We met at Harajuku station, from where it was a short walk to the restaurant. Our cousin, Andrew (an Irishman who has lived in Tokyo for five years now, and speaks excellent Japanese) had made a reservation for 19.30, and we made it with time to spare.
Sakura Tei is an okonomiyaki restaurant in Harajuku, okonomiyaki being essentially large, vegetable heavy pancakes that you can customise (the name derives from the word 'okonomi', literally meaning 'what you like'). I had actually had okonomiyaki before, at Abeno near the British Museum in London. It had been good, but the server had taken full control of the mixing and cooking, and the portions had been on the small side for the price. Looking around the room at Sakura Tei, they were decidedly more generous.
It had a great vibe, certainly one of the more hip places we'd been too, at home in the trendy surroundings of Harajuku. Of everywhere we'd been, it reminded me the most of that genre of chic, Shoreditch London restaurant style -- bare wood furnishings, industrial lighting, statement indie art pieces. Everything had a faint pinkish cast and music thumped in the background. In short, it felt cool.
As at most okonomiyaki restaurants, they had a range of set options for their okonomiyaki, but also monjayaki (a runnier style of the former) and other sides, including yakisoba. You could also choose to make truly custom creations, picking ingredients to add to your base batter. We went for the simpler option of choosing the preset mixes.
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| Japanese cooking instructions |
We ordered three to start with: one spicy, a mushroom and bacon one, and another with beef tendon, grated yam, and tiny dried shrimps. Most of the ingredients came in a very full bowl, that we mixed as best we could (without, or more likely with, making a mess) to form our okonomiyaki batter. This was then turned out on to the hot plate set into the middle of the table and shaped into thick rounds. Per our cousin's instructions, we let it cook for approximately ten minutes on one side, then crossed our fingers and flipped it with the provided spatulas. Not all our optional ingredients were combined in the bowl, so for example we had bacon, mushrooms, thick cut salami, hot dog slices, and extra eggs on the side. This is great if you've picky eaters.
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| Okonomiyaki, raw |
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| Okonomiyaki, flipped |
After the pancake has cooked on one side, you add your extra ingredients directly on to the hot plate, cooking them separately. Once everything is nicely browned, you put them on top of your okonomiyaki, and if so inclined, top with the standard condiments: okonomiyaki sauce, japanese mayonnaise, and bonito flakes. My dining companions aren't mayonnaise fans, though we did add okonomiyaki sauce to two. It was tasty, sweet, tangy -- like tonkatsu sauce, a good foil for the fried food.
My okonomiyaki, with the beef tendon, was delicious. Tendon never sounds particularly appealing but it was excellent here, not at all tough but providing some much needed texture to the monotextural fritter, and it had a deep, beefy flavour. The shrimps were less present, disappearing into the batter, and the grated yam sauce, while intriguing (it transforms when grated, becoming oddly gooey) had a mild, refreshing quality. The spicy option was very good, again most of the flavour coming from the generous chunks of salami and jalapenos, and it was a very accessible spice level. Bacon and mushroom was hardly going to be unpleasant either, but Ian, who ordered it (and is hardly a bacon super fan) exclaimed on how delicious it was. The quality of meat in general was very high, everything tasting truly of the animal it was -- nothing like watery, supermarket value meat here.
We finished these off without much trouble, though we were told that the restaurant would be closing early that night due to the typhoon. Japan Railways had announced they were closing most of their lines that night in anticipation of the storm, and our cousin had warned us that we should all be on our trains home before 10pm. In fairness to its staff, then, Sakura Tei was closing at 9pm, with last orders at 8.30. We had plenty of time still at this stage, and so put in another order for a spicy monjayaki and yakisoba. Adam, who had managed well with cooking his spicy okonomiyaki, had a harder time handling the monjayaki batter on the grill which spread far more generously, but the thinner, crispy edges seemed to be the point. It was more aggressively spiced, but still easy to eat and very enjoyable. As was yakisoba (I mean, it's fried noodles with pork and the merest suggestion of vegetables, what's not to like?).
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| Yakisoba and spicy monjayaki |
It was last orders, and so we ordered one final okonomiyaki, this time with cheese, avocado, and pork. When I flopped this one out of the bowl and on to the hot plate, there was no sizzle, and after five minutes we noticed the batter wasn't browned at all. It turned out that our hot plate had been turned off, so they must have assumed that our second order would have finished us off... Still, it was no trouble turning it back on, and the okonomiyaki was soon cooked. It was fine, tasty -- the avocado finely diced, the cheese a cheddar-like blend -- but at this stage our stomachs were waning and the threat of the typhoon (and the restaurant closing around us) was enough of a clue to get out of there.
We didn't see the bill for this meal, as our cousin insisted on paying, and thus we enjoyed it on his generosity, as well as a number of drinks. There is an all-you-can-drink option at Sakura Tei that he encouraged us on to, and so we had beers, several sours, sake, soft drinks, and various fruit cassises. We went neither hungry or thirsty, and everything looked very keenly priced, even if I couldn't tell you the final total.
Date of visit: 08/09/2019
Address: 3 Chome-20-1 Jingumae, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-0001, Japan
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