Dinner at the Shiori, 15th May

On Friday night, we made our second visit to the Shiori, a kaiseki restaurant near Queensway. This post will mostly be photographic, since the great thing about going to the Shiori is that the photos practically take themselves and not even I can screw them up. For more comprehensive notes on our first visit, see here.

It's such a soothing space. The daily grind is completely shut out behind those screens.

We had managed to persuade D to join us since he's fond of Japanese food. As before, we went for the works i.e. the biggest tasting menu with accompanying sake tasting.

ok, I did manage to screw this photo up, but it's the only one I have of the sake list

It's a tiny restaurant and I found myself distracted by the presence of Nigella at the table next to ours, having a work-related conversation with her dining companion. As the general atmosphere is quite hushed and reverent, we could hear every word and there was significant temptation to join in on more than one occasion. After she'd left, I said something to Hitomi, who runs the front of house, who told us that she's a regular and frequently brings famous friends along. But I didn't get the impression that Hitomi was bothered by any of that kind of thing. Everyone gets treated equally at the Shiori.

And so, on to the food and drink.

I'm not completely sure if this was actually a sake - it was very lemony, almost like a limoncello but without the cloying sweetness. Very refreshing, and just what we needed at the start of the meal.

This was incredibly finely sliced yam, "showing off Chef's knife skills" said Hitomi (a.k.a Chef's proud wife).

This was some bonito.

A lovely eggy custard thing "with seasonal vegetables" which we were asked to guess. I remember that one of them turned out to be lotus root. G said he'd like this for breakfast every day.

Sashimi garden. The fish is such high quality, and the scallop was particularly memorable.

Nigella didn't eat her flower. "Is that wrong of me?" she asked. I wasn't sure whether to either, but G advised me to do so. I regretted it actually - it was very pungent.

Scorpion-fish with a strange celery-like fibrous vegetable. The fish was delicious, and served warm.

Abalone and sea-cucumber. Apparently the sea-cucumber is a great delicacy!

This baby peach in a pool of peach jelly was an absolute highlight. Who knew such things existed? Seriously, it was like going to heaven.

And now, the main course! The main part was salmon, rice and peas, with miso soup and pickled cucumber and ginger. I loved the pickles in particular.

Black sesame ice cream for me...

... while G went for cherry blossom sorbet, which made him very happy.

Plum wine.

And finally, a little bean curd sweetmeat (at the risk of sounding like G's father) and a bowl of the most intense green tea. This photo doesn't quite capture the colour, which was a vibrant green like watercress soup. Hitomi told us that it would make us all younger. Certainly it felt rather medicinal.

I haven't provided a running commentary on the sakes, as I didn't want to sit there making notes, but as usual when she poured them, Hitomi told us a little bit about each one. And, as before, we particularly enjoyed the Dassai Junmai Daiginjo 50. D spotted that there is a sake takeaway list which we must check out next time. And we mustn't wait too long before going back! G was tempted to move his office to the neighbourhood so that he could go there for lunch every day. I definitely think an annual pilgrimage is a necessity. This place is an absolute treasure.