After finishing some business around Prince Edward, we were thinking where to have dinner. We initially thought of trying "Mudekiya" but were a bit tired to trek over to Sheung Wan.On the other hand, we're not too sure about Japanese Izakayas in Mong Kok. Eventually, we remembered the recommendation by a friend of my wife, who was/is still a Japanese writer based in Hong Kong. She recommended "Jinya". So we figure we will risk it.We arrived at about 7:00 p.m. and there were a lot of tables avail
更多
After finishing some business around Prince Edward, we were thinking where to have dinner. We initially thought of trying "Mudekiya" but were a bit tired to trek over to Sheung Wan.
On the other hand, we're not too sure about Japanese Izakayas in Mong Kok. Eventually, we remembered the recommendation by a friend of my wife, who was/is still a Japanese writer based in Hong Kong. She recommended "Jinya". So we figure we will risk it.
We arrived at about 7:00 p.m. and there were a lot of tables available. They gave us a table for four even if it was just the two of us. I began observing the ambiance of the restaurant and find it very nicely designed. All the tables were placed wide apart. There were partitions placed at "strategic locations" so almost all tables had it's own private area. The lighting was dim and the ceiling was quite high. Perhaps this explains why there were so many couples present!
Before looking at the menu in detail, I flipped to the drinks menu. They did not have draught beer and only had bottled Asashi, two types of Sochu, ("太祖" & "角玉" - I think, by bottle only), one type of Sake "松,竹,梅" (Matsu Take Ume: so the large amount of Kobota and other sakes placed around the restaurant was really just for decoration) , and some alcoholic fruit punches. The alcohol selection was pretty terse.
We decided to order some drinks first. My wife ordered a "grapefruit chu-hi" (soda water, plus a bit of sochu and fruit juice of your choice). When I ordered a big bottle of Asashi, the staff went away for about 5 minutes and then returned to tell me that it was out of stock. She told me that they've changed to another beer. When I asked her what that beer was, that same staff went off for another 3-4 minutes.
She returned and told me that they only had "Kirin", which was find because I prefer Kirin anyway. So I asked for a bottle. She then told me that she wasn't sure whether they had the big bottle or not. I was already getting quite fed up at this point
I told her, slowly, to make sure she got the message, that if they have a big bottle of Kirin, bring me the big bottle of Kirin; if they don't have a big bottle of Kirin, bring me a small bottle of Kirin. I think one can't get much clearer than that
At this point, another waitress, with slightly dyed hair in a single ponytail, perhaps sensed the rapidly increasing heat and stepped in. She informed me that they had a big bottle of Kirin. She was very nice, friendly, polite and efficient - we stuck with her the whole night and only ordered when she's around! (Sorry for that and Thanks a lot! ) She saved our evening and definitely their ratings from me too
Finally, I looked more closely at the menu and was surprised that Nagoya cuisine was the main theme of this restaurant. Other than the Eel Ochatsuke ("Hitsumabushi"), they had miso with pork cutlet (which should be the hatcho 八丁 miso), Nagoya flat Udon, Nagoya Miso Udon Stew, and Nagoya chicken wings.
They also had a few collagen hot pots, with chicken , pork and, I believe, beef, which also looked interesting. Some mini sashimi rice bowls and quite a lot of yakitori to choose from. It's pretty comprehensive. We were initially a bit cautious with our orders, especially after the hiccup about the Kirin, and only ordered three Nagoya wings at medium spiciness and a few yakitori. The Nagoya Wing's arrived after a short wait:
I've tried "Nagoya" located inside the Mirama shopping mall and also the over-hyped "Toba" at Causeway Bay. I've written reviews about those two so you might already know what I think about those two restaurants as well as my views of Nagoya Wings in general . This is definitely the best Nagoya Wings amongst the three.
All the wings were hot, juicy and tender. The medium spiciness, which tasted a bit peppery and should be glazed with garlic powder, mirin/honey, is mild. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but it's less spicy than the colonel's hot wings at KFC. You can't beat the price at just HK$6 each!
The quality and the price of the Tebasaki here was much much better than "Toba" (strong flavour but dried like a stick) and "Nagoya" (better than Toba but less juicy than Jinya). My wife liked it a lot and thought it was very good.
If you like Nagoya Tebasaki or wanted to try it, I recommend Jinya.
The yakitori came afterwards. Generally speaking, it was not bad.
Chicken kidney (Sunagimo): Those were rather thin. It was slightly marinated but quite juicy.
Asparagus roll with bacon: The asparagus was very fresh and crisp. The quality of the bacon was not bad. It's not too salty and had about 70% fat and 30% meat. Some might find it fattening but I liked it.
Cheese tsukune and Tsukune: The Chess tsukune was less dry than the normal version and both had chicken cartilage. However, the standard was just OK as it was slightly dry in the middle. I think it might be kept in the freezer for a bit too long. Certainly could not be compared with "Nishiki", "Gomitori", "Jun"...etc.
But the next dish arrived and completely took us by surprise:
It's minced chicken meat grilled in bamboo. You may have seen some restaurant that provide minced chicken meatballs such as "Nishiki", "Ippou", "Wara Wara" (also in Mong Kok) and even the ramen shop "Maru Tama". This is the slightly grilled version before it was made into a ball shape or into a tsukune.
You're supposed to scoop the chicken meat out from the bamboo container with the spatula (?) provided and dip the minced chicken meat into the egg provided.
This bamboo minced chicken was very good. The chicken had chicken taste - which should not be taken for granted and was already quite an achievement in itself. The timing was good: It arrived piping hot and aromatic plus slightly crisp on the outside. The chicken meat was very tender and well marinated with mirin and sake. The egg should be imported from Japan as the yoke was big and tasty - in other words, the egg had egg taste.
Definitely the highlight of the evening and the most compelling reason why I'd recommend this restaurant.
All these came pretty quickly and we finished all of those in about 30 minutes. Since the quality of some of the dishes were really of exceptional quality, we decided to order a bit more. We ordered a famous Nagoya dish Eel rice (櫃塗し）and a Kagoshima Pork with Tofu on Hot plate.
The eel rice came with a pot of tea, and is the traditional way The steps of eating were conveniently printed on the menu. Basically:
(1) Try the first bowl of eel and rice without adding anything; (2) Try a second bowl and taste it after adding the seaweed and wasabi;
My wife was actually very hesitant about ordering this because of the price - HK$58. She was quite worried about the quality (it should be more expensive). But luckily, the quality was OK. The size was really meant for one person.
Whilst I'm talking about unagi, i.e. eel, I don't know any good shops that specializes in unagi (I don't believe it's "Mikawaya"). I tried unagi at a new shop called "Hachirin" and tasted like soil (the set dinner, Japanese rice and the view was good though - but that's for a different review). I tried the unagi once at Hataka Dojo, and it tasted liked rubber (I like their other stuff though). Anyway,
Then came the Kagoshima Pork sliced with tofu. The tofu was normal, while the pork slices were quite tender. The sauce on the hotplate was a little bit like a sweet and sour sauce. It's not bad.
We also ordered a bottle of hot sake. Both my wife and I thought the hot Matsu, Take, Ume 松,竹,梅 tastes much better when drank hot. We also ordered a Tsukemono, i.e. preserved vegetables. The portion was pretty substantial but a bit salty.
is actually used for sake tasting. The blue rings inside the sake glass is to assist the drinker to better judge the colour of the sake!
Conclusion:
The bamboo minced chicken was top quality stuff. Definitely as good as other famous Japanese restaurants. The Nagoya chicken wings were also very good and much better than most Nagoya themed restaurants.
Service-wise, other than one waitress who seemed to be a bit of a scatterbrain, the rest were very professional. The waitress with dyed single ponytail whom we approached instead was particularly composed and helpful.
The bill came down to HK$260 per head, which was very reasonable considering the amount of food and drinks we had as well as the quality of some of the dishes.
We were too full because we had ramen a few hours beforehand. But we'll definitely return to try out their other chicken dishes like chicken sashimi and chicken hotpot.
題外話/補充資料：
We noticed that the menu stated "Tokyo Hong Kong Los Angeles" and we checked it on the internet. It turned out that Jinya indeed came from Tokyo (Ebisu to be precise)! They were surprisingly low key about it.
It's a Chinese culture for families to gather together on Sundays and enjoy a nice meal. As a tradition, all yum-cha restaurants would be fully packed on the day. Today was nonetheless the same. We arrived at 12noon - peak time for lunch and hoped to find a seat somewhere. Not surprisingly, queues were lining outside every single Chinese restaurants like 湘川滬, 鴻星, 皇廷, 翠園 which were all situated at 7/F and 8/F in grand century place. The least number of tables that we had to wait for a small table
更多
It's a Chinese culture for families to gather together on Sundays and enjoy a nice meal. As a tradition, all yum-cha restaurants would be fully packed on the day. Today was nonetheless the same. We arrived at 12noon - peak time for lunch and hoped to find a seat somewhere. Not surprisingly, queues were lining outside every single Chinese restaurants like 湘川滬, 鴻星, 皇廷, 翠園 which were all situated at 7/F and 8/F in grand century place. The least number of tables that we had to wait for a small table was 22... In the midst of the crowd, we spotted this japanese restaurant, 80% empty hoping that it's because of the unwillingness to depart from the tradition yum-cha instead of its quality, we decided to give it a go. The setting was indeed unsuitable for family gathering, but great for couples. Due to the lack of people, it's rather quiet, or positively saying, tranquil ambiance. As traditional japanese restaurants, the lightings were not as bright as chinese ones as well. We were given a menu, 3 pages, and were told that those were the only dishes available for lunch. There wasn't any sunday specials, mostly were 定食 - at attractive price of around $70-80 per set. It would be great if they could provide a la carte so families/friends could share food, and they could definitely earn more as well We wanted sushi, and...nope sorry
Rather disappointed, we opted for other snacks. give credit where credit is due - this egg roll was fab. it was a bit rough when we looked at it, however as we bit into it, the egg was actually soft and smooth. It was a delightful combination with cheese and mentaiko. The subtle sweetness made it alluring. It was the first dish delivered, towards the completion of our meal, we were delivered another plate, apparently they made a mistake and we were told that the chef mistakenly made an extra one. To avoid "wastage", we decided to have it! At the cost of our bill of course
This is another dish that deserves praise. A straightforward rendition without any tricks. The deep fried soft chicken bones were golden brown, crunchy, not too oily yet juicy. All you look for in this simple starter was presented at only $18! It was encored immediately
Salmon sashimi, grilled salmon and strands of fried eggs are the combination of this three-colour set. They were served side-by-side as you can see from the picture. Nothing too fancy, expected taste. Since they didn't serve salmon sashimi a la carte, I wasn't expecting too much from the salmon. It was fresh, but not too juicy, mediocre at best. The grilled salmon was lukewarm, slightly below average standard as it wasn't tender and pretty bland... The sushi rice was amazingly lovable moist and chewy, definitely augmented this dish overall. It was generously portioned as well. The set also came with a steamed egg custard, it was smooth but we didn't like sour egg so it was left untouched.
The staff especially brought our attention to this dish, mentioning that it was sour, which is of my liking and escalated my expectation. It came with a nice pot that was heating upon delivery. We had to wait like 5 mins before uncovering it. I simply couldn't understand why it bothered with all the gimmick when everything was simply distinctive off-note. It wasn't sour because of the tomatoes, it was austere salty. The pork was stale and coarse, soup was queasy. No excuses were made for the lackluster performance of this effortless dish.
We only ordered this after the drab tomato pot. Sadly, it was a grave implication of the chef's skill. The pork bone ramen was again too salty, could taste the MSG straight away, which made me questioned the chef's tastebud (or maybe he didn't bother foodtasting at all). The noodles were close to al dente, but not enough to pull up the standard of this dish. The soup clang too much on the noodles which made it way too heavy. The miso soup, awkwardly, was decent - a flovourful broth that wasn't salty! We dipped the noodles to the miso soup and managed to finish the noodles. We would definitely call it an accomplishment The fried chicken was average, pulled down by the soup as well as made it soggy. It should really served separately to conserve its juiciness.
In addition, the service was not flattering given the lack of customers, not attentive at all and we had to cue for water adding; they were "so eager" to collect our menus as if not enough were printed for a mass of customers-_- All I could say at the end of this experience was.. 虎頭蛇尾 Understood why it didn't "dare" to charge at a higher price in such a decent place. Grateful that waiting time was saved but we immediately went to auntie anne's to make sure our stomachs were satisfied and filled. How about simply extend one of the Chinese restaurants to its location and save the public's time
影片
「壽司定食」：大約10件壽司，跟個烏冬、前菜、沙律、炸雞同麵豉湯，包一杯野飲。壽司食得出係手握，所以口感唔會好實，但塊魚生就真係薄得可憐，仲要梅梅地，好唔新鮮！個烏冬係完全無味，亦煮得太淋了！果幾粒炸雞係凍既，似係放左好耐先攞比D客食，亦炸到太乾。
「牛扒定食」：雖然望落係鐵板上，但塊鐵板係唔熱，似係純粹當碟用；牛扒嚴重overcook，係煮到well done（100%熟），好un，超唔掂 
