Shou Zen     尚善  

On the recommendation of a couple I met at the Krug Room the night before, I decided to check out this, "moderately priced sushi joint." Compared to starred sushi places, this is indeed moderately priced, but by no means cheap. I arrived early enough to get one of the only two seats open on a packed night. Asking for anything that might not be on the menu, I happily learned that kinmedai (alfonsino) was available, which was so amazing at RyuGin cooked that I had to try it as sashimi. This is also my first encounter with the small black fish, mijina. Then I ordered a few things that looked good as they passed by.

Shou Zen is a nice place to go early to check out the selection of daily specials items. Given their rice style, go with sashimi over sushi. If they aren't slammed, they do a pretty good job at deep frying. And while I didn't try any, the flaming beef dishes looked good with the pieces served rare on hot slate.

Gallery Text:

1. Garlic: marinated in dashi and sprinkled with bonito, these have lost most of their garlicky flavor but not the garlic crunch.

2. Aji Belly, Swordfish Belly, Toro Sushi: All of these used medium grain rice that's a bit overcooked. Without the textural separation of great short grain, the overall experience suffers. At least it's well-seasoned. Aji/ This close to the skin, there's a bit of crunch before the beautifully fatty interior on this cut of aji. Swordfish/ Scored to increase the perception of tenderness, this still has a bit too much crunch. It's flavor profile is close to hamachi but fishier. There's a fair amount of oil here, but it's not very refined. Toro/ Nicely melty fat make this some kind of wonderful. Sadly, there's an untrimmed strand of silverskin in this piece.

3. Mijina and Kinmedai Sashimi: Mijina/ Slices of translucent white mijina resemble fluke. They have a fairly neutral taste with a little crunch (thus necessitating the thin slices) and pomelo sac grain. Kinmedai/ After the spectacular rice-crusted kinmedai at RyuGin, I had to try this ingredient raw. It's not on the menu, but that's the reward for dining at 6PM before everyone else arrives; you get to inspect the best of what's come in before the masses. Well this certainly did not disappoint. It's richer and fattier than the mijina in a aji meets red snapper kind of way. It doesn't have the initial crunch of the fattiest part of aji (which I don't consider a great attribute on a fatty fish anyways). And it has cleaner oil than either aji or red snapper. The flesh pulls apart beautifully with a slightly lighter flavored collagen and more bite than chutoro. Could this be the turbot of Japan?

4. Mijina Bones: The head and bones from the mijina get whisked away and return deep fried. They're perfectly seasoned and the light batter works well here. The head and gills are great, but some of the bones aren't fully cooked through. Delicious, but caution required.

5. Botan Ebi Sushi: Beautiful, medium sweet shrimp. It's not as sweet as amaebi. It's closest to langoustine with a slight bitter edge and a gummier texture. This would have been better torched to alleviate both issues.

6. Botan Ebi Head: Overbattered compared to the mijina bones but still good. The head fat resembles a cross between Dungeness crab back fat and amaebi head fat is hot and juicy under that crunchy shell.

High res photos and ratings at tastecompendium(dot)com

We happen to be in Sheung Wan after work meeting some friends for HH hour drinks. Instead of going back to our usual places in Soho, we decided to find something in Sheung wan. We saw Shou Zen and decided to try it out for dinner.

The menu offered the usual, sashimi and sushi with a few cooked skewers. We ordered salmon, tuna and scallop sashimi, yellow tail sushi, california roll, salmon skin roll and chicken and leek skewers. The sashimi was fresh and cut to large pieces. The rolls were of substantial portions. The salmon skin roll was pleasantly good with crispy salmon rolled delicately into the sushi roll and topped with fish eggs. We ordered a small portion of sake to go along with the food.

The atmosphere was of traditional Japanese decor. Surprisingly on a Friday night the restaurant was not very busy which was to our surprise given the quality of the food. We walked out definitely satisfied and the bill came out to HKD 750 which was reasonable for Japanese near central.

I will definitely go there again if I have a craving for Japanese!

Time for another happy cousins' gathering. My cousin's request for seafood became my excuse to try out another sushi restaurant.

Between the 4 of us, we ordered crispy salmon skin hand roll, a deluxe sushi platter, mirugai sashimi, grilled unagi, deep-fried tofu, tempura softshell crab and a sukiyaki. Our friendly waiter thought we over-ordered when we said we wanted to wrap up the meal with the sukiyaki. Obviously he had no way of knowing what a bunch of locusts we were, and obviously he didn't observe how quickly we descended upon and devoured each dish. Despite the speed of demolition, we did manage to taste and savour each dish and they were all very good.

I love the salmon skin roll, the slightly smokey crispy skin and the salmon roe provided a nice contrast to the sweetness and stickiness of the sushi rice. The sushi platter consisted of 10 generous pieces of ultra fresh sea treasures: toro, uni, kampachi, botan shrimp, scallop, swordfish, akagai... can't remember the other 2 pieces... but I can certainly remember the sweet sweet taste of the big fat piece of uni... delicious.The tofu and tempura were so-so, nothing to shout about. The unagi had too much barbeque sauce on it and consequently too salty.

The sukiyaki was a pleasant surprise. It was a proper sukiyaki, cooked in a shallow sukiyaki pan with a robust sukiyaki sauce, and not the shabu shabu hybrid that is so common in other restaurants.

Overall, the most impressive dishes were the sashimi and sushi because of the high quality of the fish.

As I sat down to write this review, a question came to my mind, "Beyond the simple reason that it tastes good, why do I like raw fish?" Rewinding to the moment I put the piece of sashimi into my mouth, as I savoured the taste and texture of that piece of food in its most basic state, without the adornment of sauce, sans cover-up of seasoning, in its naked state, was a moment of truth, of utter honesty. The chef can't lie about the freshness of the raw fish. The experience is free of complication, there is no need to wonder what spice was used, how it was marinated, the complexity and depth of flavours... perhaps in a world full of deceit, falsities and camouflage, solace is found in a simple, honest piece of food.

Or perhaps I'm just over-thinking, as always.

i haven't celebrated my birthday in 10 years.
therefore i'm still 18, (coz if i don't celebrate, i'm not older.)

as a devoted foodie, i wasn't gonna go anywhere 'ordinary',
and this place is heavenly!!!
not only it's funded by charity group, so while we are munching on orgasmic food, we are doing something good.
and the name synergies with my family name!

anyways, the place is simple, food were fresh, the sashimi they recommended on the day was OH MY GOD!!! one of them was neck part of tuna, it's like toro, but only better…

basically everything was good, you can't go wrong.
we were so loud, and had so much fun, had so much fabulous food!
we are coming back!!!

sorry i had too much fantastic sake there to write real review, but seriously, it's THE best japanese restaurant in hong kong so far!!!

sorry i don't know how much we spent, coz i was the birthday girl, somebody picked the bill. but i think with wines and stuff were around 1000 per head.