Kibi, Shibuya - Tokyo

I could honestly eat Japanese food day in, day out, no complaints.  The general simplicity of ingredients and clean flavours make it one of my favourite cuisines .  I was in foodie heaven on my trip to Tokyo.  Between the cheap ramen stalls, department store foodcourts, top quality convenience store snacks and ma'n'pa eateries, I was never lost for somewhere to eat.
The one meal which will forever remain etched in my memory as a top dining experience was at Kibi, in Shibuya.  This little eatery was tucked down an alleyway opposite Hachiko exit of Shibuya station.  If it hadn't been for our friend who lives locally we would never have found this haven of eating treasures.  The tiny little cobbled  alleyway spans about fifty metres and is home to several Japanese bar/casual restaurants. When I had previously thought of traditional Japanese dining, this setting was very close to what I had imagined. 

The cook at Kibi is a young Japanese woman who I've been told has spent much of her youth traveling around Japan, perfecting her cooking and collecting recipes and techniques on the way.  Our friend described her style of cooking as 'homestyle' Japanese.  The intimacy of this little restaurant meant that we were able to sit right up close to the action, and watch her wield her magic. Kibi is about 2m x 1.5m in space and you sit along a bar which runs along the length of the cooking space.  It seats four people comfortably and a further two to three people can be squeezed in if they stand.  There is further dining space upstairs which I have been told seats about five.

Anyway, enough about the nitty-gritty of the place. Let's get onto the fun stuff: the FOOD!
Several small courses were served.  They increased in size and heft as the meal progressed.

Japanese pepper with sesame.

Preparing Japanese style potato salad.

The finished product.  The salad on the right is the traditional style of Japanese potato salad.  Its flavour is much creamier and less acidic than its European counterpart.  The salad on the left was made with par-boiled potato and pepper, if my memory serves me right.  Both were delicious.

Next up was a marinated Japanese eggplant.  I'm going to hazard a guess and say that the marinade was a mixture of mirin, sesame and miso.  The flavours and textures in this were so delicate and moreish.  I would have loved to learn how to replicate this dish.

Sadly I didn't get a good picture of this dish. It was the winner of the night. 'Scuse the Marlboro's in the background.  The one annoying thing about eating in Japan was the smoking in restaurants! Anywho, this dish was seared bonito on a bed of myoga sprinkled with sesame, mirin (I think?!) and flash fried garlic chips.  Bonito is a Pacific fish that belongs to the mackerel family.  The flesh is dark, tender and deliciously fatty.  It smelt quite pungent when it was being cooked, but it's flavour was much more delicate than it's smell let on.  Myoga is a type of Japanese ginger.  The clean, crisp tang of the myoga was beautiful with the fatty fish.

 The next dish up was the karaage, a Japanese classic that was keenly anticipated by all of us.  The chicken was served on a bed of a crisp and peppery lettuce, which was a nice fresh addition the fried chicken.  Mr Epi was on a karaage comparative tour for our trip, and this one was the winner!

The final treat was a bowl of cold soba.  The soba was in a very bland sauce which had the consistency of egg white.  For all I know, it could have been egg white.  The blandness of this sauce was livened by the addition of spring onion, cherry tomatoes and black sesame seeds.  This dish was quite a challenge to eat.  The slippery coating of the sauce on the already slippery soba meant that you had  to slurp the noodles straight from the bowls.  The chopsticks didn't prove to helpful with this dish!  Mr Epi really struggled with the texture of this dish, but I loved it. 

We dined at Kibi twice during our stay in Tokyo, and would have happily eaten there every other night if it's occupancy had allowed.  Our meal generally cost around 9,000 yen, including a couple of beers each.  It is hard for me to give a street address as the card I got for Kibi didn't feature one, just a little ambiguous map on the back of the card.