Alright, this is going to be the second photo critique I have posted and I though I would start by explaining a few things. 1: I am by no means an expert. I like good food, I like photography and I especially like getting new ideas from the place that I go. 2. Most of the places I go to are going to be in Calgary. I will how ever be adding one or two extra-city restaurants in the next few months, namely e\Edmonton and red deer. 3. I like to stick to what I know. I've been studying Asia since I was young and am particularly interested in their cooking and their way of life. This doesn't mean however that I won't post blogs about other style of cuisine. I also love to hear about other peoples experiences with restaurants. So if any one has any good suggestions as to the next place I should try please please please let me know and I will give it a try.
Now that that’s out of the way, on to the photo blog! It took me two trips to the Shikiji to fully appreciate both the environment, the music that they played and their amazing food. Like a lot of places there were ups and downs. But by far this noodle house has more ups than anything. Its location is very well though out. It’s just a little off of the trans Canada Highway and on center St. N. This is a prime location, just a little off of the expanding china town but far enough away from any other reputable sushi places. Note also this isn’t so much a sushi place, their a noodle house that also offer sushi. The exterior is very nice. Plastic plants and bamboo blinds are very inviting. Passing the customary overhanging curtains on your way in, you arrive in front of their large drink and pay island in the middle of the restaurant. On the left and going back are a few small table and two bars, one facing the window and one right in front of their stainless steel kitchen. On the other side is a little alcove of tables. It has a very earthy feel to it, lots of plants and wood decorating.
Although this is apparently a Japanese establishment I highly doubt there are many Japanese people working there. Their service and attitude where excellent none the less and I do not hold the false advertising against them.
The first time there, we had just finished ordering when a small experimental sushi trial was offered to us. It was an odd kind of tamago roll. It’s the first time I’d been offered a sample or one of the chefs creations before.
I was impressed to see that the miso soup was not only very authentic looking but that it was also very much so home made. I could tell by the little pieces of fresh cut green onions. So far this has been the best miso I have tried. It took a long time for it to loose it’s cloudiness. This to me is a sign of a good mix of ingredients and proper cooking. If you over cook miso soup it can really ruin the miso.
We both started with a few pieces of sushi. Just the regular to try of course; Shake, toro, ebi, tamago, maguro and piece of inari. Inari, it’s a bean curd paste mixed with rice and then deep fried. A very tasty little piece that’s both sweet and oily while still having a firm texture. A must try. I was more than impressed with the maguro, more so than I was the toro. It’s a lot nicer and just melts in your mouth. The tamago was a little too sweet for me. It had a nice fluffy ness to it, but it still just didn’t taste right. All in all their sushi was par with an excellent selection and a great piece of maguro.
Next I had a soy ramen with bbq pork. Right off the bat I will say that their cut of pork was far from lean, which is good because it offers a lot of taste to the soup, but on the flip side, fatty pork also makes for grisly pork. I could not finish the pork because of the amount of fat in it. The broth was great. It’s a lot more similar to the ramen broth I make at home. Not as strong as Hibiki’s, and I really liked it. The noodles were great, not over cooked at all. They still had a good strong consistency to them. The topping were great. A half piece of baby bok choy and some chopped green onions. The taste of the broth was really absorbed into the bok choy. It was very enjoyable.
Next item on my list was the bento box with sukiyaki beef, mixed tempura, home style salad and teriyaki chicken. Of course eating salad with chopsticks would seem weird to everyone else but I feel that since they didn’t offer a fork I would muscle through it and still have a little fun. I swear their salad dressing had a little bit of miso paste to it. It was a very unique sauce with lots of taste that really accentuated the fresh ripe tomatoes carrots and cabbage. The sukiyaki beef was a little stringy. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would other sukiyaki places. There was less sauce than others I had tried which left it dry. The onions how ever were very nicely caramelized. The BBQ chicken was beautiful. Nice lean pieces, the onion very much bringing out the bbq taste.
As a side note, they used a lot of onions in their cooking. I even had onion tempura which is ten times better than onions rings in my opinion. I really like onions so having a full meal with onions was delicious. The tempura was very well done. Shrimp and squash with onions. Although the onions were all bunched together, their taste was still amazing, just required a little work to break them apart.
Christy had the Shikiji style soba noodles warm. The broth was very similar to the ramen that I had last time, but with a little variation. It was a little sweeter, that might be due to the little pieces of sweet soy that was scattered in the dish. The buckwheat noodles were very good, firm and not sticky.
Both time were very pleasant dinning experiences. It’s a little one the pricy side but it won’t break the bank. I would definitely recommend this place to any one wanting to try some “Japanese style” noodles. We all enjoyed ourselves and will probably make a return visit to have some sashimi.
This has been another food blog by moi. Mata ne!
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