When it comes to talking about Japanese cuisine, there are a handful of dishes that come to mind—namely, sushi, tempura, teppanyaki, and the finely wrought kaiseki courses. Typically, the aforementioned fare is served at respective eateries, occasionally offered together at izakaya, Japanese-style pubs, or a ryokan, a traditional country inn.
But what if you could sample a little bit of everything in one spot?
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Starting June 1, Sakura, the Japanese restaurant inside Hilton Tokyo Odaiba, will offer 40 à la carte options—up 20 dishes off the current menu—including eight innovative plates that channel a new take on local specialties.
The Edo Period-themed menu will showcase ingredients and seasonings that harken back to the prominent era spanning the 17th and 18th centuries. Back then, pickling and preserving vegetables and fish were effective (and tasty) methods to extend their shelf life. Moreover, soy sauce, an extensively used condiment in Japanese cuisine, was not as prominent as rice vinegar and miso—or, more specifically, “Edo miso”: a sweeter, red-hued variety of the fermented bean paste.
Sakura’s head chef, Eisuke Saito, oversaw the creative process in concocting two original dishes from each of the restaurant’s four kitchens. Customers can now choose from marbled cuts of wagyu beef seared on a sizzling teppanyaki table; Kobe brand beef cooked sukiyaki-style via the kaiseki kitchen; bite-sized vegetable nigiri arranged artfully at the sushi bar; to lightly battered and crisply fried morsels of fish and vegetables stemming from the tempura counter.
“Based on our experience, foreign diners value the ability to pick and choose various dishes, as opposed to ordering a prix fixe menu. By increasing the number of à la carte options, we hope Sakura’s renewed menu will appeal to a wider range of restaurant-goers, offering something for everyone at the table,” Saito explained.
Indeed, with Tokyo’s global status as a gourmet hub, wading through an overwhelming number of restaurants can be time-consuming, especially when embarking on a culinary quest to taste all that this megalopolis has to offer.
But with a sizeable selection of Japanese staples—accompanied by generous portions and moderate prices—Sakura’s new dining concept is the equivalent of a one-stop shop, defined by its enticing array of satiating dishes with a contemporary twist.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Located on the third floor of the Hilton Tokyo Odaiba, the modern cityscape of Japan’s capital city acts as a sprawling backdrop within the restaurant’s traditional aesthetic. Illuminated by lantern-like lighting, the 90-seat establishment (offering 20 terrace seats) is equipped with paper screens and decor befitting a cha-sh*tsu (tea house)—namely, alcoves ornamented with ikebana flower arrangements and hanging scrolls.
Likewise, guests are promptly greeted by kimono-clad waitstaff, whose tiptop service illustrates the time-honored philosophy of Japanese hospitality: omotenashi. In this respect, it’s easy to get lost in Sakura’s elegant, old-time ambiance that mirrors a homey ryokan. But one look at the Rainbow Bridge, spanning across a glimmering Tokyo Bay, should bring you back to reality.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Our à la carte dinner commenced with field greens surrounding a shallow bowl of dried sakura shrimp and a delectable tempura egg, hard-boiled then deep fried (¥1,400). Tossed with cherry tomatoes and a citrus vinaigrette, the salad had satisfying textural balance by complementing raw ingredients with crisp bits of tempura.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
The proceeding fried dish was an assortment of plump prawn, tender kisu fillet (Japanese whiting), and seasonal vegetables (5 pieces; ¥1,800). While Sakura’s “Edomae tempura” adheres to a centuries-old recipe of Edo era ingredients, the plating was far from conventional. Stacked above a giant masu (a wooden box to serve sake) filled with arare (pellet-sized rice crackers), the golden quintuple—including the crispy prawn head—can be dipped in either tentsuyu (tempura sauce) punctuated with grated daikon or a bit of salt.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
From the sushi bar, two exquisitely assembled dishes plated on earthenware were in itself artworks. A circular copper plate, shaped like a full moon, was adorned with chunks of maguro nuta (bluefin tuna marinated with Edo miso and vinegar) and a side of spring produce: boiled takenoko (bamboo shoots), renkon (lotus root), and sugar snap peas (¥1,600). This sweetened vinegary flavor resurfaces in the colorful vegetable nigiri (5 pieces; ¥1,900). From purple perilla leaves rolled into temari-zushi to diced tomatoes gunkan-maki (“battleship roll”), this seafood-sans-sushi is perfect for vegetarians and omnivores alike.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Next came the hearty dishes hailing from the teppanyaki table: flash-grilled maguro skewered then slathered with ravigote, a piquant sauce of shallots, garlic, and yuzu (¥3,000); and fresh uni (sea urchin) wrapped in lightly seared slices of Kobe beef garnished with a mound of caviar (¥9,000). Both meals straddle the line between Japanese classics reinvented with Western twists, be it the seamless addition of sauce rooted in French techniques or a conventional mat-rolled maki reassembled with unexpected ingredients.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
The melding of seasonality and local seafood was most apparent in the kaiseki kitchen’s anago (conger eel) rolls that enveloped tender stalks of udo, an Edo root vegetable. This slippery species that inhabit Tokyo Bay is cooked kabayaki-style: butterflied fillets first glazed in a savory-sweet tare (basting sauce) then grilled to smoky precision.
Image: JESSICA SAYURI BOISSY
Sukiyaki—a dish as synonymous with Japanese cuisine as sushi—is also a mainstay on the eclectic menu. What has changed, however, is the hot pot’s Kanto-style, soy sauce soup base. Instead, a bubbling soy milk broth is where premium wagyu beef is swished around before being lapped up.
Given the countless culinary choices, Japanese food enthusiasts will not be disappointed with Sakura’s kitchen-spanning à la carte menu.
Address: Hilton Tokyo Odaiba 3F, 1-9-1 Daiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-5500-5580
Hours: Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Access: 1-minute walk from Daiba Station on the Yurikamome line
Featured Menu: Sakura À La Carte Options
*Prices are subject to change.
© Japan Today
