Sazenka - Tokyo
An unassuming entrance for great cuisine
Rating: 18/20
Where: Tokyo, Japan
When: Dinner for 2 on 24 February 2023
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 30000-88000 Yen, Wine pairing 20000 Yen
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars, #59 on Top 50 Restaurants list (2022), Tabelog Gold Award (2023)
Why: Expertly executed Chinese banquet cuisine with elevated ingredients
Sazenka is a Michelin three-starred restaurant serving Chinese cuisine. That’s already a big deal, but Sazenka is the only such restaurant that is neither run by a Chinese chef, nor located in a Chinese-speaking country. More precisely, it is in Tokyo, and its Japanese chef has worked at several Chinese restaurants in Japan and more recently at Tokyo's three-starred Ryugin and its two-starred Taiwanese off-shoot. We were curious so see how elevated Chinese cuisine would taste in Japan. Quite delicious, it turns out.
The restaurant is located in a residential neighborhood near Hiroo and Ebisu that is home to many foreign embassies in Tokyo. Its main dining room is up a flight of stairs from street-level and had six tables during our visit - all two-tops except for a table of four. At least three additional private dining rooms were scattered throughout the building.
As is customary for many Japanese high-end restaurants, Sazenka was tasting menu only, in this case with three options ranging from 30000 to 88000 yen. We had to make the choice at reservation time and went for the 88000 yen menu. Most of the price difference seemed to be due to more sophisticated dishes and ingredients, but I suspect that the pricier menus were also a bit longer. Our server later told us that almost no two meals at this restaurant are the same: they keep a record of each customer and their previous visits, allowing them to avoid repeating any dishes for any guest. So one could (in theory) eat here two days in a row and have two entirely different meals. Beverage-wise, there were three pairings to choose from: an alcoholic pairing for 20000 yen, a tea pairing for 10000 yen, and a mix of the two for 18000 yen. I went for the alcoholic pairing, which on the positive side had some pretty nice wines that went well with the food, but, sadly, the pours were relatively small and covered only about 2/3 of the courses (and it was not apparent beforehand which courses those would be).
Presented with a printed menu for the evening, we started right in. Our first dish was green tea somen. “Somen” is a very fine type of noodle that appeared several times during this meal. The broth was finished with a few drops of green tea oil. This dish was wonderfully light and refreshing. The noodles themselves didn't taste of much, but the broth had delicate and subtle flavors. A nice, gentle start into our dinner 18.
A whole shrimp marinated in shaoxing wine was served right after. Like many of the following dishes, this was a much fancier version of what one might find at a “normal” Chinese banquet restaurant. This dish in particular was so much better than the cold cooked shrimp that I've had many times before that it's almost a sin to claim that they are related. This (warm) shrimp's quality was excellent: it was very fresh and flavorful, with just a hint of sweetness. The seasoning was delicious as well, and kept at just the right level to have the shrimp remain the star of the show 19.
At this point, dishes followed each other pretty much without any pause, so we felt a bit harried. The pace slowed down later, but I wonder whether this was due to an ill-fated attempt to conclude our dinner within the three hour time limit set for our table? Maybe reserving the second nightly seating would have been a better bet for a leisurely meal.
Course three: half a spring roll was filled with hard clams and fuki, a seasonal bitter vegetable. The skin of the spring roll was perfectly cooked, very thin and crispy. While the filling was definitely elevated compared to regular spring rolls, I found it a bit too heavy for my taste. And the bitter vegetable was not that pleasant either. The paired Provencal rose wine was an excellent match for the dish, though 17.
Next, another Chinese banquet staple: char siu, aka roasted pork. But not only was this version served hot, it even came with its own little charcoal grill. The meat was juicy and flavorful, even the abundant fatty parts were delicious 19. For pescatarians, the pork was replaced by fugu (blowfish), which was also surprisingly fatty and juicy, but a bit milder in flavor overall 18. Sweet soybeans and cabbage seasoned with Chinese spices were served on the side, not too exciting by themselves, but a great palate cleanser after the fatty meat.
A dish that looked very little like its traditional banquet cousin was jellyfish, here served with red lemon, a Japanese citrus fruit. Its texture was interesting: the thin strands of jellyfish were very crunchy, somewhat reminiscent of bean sprouts. With plenty of acidity from the red lemon, this was a very fresh tasting dish, but without much flavor except for the citrus fruit. Much better than a traditional jellyfish dish 17.
Abalone was the star of the next course. The dish was made from dried abalone that had been soaked in water, and the accompanying sauce was made from just that soaking water - talk about successful recycling! The abalone's texture was a bit too soft for my taste, and I'd rate the overall result as good, not great. It was not that different from what I've had at good local Chinese restaurants 16.
Our next dish was something special indeed, a broth made from boiling a large variety of meats and vegetables, called a Buddha Jump soup. Only a dash of salt and shaoxing wine was added, so that all the taste of the almost clear broth was due to the meats. Pieces of all the ingredients were present in the dish as well, but since they had given up most of their flavor to the broth, the liquid itself was the real star. Whereas I've had clear broths in many Japanese restaurants, this was the first time that I remember seeing something similar in Chinese cuisine. The result was very big on flavor and very good. Picky eaters beware: the ingredient list is quite eclectic (see picture). For example, this was probably the first time that I’ve had fresh brown bear (!) meat 18.
Another classic dish in (expensive) Chinese cuisine came next: braised shark fin soup, served with a side of black vinegar. The soup was thick and delicious, 19 if rated by itself. The shark fin itself had the texture of noodles - no wonder that fake shark fin soup is so popular, you're not missing much. The black vinegar added some nice acidity and sweetness to the dish 18.
Some of the shark fin broth was mixed with rice for the following dish. This was essentially a very nice risotto, stopping a bit short of al dente for the rice. For my taste, it could have used a bit more salt 18. My less salt-addicted wife thought this dish was a 20.
For the vegetable course, pea sprouts were cooked with garlic in a light sauce. Ham powder was used instead of the more traditional bacon bits. Very tasty 18.
What followed was a series of dishes based on fugu. They are presumably unique to the more expensive menu due to the ingredient's cost. I'm not a big fan of fugu - a fish that I feel is interesting mostly for being lethal when prepared incorrectly, but otherwise has a ho-hum texture and virtually no taste. The next dish confirmed these concerns to some degree. Steamed fugu was served with ginger, leeks and a sauce made of soy sauce and fish stock. This traditional Chinese way of preparing fish was elevated a bit by replacing green onions with leeks. And while I liked the light ginger and the very nice broth, the fish itself had little to no taste and was incredibly firm. For a different kind of fish, this kind of firmness would suggest that it had been overcooked to an almost criminal degree, but I guess for fugu this might be the expected result. This course would have been much, much better with a different kind of fish, since everything else about it was wonderful 17.
Next we were served a stir fry made from charred green onions and fugu “lips”. Maybe “fish mouth” would have been a better choice for marketing this dish? Regardless, the lips were mostly gelatinous, which resulted in not the most appealing texture. Plus, the onions were on the oily side. I liked the addition of spice (mala), but it didn't save the dish from being ho-hum overall 15. My wife would have given this a 16 or 17.
The final dish of the printed menu (but by no means the end of dinner) was breaded, deep-fried fugu that was served with some greens (parsley, garlic shoots, Chinese greens) and copious amounts of Sichuan peppers. So many in fact, that we had to wear plastic gloves to eat this dish - there were no utensils provided, so it was literally finger-food. Even without eating the peppers themselves (which probably would have been an exceptionally bad idea), this dish was plenty spicy. On the side we received a “sauce” of lemon, garlic, ginger and parsley that one could use to cool down the spice level and also add some welcome acidity to the otherwise fatty dish. I never imagined saying this about a dish containing fugu, but this one was truly spectacular, maybe my favorite dish of the night. Admittedly, if it wasn't for the odd looking bones, one could easily have mistaken this for fried chicken, texture- and taste-wise. Full of flavor and spice, fun to eat with your hands, this was an real winner 19. It didn't hurt that the paired Loire Cabernet Franc was excellent as well.
As I mentioned, the end of the printed menu didn't mean an end to eating. Next, we received a dish of mapo tofu, served with rice and pickles. Since my wife is a pescatarian, the meat had been replaced by house-made tofu crumbles. That ended up being my main gripe: I think this dish would have been much better with real meat. But otherwise, no complaints - it was terrific. Extremely spicy, but also with some fruitiness (if that's the right term) in the sauce. The accompanying pickles were not too exciting by themselves, but a welcome way to combat the spice in the tofu 18.
Two noodle courses concluded the savory part of our meal. I am glad that we were given a choice regarding dish size: regular, small or tiny. We opted for small, but picking “tiny” might have been even wiser. This was a very filling dinner...
First, a noodle dish served cold. Dandan noodles and ground pork sat in a soup that had a light sesame flavor and was only lightly spicy (especially compared to the previous dishes). The noodles were nothing special, but the soup was very nice and flavorful 18 (my wife would have rated this higher).
Finally, a hot noodle soup to which we added a fugu tail fin that had been roasting on another little charcoal grill. The charred fin added some smokiness to the soup, which was otherwise very delicate 17.
We concluded our dinner with desserts. For these, we had to move to a different room in order to make space for the next seating in the main dining room. First off was a ginger ice cream served with pomelo - cut into cubes (under the ice cream) and shredded in a glass, ready to be poured over the ice cream. Some tapioca pearls were also mixed into the pomelo meat. The ice cream was very good, and I liked the addition of the fruity and acidic pomelo. But the dish had a slightly odd aftertaste for me, maybe due to the little pieces of green herbs in it? 18
Cold almond tofu was served with a bird's nest on the side. The tofu was delicious, but the bird's nest added only texture and virtually no taste 18.
Next came hot almond tofu, served by itself. The texture of this dish was quite different from the cold tofu, I don't know whether that was due to a different preparation or just because of the temperature. Essentially, the tofu had separated into two parts: a thicker mochi-like center was surrounded by almond milk. Not bad, but the cold version was a tad better 17.
Finally, a bowl of white tea with a white sesame ball. A very delicate and much fancier version of the more traditional black sesame ball dessert. Having a light broth (tea) instead of a sugary soup was nice as well 18.
Overall: This dinner was quite a tour-de-force of Chinese cuisine. Virtually all of the dishes we received can be found in traditional Chinese banquet cuisine, so these weren't “newly invented” dishes as such. However, the techniques and ingredients used here were leaps and bounds more sophisticated than what one would find in the proverbial neighborhood Chinese restaurant. The restaurant's location (Japan) had no major influence on the food, except for a few ingredients, such as fugu. In short, with mostly successful dishes, one of the best Chinese meals I've ever had 18.
