Open from midnight to 7 a.m., the diner at the heart of the Japanese TV series is located down a narrow alley in Tokyo and operated by a lone chef who holds court behind a tiny, U-shaped counter. The posted menu is extremely limited, but if Chef has the ingredients he can make a customer anything they like. The series is one of those you hope will never end, though it does. And it also makes you wish for a similar hideout to appear down an alley near you. Sadly, though, it won’t.
Even so, some unique aspects of Tokyo night life are beginning to establish outposts outside of the mother country. Yozora Sake & Wine Listening Bar, a sister of downtown’s Shiro, titles itself an izakaya, but it also closely resembles the peculiar breed of Japanese bar called a kissa where audiophile equipment and huge collections of vinyl dominate the usually small spaces. Jazz is king in these places, and liquor is served wreathed in cigarette smoke.
Yozora has the imposing speakers, the requisite Macintosh amp, a small collection of vinyl and would begin to approach the traditional dimly lit ambiance if it weren’t for the too-bright open kitchen. Vintage Sade was spinning during my visit, and sets of Blue Note classics stood out in the CD collection.
There’s neither smoke nor whiskey at Yozora. But there’s plenty of sake, not to mention some Japanese beers and a hit parade list of wines. I’d stick to the sake, which is organized by location of brewery rather than type based on degree of rice milling or added alcohol. The default solution in such a situation is to summon the bartender-slash-waiter. His suggestions, after some questioning, resulted in two 300-milliliter bottles, both good but in different ways.
Tamano Hikari Shuho Junmai Daigingo ($37), brewed in Tokyo, was the first to arrive. Full-bodied yet with a delicate floral aroma and hints of sweetness and green melon on the palate, it was a pleasure to sip with the Sade. The Hakkaisan 45 Junmai Daigingo appeared as Jim Hall’s rendition of the Cole Porter classic “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” cued up. You can’t go wrong with Cole, and I’d say the same about the Hakkaiasan. It’s pricey at $47 for 300 milliliters, but its crisp dryness and subtle pear and white flower components built beautifully atop a base of delicate and slightly yeasty rice.
Of course, sake also goes well with food, and Yozara has a menu that seems designed as much for full dining as drinking and listening. Several dishes, for example, are based on the cured fish you can see hanging in the establishment’s own cooler behind the bar. But intent on maintaining the illusion of an intimate jazz-and-juice joint, smaller plates were the night’s focus. The kitchen plays more fast and loose than jazzy and slow with some, but, yes, grated Parmesan actually works on an item labeled Hot Line Crispy Gyoza, an unconventionally crumb-coated pork “dumpling” slicked with a sauce meriting its 911 moniker.
An Asian pear and cucumber salad was swamped in a tsunami of yuzu dressing, but was otherwise beautiful. Pay special attention to the lacy, purple seaweed and the sprinkling of crunchy, toasted quinoa. The texturally complex Shiro Wrap is bundled in pale, soy-based sheets and features an interior of rice made creamy with avocado and crunchy with fried soft-shell crab. Delicate shreds of dried chili and peppery microgreens are more than decoration atop the wrap.
Much simpler are small plates such as the tsukune. But wait: tsukune is usually a chicken meatball. Here, in the shiitake tsukune, it’s also a stuffing mixed with wagyu beef that’s formed atop a pair of mushroom caps. Though it’s not clear how much the fancy beef adds, the combination is nevertheless a perfect expression of umami, the Japanese term for savoriness. Cue the slightly more floral sake.
Bring out the dry sake for the yaki onigiri, a popular Japanese snack made from griddled sticky rice shaped into a triangular form. It pays now to be aware of another Japanese concept, that of shibui, an aesthetic principle that values simplicity and the subtle beauty of minimalism. The beauty here is in the rice alone with only texture as a variant. But to counter the concept, the kitchen adds a dab of luxurious French butter.
Perhaps think of the butter as Nat King Cole’s voice rendering a jazz standard. And then come back in December when his Christmas album, spotted in the vinyl collection, will surely be spinning.
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