A mixed bag at Shiki

[yumyum]

Are we destined to just have middling Japanese food in this town? I was excited to try Shiki, and there were certainly some highlights, but overall the food left me kind of puzzled. Is this the best we can expect?

Shiki is a small subterranean restaurant just outside of the heart of Coolidge corner, pretty and bright and warm on a cold night. As I'd been prompted, I had called in advance to reserve hamachi kama in case they ran out early. Turned out they didn't have any yesterday but that was okay, our substitution was one of the highlights of the uneven meal.

I'd read reports about the brusque service and indeed we were firmly handled all night -- this particular table, order in this particular way. I didn't really mind, but it was noticeably bossy. But hey, it's about the food, right?

Izakaya style Japanese food is not familiar to me, so my friend did the ordering for us. We started with a flight of sakes, one of my favorite parts of the evening. I'm a sucker for a horizontal tasting of just about anything, and this was no exception. Samples of Kaguyahime (Kyoto), Umenishiki (Ehime), Dassai (Yamaguchi), and Hitorimusume were accompanied by salmon and halibut tartare. This was a lovely way to start and I'd highly recommend going this route if you're trying to learn more about sake. We had another bottle of the Hitorimusume later.

A small plate of pickled vegetables was a pretty palate cleanser before the next course -- a round of nigiri -- tuna, salmon, engawa (halibut fin), hamachi, ebi. Now hounds, I like my portions hearty, but these nigiri were huge! Definitely two-bite wonders, much to the horror of my finicky friend. They were out of otoro and the regular tuna was virtually tasteless. The salmon had NO discernible fat, which was a disappointment. I love that silky texture on my tongue and it was missing in action. The halibut fin was killer, though, with a shiso leaf tucked under the fish and a gorgeous clean bright taste. Ebi was quite nice -- sweet and fresh. I must note that they do have quite a heavy hand with the wasabi, so if you are planning to dunk your nigiri in soy/wasabi (the horror!) you might want to taste first.

Next up some cooked dishes -- agadashi, broiled black cod, broiled kurobuta pork belly. Agadashi was fine, with a ton of bonito that would have made Galleygirl happy. The pork belly tasted great but the texture was all off ... really really chewy with no melty fat. However, the black cod was great -- a really fine rendition with crispy skin and lovely firm flesh.

Finally we had to see how they do with the fryer, so we had pork tonkatsu and what the heck, throw in a little sake marinated broiled beef to round it off. I found the tonkatsu to be greasy. I think I could make a better one at home. But the beef was tasty.

Again, for every highlight there seemed to be an accompanying mis-step. It was a roller coaster ride that left the rider wondering which way was up. I like Toraya a lot, but it's not refined. O Ya is exquisite for what it is, but sometimes you don't want your fish blow-torched and drizzled with truffle oil. Sushi Island, Blue Fin, Oiishi all have their fans. And maybe I need to go back several times to get the hang of Shiki -- I'm certainly interested in the lunch set. But at the end of the evening I was left scratching my head. What am I missing?

[gourmaniac]

Hi yumyum:
Sorry that your experience was so up and down. I haven't been since July but recall it was really good then. Haven;t had any of the same dishes except agedashi, but the quality of the fish in the charashi sushi sampler has always been excellent. The times I've tried fried stuff, it has been well executed. RE your more general question. I agree on O Ya but for me the price point makes this a rare treat. Otherwise, i feel Japanese in Boston is adequate and not sublime. For me, Shiki filled a nice niche in that it was closer to the experience of dining in Japan but wasn't so expensive/creative as to be rare event dining.

[yumyum]

Oh not to worry gourmanic! I'm glad I tried it. And I'll be back for the eel millefeuille, no doubt.

[barleywino]

Thanks for the detailed report! was the broiled marinated beef beef short rib, by any chance? I used to frequent an oyster bar (not around here) that offered broiled black cod sushi and sake for happy hour...would be nice to find a place around here willing to do that

[Nab]

barleywino - the sake-marinated beef was some cut of round, I believe.

Having had a chance to reflect on the meal under non-sake-marinated conditions has really made clear just how abysmal certain things were. I had to file my canines down to bite through the pork belly. Stop&Shop grade sushi of grotesque portions (ebi and engawa aside). Grease-soaked tonkatsu that again required us to plug in the bandsaw. 500mg of broiled beef for $10.

Duped.

:(

[barleywino]

sorry to hear, Nab-- back to Cafe Mami, I guess!

[skordalia]

I've been to Shiki a couple of times and had nothing but excellent experiences with food and service- I agree with gourmaniac that it fills a special niche in boston area Japanese food. As it seems you discovered, their strengths are not in the sushi menu or the other more standard items. Things from the daily special menu have been delicious- sometimes in surprising ways. It feels they just have stuff like sushi and tonkatsu on the menu out of a sense of duty and put their energy into the specials. Which is cool, unless you go there wanting those other things.

[galleygirl]

Hmm, that's upsetting to me, since I really like this place. Of course, I have never had any beef or pork dish there, so I have no leg to stand on, so to speak, about these things... I love all their pickles, and and I've loved all the raw fish type things I've had, whether they were sashimi, or sushi, or some kind of special. Note, tho, I tend to not get tuna, so maybe I didn't have a chance to experience the boring flavor you had..

(hangs head in shame...)
I'm sorry...

[Nab]

Don't be sorry, GG. I am very much convinced it was an off-night anomaly. For one thing, they seemed to be out of every second item I tried to order. There also seemed to be a heavy cloud of apathy hanging in the air that night - not slow enough to close, not busy enough to hit a stride, just kinda lackadaisical. Not that that's a valid excuse, but I'm understanding of it. And I know you well enough to know that your experiences were probably more the norm, and which is why I will definitely return.

To skordalia - I ordered what is a pretty typical Japanese meal (particularly in the izakaya style). Which is to say it consisted of items fried, raw, pickled, broiled, etc - a variety of textures and a variety of proteins (though we did double-down on the puerco). The broiled beef came off the specials menu. I'd be curious to know if other fans believe the way to go is to stick to the specials menu which, to my mind, and based on what the specials menu looked like that particular night, seems like a fairly limited way to go. Many of the recommended dishes from past posts seemed to be regular menu items.

[yumyum]

No, no, no! I really wanted to try it and your recommendations mean a lot to me. As you can tell, we had an off night ... I don't know if it's indicative of the place or not, probably not. The thing is, you can tell Nab knows a thing or two about this food (it's not like we were ordering spider rolls), but with the exception of the sake, the pickles and the cod, nothing was particularly great. For a pretty elaborate meal (I think we really gave the menu a workout) it just came up short.

I want to get back to Toraya soon for a comparison because now I want to really see how they stack up.