There’s more to Japanese cuisine than slivers of fresh seafood, or rice bowls topped with deep-fried tempura. At Rockon Tokyo, the intimate restaurant serves up obanzai instead – comfy, Kyoto-style home cooking that features a variety of side dishes, best paired with sips of sake.
Fresh, seasonal ingredients are used to create the restaurant’s lengthy menu – one that changes every two weeks according to what’s available. Build your meal with a series of small plates – both warm and cold – from the signature potato salad ($18), perfumed with freshly shaved black truffles, to the classic hijiki seaweed ($6) that comes tossed with beans and tuna for a hearty bite.
It’s all best enjoyed in the omakase menu ($88), a multi-course experience that might come with assorted obanzai; a belly-warming boiled turnip and chicken dumpling, drizzled with aromatic lemon oil; char-grilled fish; tamago kake gohan; and finished with homemade lemon barley pudding.
And while obanzai usually delights in its simple, home-cooked approach, there is also the option to turn up the ante with some opulent creations. Truffle is used for dramatic effect, showing up as a topping for warm sake (from $48), or in its own Louis Vuitton casing in the Rock On! Tokyo Treasure Box ($106). In it, egg yolk, torched meringue, and rice comes lavished with caviar, crabmeat, and sea urchin – along with a generous shaving of white truffle table-side. Also worth a try is the cheekily named Gout-o ICU ($69), which offers a sampling of three mini rice bowls topped with ikura, caviar, and uni.
Wash it all down with sake pairing ($60 for five glasses), or choose from its limited dessert selection. The sake lees ice cream in particular ($12), is fresh and refreshing when enjoyed together with mouthfuls of warm, char-grilled pineapple.
