shiki--not half bad!

[another_adam]

Based on a recent report on this board that this place on babcock (just off harvard, north of coolidge corner) might be open, we decided to see if it was open. and indeed, it was.

I have long yearned, pined, and dreamed of a japanese place that offers mainly cooked dishes--and, dare one hope, even izakaya style dishes-- in the boston area. (I know, there's places like Cafe Mami for some yoshoku dishes, but it's just so hard to find Japanese places that don't focus on sushi...) So, on finding something that looked like it might fit the bill in our own neighborhood, we decided not to get our hopes up too high. In the end, our verdict is that it far exceeded our expectations-- I'm really glad this place has entered the sushi-dominated scene, and hopefully people will drift in and look past the sushi on the menu to start becoming familiar with this style of Japanese food.

It seems like they're still figuring out some basic things, esp. concerning drinks, and ringing up the bill. It took quite a while at every stage of the game, but they weren't crowded, and we weren't in a rush.

Drinks: they have japanese beers, and a rather extensive selection of sake, including a lot of good stand-by's (bishonen, otokoyama) and some more recent trends (unfiltered varieties, sparkling varieties, sake cocktails). We ended up trying some cocktails, which were made by our server (after lengthy consultation of the instructions sheet): a yogurt sake (which we expected to be made with Yakult, like Korean yogurt soju, but was actually made with plain yogurt and was quite sour), and a chocolate one (??!! not my choosing--it was actually not as sweet as one might imagine, though). They were OK, but I I'd stick with plain sake for now. Hopefully if they keep pushing the cocktail thing, they'll keep around a person dedicated to knowing the recipes and mixing the drinks.

Now the important part, the food: my usual izakaya ordering strategy is to order one from each of several categories: pickled, fried, slimy, salty, rice, fish, green, rich/creamy... (repeat as necessary)

--Fish: Iwashi with daikon and umeboshi. I love this combination, and it was the standout dish of the evening. Very tasty.
--Green: Seaweed salad. Quite decent, including several varieties.
--Rice: Onigiri: salmon and tarako. Standard and fine.
--Slimy: Tuna + natto: also standard and fine. The natto was chopped up finely, which I quite enjoyed, since I'm usually too lazy to do this at home.
--Fried: Tonkatsu. Quite good! Moist, crispy, quite a thick cutlet.
--Rich: Ankimo. We *love* ankimo, it's a real guilty pleasure (and oddly not that expensive raw in Kotobukiya in Porter square, if you want to make it at home). This rendition was very soft (not cooked as long as I usually do it), and rather richer/saltier than usual. For full on ankimo experience, this might be a good introduction (if you like liver), but I actually prefer a more subtle one that combines more with accompanying ponzu and daikon. Maybe this batch happened to be from a particularly gluttonous anko (monkfish), or maybe it just wasn't soaked very long before cooking. There's a lot of egg dishes that would also fill the 'rich' category.
-- Salty: ikura nigiri: The ikura was very sweet. We actually prefer it a bit saltier/"oilier", with less mirin in the preparation-- but it was OK. We also ordered "chamame", advertised as special bean dish, but it turned out to be edamame (either by substitution or miscommunication). Next time we'll go with shiokara (um, pickled squid guts) for the salty category.

Overall: a satisfying experience! Even though there wasn't really anything other than the sardine that we thought was truly superb (and in fact, a few of our favorite items were a little bit off of expectations somehow...), I'm still delighted to find a place in our neighborhood were all of the dishes were recognizable and decent renditions of Japanese favorites. I really hope this bodes well for their future, and that more generally, it starts a trend of attention to Japanese food other than sushi... I also hope they can (profitably) keep their attention on the cooked dishes and not on the liquor and sushi, which I'm sure may actually be better cash cows...

[steinpilz]

Thanks for the great review, I saw an ad for Shiki on Friday and am now motivated to give it a try.

[digga]

Dude - thanks for the tip! I have been waiting for the arrival of an izakaya (Sumi was the little engine that couldn't quite make it, particularly without a liquor license).

[galleygirl]

Thanks,AA...I've had izakaya food in NY, but I didn't understand the "one of each texture" strategy...Thanks for the quick primer; we'll definitely be going. What were the prices like?

[GaryK]

Most dishes are $6-$10. We were there last Saturday and can confirm Adam's comments re:service and ambience. We had a different mix of dishes, all good, nothing spectacular, but the overall impression was everything was well prepared and fresh tasting. An example - we were told they were out of one of the dishes we asked for so the waitress suggested an off-menu dish of gyoza. Nothing unusual, but the skin was thin and toothsome and the pork filling tasted as if it had just been prepared. Shrimp katsu were crispy and greaseless. Beef tartare came with a variety of nicely cooked wild mushrooms. One weak dish was uncooked scallops with mayo, wrapped in smoked salmon; the presentation was pretty but the salmon and mayo overwhelmed the more delicate scallops. This is a good addition to the sushi-overloaded C.C. neighborhood with a menu that calls for extended exploration; hopefully the well-meaning but somewhat scattered service will come together soon.

[RoyRon]

Wow, I am pleased to hear about this place. after years of living and working in Japan I really miss izakayas. Now if somebody would open a true yakitori-ya I would be in heaven. I am sure that an authentic yakitori place would do very well here. Can someone give me the address of Shiki please?

[another_adam]

The location is 9 babcock st, in Brookline, just north of Coolidge Corner a half block in from Harvard Ave. (CH "link to a place" feature not working for me, somehow...)

[another_adam]

Yep, our dishes were all around $5 to $10 too, but mostly closer to $5. The size of each dish is (izakaya-ly) small, but two of us, quite hungry and curious to try a variety of stuff, came out at about $50 for food, and were very full. I think we counted approx 9 things (including rice and onigiri, which are under $5). Probably if one ordered some sushi, the tab would be a bit higher.

The "one of each category" strategy is really just my idiosyncratic way of picking things efficiently while guaranteeing some variety, when confronted with the extremely long menus that some izakayas can have (Shiki is rather more modest in this respct). It also just helps me remember what we wanted to order :) Otherwise, I find that one tends to end up with all of one category-- e.g., all fried things, or in my case, maybe all slimy or pickled things. It also pays to try things off the specials menu. (Sadly, they didn't have the kabocha on their specials that night) I don't think there's any real principle involved, but I've recently noticed that some of my Japanese friends seem to do roughly the same thing (though I'm sure their categories may be different!)

Oh, and I can confirm that the frying technique on our items was very good, too, which is very important for izakaya food!
And one other touch that I forgot to mention, but was possibly my favorite bite of the evening was a pickle that came with the onigiri: shiso leafs pickled with ume. Their pickled offerings seem to be quite good-- that may be the part of the menu I'll be exploring most extensively for a while.

[passing thru]

well, that sounds promising. thanks for the good reporting, love to see that there's someone trying to expand beyond the hackneyed sushi drivenstyle of japanese restaurant here.

[limster]

Thanks for the detailed post -- will have to try them soon; been a long time since I've eaten at an izakaya. Last time was in LA.