There is something exciting about a pop-up restaurant that is only going to be available for a short time. We found a Japanese pop-up restaurant from Tokyo called Shinsuke, taking over Kajitsu restaurant for a short time. After learning a bit about Shinsuke, we got very curious and decided to go. We made it on the last day of the pop-up Shinsuke in NEW YORK!

Shinsuke is a izakaya-style pub, established 1923. Izakaya itself started around 200 years ago to provide rather “fast” food to over-crowded, busy people in the cities during Edo period. Nowadays, we enjoy going out for dinner with friends at izakaya, often for an extended period of time. With this change, many of izakaya restaurants no longer focus on “fast” food but quality food. Shinsuke however has remained as one of the few traditional izakaya, with its simple, traditional menu offerings. Also, they remain to be in the family business, with the current owner being the fourth generation of his family. I thought that was quite remarkable and wonderful!

Upon entering, we walked into Ippodo Tea. I didn’t realize before visiting, but this location is mixed of three different establishments; one tea shop and two restaurants. Kajitsu restaurant is on the main floor behind Ippodo Tea. We saw many people visiting Ippodo Tea during our dinner, tasting, learning, sampling and purchasing all sorts of Japanese tea. Pretty cool… If you ever want to have some traditional Japanese tea, this might be a great spot to visit.

We got a reservation at when the pop-up restaurant opens, so we were one of the first customers. We saw the current owner of Shinsuke behind the sake station. The inside was nice and open, spacious with minimum amount of tables. I really appreciate them for not crowding the space.

We were very excited to try their traditional izakaya dishes, updated to fit modern taste. We started with their sake. They had Ryozeki Honjozo, which is Shinsuke original blend ($15). We ordered one hot and one chilled. It came in the traditional tokuri (pour-it-yourself bottle) with the word “Shinsuke” in Japanese on it.

They still measure the amount of sake to prepare in a traditional way, with Japanese cypress wood box called masu. They pour the sake in masu, then pour that amount into tokuri. It was filled to the brim, and even though tokuri was not large, but it felt like it was never-ending amount of sake! It had a nice sweetness to it, clean, relaxing, and goes down smooth. A great way to start the izakaya feast!

The first item we ordered was Fried Chicken with Sweet Vinegar Sauce ($10). It is described as fried chicken plus fried eggplants and lotus roots. I assume the additional items are the chopped ingredients in the dipping sauce?

It came with four pieces of fried chicken. They were lightly fried, so they were not greasy at all. I heard that the way they prepare food is with minimum amount of oil, which is great. It was super crispy outside and super juicy in the inside. High quality and perfectly prepared. I enjoyed the sauce, it had lots of flavor and crunchy texture that went perfectly with the chicken.

Then we had Tuna Sashimi with Grated Yam ($12). This was a part of Shinsuke Special menu. Each sashimi piece was nice and thick, with outside torched lightly.

It came with toasted seaweed and grated yam. The toasted seaweed had great smokey flavor and crunchy texture. The yam was not too sticky as expected, but bit dry. It was almost like cold mashed potato, which was not the texture I was looking for in grated yam…it was still refreshing though. The sashimi was very fresh and meaty.

Next one was something that my husband really wanted. I, on the other hand, was not too excited about it… It was Deep Fried Tofu Raclette ($14). This item was also under Shinsuke Speical menu. It is made with aburaage, which is thinly sliced tofu, deep-fried. It had cheese in the inside of aburaage pockets, and had some kind of sweet jam on the side.

It was very cheesy, comforting and really tasty! I must say, my hubby was right about wanting this dish, it was great! The jam went really nicely with the cheese, even though it was surprising to see such European ingredients mixed with Japanese ingredients.

Then we tried Tuna in Miso Vinaigrette ($12). I was curious to see what that really meant. When it came out, it made better sense. “Nuta” is miso vinegar mustard, and fresh maguro was sitting on a bed of green onions and greens in miso vinegar mustard.

The flavor of miso vinegar mustard was really nice, the acidity went great with fresh tuna. It was refreshing dish, kind of dish that grandma used to make, way back when.

The next item surprised with its size. It was Manila Clam with Tofu ($12). Up until this point, each dishes were rather small, as izakaya menu items are usually small, since they are similar to tapas in a way. But this one was huge!

It had six chunks of tofu, with lots of clams in between, soaking up the broth. It was soooo good! I think this one was one of our favorite out of all the dishes we ordered. It was super comforting with deep flavor, the dashi in broth was great with light miso flavor. Tofu was silky and soaked up the wonderful flavor of the broth as well. It also had generous amount of clams. Talking about symphony in my mouth…this was it! Simply awesome!

Next item was more meaty, even though we didn’t know it was going to be. We ordered Spinach with Egg ($9). It had not only spinach and eggs, but bacon! Yes!!!

Actually, I don’t know if I can call them “bacon” since they were super thick, meaty pork pieces. It was great! The salty flavor of the pork complimented the simple flavor of egg and spinach. They worked really well together. The egs were fluffy and not over cooked, just a tiny little runny which I really enjoyed. It also had some small pieces of aburaage in them to add extra fluffy, spongy texture. It had great mix of ingredients, flavor and texture, perfectly balanced.

Then we got Deep Fried Shrimp Fishcake ($12). I wasn’t sure about “fishcake” but at this point, I should just trust the chef, since everything we ordered has been really tasty. And they did not disappoint, but surprised me again with high quality, delicious dish.

It was lightly fried, with super crunchy exterior. You can hear the crunch when you bite into it, which was great. The shrimp was nice and plump. With Japanese mountain yam used in the batter, it was fluffy, doughy, and a bit chewy the way it should. We dabbed a little bit of salt on it, and that was all that needed. It was delicious!

We decided to order couple more items from the Shinsuke Special menu. First one was Somen Noodle ($12). They had an option of cold or hot somen, and we went with hot.  This one was quite large in portion too, which was nice. We were going to have this as our ending dish, but we didn’t want the noodle to soak up the broth too much, so we decided not to wait.

It came with a side of roasted seaweed, which was nice. The somen was silky smooth and went down easy. The broth was light yet had deep earthy flavor that warms you up from the inside. Simple yet elegant and comforting dish.

Then the last item of the evening, Grilled Namafu with Sweet Miso ($12). Namafu is a Japanese wheat gluten, a kind of seitan. It loved the way it was prepared, it looked like square-shaped dango! How cute!

And the texture was very similar to dango or mochi. It was chewy and doughy, yet light and fluffy.  The sweet miso was really nice, it went nicely with the namafu. It was a fun dish, perfect ending to the wonderful dinner!

Service was excellent, everyone took a really nice care of us with a smile. Polite and efficient, great Japanese omotenashi service. And before we left, the owner came out from behind the sake station just to thank us for visiting and trying our their food. Really nice and friendly person, he even indulged us with a quick photo shoot with us! I would love to visit their real location in Japan the next time we go to Japan!

 

Shinsuke in NEW YORK @Kajitsu – 125 E 39th St, New York, NY 10016

シンスケ – 東京都文京区湯島3-31-5 YUSHIMA3315ビル