“I miss Japan.”
So says my 16-year-old, recalling a recent family vacation that was a transformative aesthetic experience for her. She has since taken to absorbing cult anime, dressing like a Harajuku girl and craving Japanese food for every meal.
That last one has been true for the whole family. The oldsters among us marveled that we always felt satisfied rather than stuffed, and that we both managed to lose weight while eating everything our hearts desired. The kids piled up new favorites, one meal after the next. Ramen, shabu shabu, yakisoba, kari-raisu, tonkatsu, okonomiyaki, kushi-yaki: all these musical words soon became cravings and quests. They tried these dishes and immediately wanted them again.
As a family of five, we did not indulge often in elegant multi-course kaiseki meals, visit famous sushi palaces or go to any places with Michelin stars. We ate the kind of everyday food that authors Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat so rightly termed “Japanese Soul Cooking” for the title of their recently published cookbook. (Ten Speed Press, $18.98)
Where do you find Japanese soul cooking in Atlanta? There aren’t as many places as you might find in another city with a larger Japanese-American or Japanese ex-pat community, but they exist. Here are three that often get mentioned.
Sushi Yoko
7124 Peachtree Industrial Blvd., Norcross. 770-903-9348, www.sushiyoko.com.
This old-timey haunt gets my vote as the restaurant with the most louche setting in Atlanta. Set in a windowless building off the Peachtree Industrial service road, it lies at the end of a long, bright, sloping-downward hallway with a tiled floor. On the walls of the hallway are hand-drawn anime creatures, such as a tomato-faced baby and a bunny that seems to have a toilet plunger stuck to its head. At the end of the hallway lie doors to the Japanese grocer Tomato and to Sushi Yoko.
The warren-like space is timeworn, creaky, illuminated by dim neon lights and yet as warm and homey as any restaurant around. The staff of bustling waitresses work the room as a team and take effortless care of everyone.
I best like to go at midday, when the $7.50 lunch set menu is the dopest deal in town. You choose from any two of 21 items, which arrive along with rice, miso soup and salad. I love that the options include broiled mackerel, beef-and-potato stew, udon noodles, salted spicy cod roe (mentaiko), deep-fried tofu and the slimy but probiotic-rich fermented soybeans called natto. Try one for kicks, and play it safe with a small order of tempura, sushi, chicken teriyaki, fried dumplings or California rolls for the other.
The lunch menu also features a best-hits-of-Japanese-soul-cooking repertoire. Three varieties of ramen hit the spot, as does the plate of fried pork cutlet with rice and a curry sauce. If your carb cravings are high, then get the chicken nanban — a massive order of fried, vinegar-marinated boneless chicken served with an eggy tartare sauce, potato salad and cold spaghetti. It’s kind of simultaneously hilarious and rib-sticking.
Tip well. These ladies deserve it.
Shoya Izakaya
6035 Peachtree Road, Doraville. 770-457-5555.
Here’s the one true izakaya, or Japanese-style pub, in the city, and it’s a doozy through and through. The menu lists several hundred small plates to enjoy with your beverage of choice. At any other Japanese restaurant I’d go for beer or look at the country sake list. But here I can never refuse a fresh fruit sour. You get a tall glass filled with a mixture of the clear distillate called shochu and soda water. On the side comes your citrus of choice — lemon, lime, pink grapefruit — in a ceramic reamer. So perfect.
The menu is so vast that, despite all the full-color pictures, you may just freak out and start pointing wildly at it. What is this stuff?
Well, there are grilled items on sticks (kushi-yaki), including wonderfully chewy King oyster mushrooms and even more wonderful melty pork belly. There are fried lotus chips, grilled rice balls with a crackly soy-glazed crust, wonderful sashimi, octopus-stuffed pancake balls called tako-yaki, crunchy salads, bowls of steaming ramen, gorgeous raw squid in spicy yuzu-kosho paste, and, well … lots.
Here’s something I’ve just learned. If you have a large group, you can reserve one of the private Japanese rooms and sit around a low table with a well for your feet. Better yet, you can pre-order a set menu, giving the kitchen some instruction on how hardcore you want to eat. I went with an adventurous group, and the kitchen obliged with a brilliant spread that included many of the aforementioned dishes along with fried chicken knees.
Guess what? If you deep-fry these round pieces of cartilage, squeeze a lemon over them, and pop them in your mouth after a couple of fresh fruit sours, the texture is kind of crunchtastic. Don’t think, chew.
Tokyo Shokudo
3631 Peachtree Road, Duluth. 770-622-1116.
This little strip-mall spot is a popular hangout for the small Japanese ex-pat community that lives in Gwinnett County. Indeed, it feels like Japan inside, with its bright lights, easygoing clutter and warm spirit. On a recent weekend night, the crowd consisted mostly of Japanese families, though there was one large group of guys enjoying beer and noodles, laughing loudly.
As much as I liked the atmosphere, I thought the food was a mixed bag. The sushi, including an expensive $25 chirashi combination over rice, seemed clumsy and overpriced. The small plates were kind of grab-bag.
We liked the simple things, such as a bowl of cold, pressed spinach in a pitch-perfect goma-ae (creamy sesame sauce). Tako-su, cooked octopus with vinegared cucumbers, was also spot on, and a big, messy serving of poached shrimp and avocado in a creamy pink sauce was fun if forgettable. I also loved the red miso soup that comes with entrees.
I felt less excited by the greasy heap of King oyster mushrooms and bacon. Fried squid legs were cold and chewy, and not fun-challenging chewy like those chicken knees.
For now, my soul belongs to Shoya.
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