Honjo (上環)

Summary: Modern Japanese that was kind of hit-or-miss. Has a strong base though and could be interesting in the future. On the pricey side, but the service and decor are already terrific. As a new restaurant, the food has some ways to go, but there's a high ceiling for Honjo. I'll be trying it again in the not-too-distant future.

After eating at their sister restaurant TMK one floor down in Hollywood Centre last week, they gave us a coupon to try Honjo, and we happily obliged. A different vibe than TMK, Honjo looks a lot more like Stockton or the Optimist (no surprise as they’re both under Pirata) than any typical Japanese setting. The sushi counter at the end of the room is the only clue that you’re not in an Italian restaurant. Much larger than it looks, it has all kinds of booths, separated tables, and rooms for romantic meals or private events. I found Honjo classically warm and inviting:

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The second thing you notice when you enter is how many staff there are. There must be about 8 servers and 5-10 hosts/managers walking around. Further, since Honjo is relatively new, even the suit-wearing host/managers often defer to their actual manager for food explanations, making it a lot of faces you'll see over the course of your meal. Apart from this, the service is great, and I suppose at full capacity (it was about 70% full the day we went), the extra hands would be useful. There was one moment to highlight: as people do, we ate the Hamachi dish from the side closest to us, so by the end, all the remaining fish was on the far side of the plate. Obviously, it wasn’t a stretch at all for us to reach over, but one of the staff came over specifically to rotate the plate so the food was closer to us. I was impressed by the attention to detail (or are there just too many staff wandering around?)

Anyway, on to the menu (taken from their website)

It’s a hodge-podge. While most of their dishes are a mix of fusion and new-Japanese food, they include quite standard sushi/sashimi options, at mid-high tier sushi restaurant prices. I’m sure this won't be only us, but we had no interest whatsoever in trying sushi here. Eating specialty foods (e.g. pizza, sushi) in places that don't specialize in them is rarely a good idea; in other words, there are a lot of other places where I’d rather have traditional sushi at these prices (260 for 7 pieces?). Here, we'd expect everything, including sushi, to be a bit unique or inventive; I was surprised that they didn’t offer classic/modern options for sushi as they do for Tempura.

The drinks menu is EXTENSIVE – 6 pages of cocktails and spirits, and a much longer sake and wine list. You won’t be lacking for options here.
One question though, for both Honjo and TMK - why are highballs so expensive? (they start at $140 here) They’re supposed to be easy drinking; originally designed as a substitute for beer. In Japan, even Chita highballs (far from a great whiskey), are priced just slightly higher than beer, not double the price. Bizarre.

Here’s what we had:
Squid

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Basically a fried calamari dish; amusing because the server described this as "something a bit different." Saved from mediocrity by being nicely fried in a light batter (supposedly rice?) and a tart calamansi dip. The lime-based acidity goes well with the chewy, savory squid. Overall though, nothing that interesting.

Hamachi

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The best dish of the night for me – medium-thickness slices of Hamachi, with a small dollop of rocket butter (couldn’t taste the rocket very much, but the butter works), and a lively yuzu/soy mixture. The butter & oily fish combination you'd expect to be heavy, but along with the yuzu, the edges of each slice are flecked with Yukari (a pickled shiso furikake), which gives each bite some zing. This dish has just the right amount of complexity to give the usually lethargic hamachi some real character.

Pork Ribs

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The worst dish of the night. While they do fall off the bone, the ribs feel more braised than BBQ’d, missing any depth from smoke or charcoal. While they are okay-moist, the fat and meat don’t meld together as in the best bbq, and they just kind of separate lamely when you chew them. Further, the sauce they’re basted in tastes like any old American BBQ sauce (the slightest hint of tamarind), and you can’t feel any Japanese influence here at all. Finally, they are incredibly salty – you don’t notice it at first because the sauce is so tangy, but you’ll be reaching for the water before you even finish chewing. I assume since the sauce is fine, that the ribs have been marinated in too salty a brine/marinade. The best part of the dish was the pickled radish, which says a lot. Don’t order these, especially at $180.

Karei Tempura

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This is a cool dish. Filleted and then fried, they serve the entire fish including its skeleton, which then becomes an edible serving plate. Taste-wise, I think the karei was too mild of a fish for tempura, as it needs to hold its own against the batter and oil – seabass, whiting or ayu would probably have stood out more. I get the thematic restrictions though; the fish needs to be a medium sized fish that can be turned into its own plate, which limits what they can use. In any case, my friend liked the flavour, so maybe it’s me. Texture-wise, it was fried nicely, no easy feat given how many pieces there are, with the insides still juicy and the batter still crunchy. The tentsuyu sauce though wasn’t great –it seems they overdid the soy sauce to dashi ratio, resulting in it being a too heavy/strongly-soy mixture; a poor offset to the fish. A much better complement is the “salt flight” they also offer:

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Himalayan pink, Green Tea and… something else I forgot. These were great in small sprinkles with the fish. Overall, not a cheap dish at $290, but a cool concept and tasty if you have a bigger group – was too much fried stuff for the two of us.

We wanted to try one more thing, but nothing else really appealed to us, apart from the rice and noodles we were too full for. We did opt for their Red Bean and Almond cake:

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Tastes like a poppyseed or honey sponge cake, covered by azuki beans and red bean cream, with a side of homemade green tea ice-cream. I liked that it wasn’t too sweet, and the spongy cake is great at absorbing the ice-cream and red bean sauces. A relatively light and satisfying dessert to end the meal.

Overall, we had 4 real dishes, and while the Ribs and Squid were strangely disappointing, the Hamachi and Karei were genuinely interesting and worth ordering again. If Honjo's menu could consistently deliver this level of flavor and innovation, it would justify the prices they charge – the four dishes + dessert came out to $830 for the two of us with no drinks, and we were barely satisfied. I.e. it’s not cheap. Expect a full meal to run you 500-600 p.p. at a minimum.

Right now, Honjo is a work in progress, between the manic number of staff and the hit-or-miss menu. There are a lot of things to like though; the service is great, the restaurant is beautiful, and you can tell there are some real chefs in the kitchen. With time, I expect them to clean up their recipes and get the food where it needs to be at this price point. Right now though, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, and an OK seems to be the right rating. Worth keeping an eye on.

KennyLKH

等級3

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