One of the best Chinese restaurants in Shibuya, Jasmine specialises in the spicy Chinese cuisine from the Szechuan province. While the dishes are executed with the flair and refinement befitting the restaurant’s simple elegant setting, the flavours are spot on: bold and punchy, and they leave a mild tingling sensation at the back of your palate.
Dinner costs upwards of ¥4,000; the weekday lunch menu, however, is a steal in comparison. The rice sets range from ¥1,000 to ¥1,200, and they each come with a main, rice, soup, side dish and dessert. Plus you get to add on a small serving of the restaurant’s signature mapo tofu for a mere ¥250 – and you should.
Our favourite lunch main dish is a toss up between the immensely addictive pork in sticky black vinegar sauce and the refreshing chilled chicken in spicy sauce. The latter, which is sometimes referred to as drooling chicken or liang ban ji in Chinese, is a crowd pleaser: silky smooth poached chicken sitting in a tart, sweet, spicy, vinegary cold broth that’s been infused with 15 different spices. The broth is so good you’d want to drink it on its own.
