

Here's the little cartoon adventure in full:

 

PS: This was the nabe — a version of yose-nabe with oysters and cod, enoki and shiitake, tofu and hakusai greens, and chicken tsumire balls in a simple kombu dashi... Guaranteed to warm the cockles indeed.