After 20 years, Tokyo Restaurant
still an original

Sunday, Jan. 28 2008

Yoshimasa Tsukano trained at the source.
He learned the craft of teppanyaki — cooking on a teppan, or flat griddle, set in the center of diners' tables — first at the famous Benihaha restaurant in the exclusive Ginza district of Tokyo, and then at Benihaha restaurants in New York City and Los Angeles.

After working for many years at Fujiya and Tozai restaurants in the Twin Cities, Yoshimasa and his wife, Donna, moved to Eau Claire and opened Tokyo Japanese Restaurant in 1988.
In October they will celebrate 20 years in business.

Many diners don't know that Tokyo is actually two restaurants. At dinner Tokyo does teppanyaki only. But at lunch, served Wednesday through Friday, Yoshimasa cooks more traditional Japanese dishes to order in the kitchen.

In teppanyaki, the chef prepares many meat, seafood and vegetable dishes for up to eight diners simultaneously. Yoshimasa makes it look easy — with precise, elegant knife work; graceful spatula swoops; and cooking sauces poured just so. There's showmanship here, certainly, but the Tsukanos have little respect for teppanyaki places that put entertainment before cooking.

Teppanyaki chefs in Japan and 'old-school' teppanyaki chefs everywhere keep focused on the food. Donna said her husband takes pride in being 'one of the last true originals.'

The Tsukanos make everything except gyoza — Japanese pot-sticker dumplings — from scratch, including all sauces and dressings.

Most diners find their way to Tokyo first though coupons in area telephone books. With a coupon, $29.95 currently buys dinner for two with a choice of Steak Teriyaki and chicken breast, Steak Teriyaki and shrimp, or shrimp and chicken breast — all served with Tokyo's standard accompaniments: simple Japanese egg-drop soup, shrimp appetizer, plain green salad with delicious ginger dressing, stir-grilled vegetables and mushrooms, steamed rice and Japanese green tea.

It's hard to leave here hungry or unhappy.

Both the Steak Teriyaki — glazed with rice wine, soy and ginger — and the sweet-salty Hibachi Shrimp are good choices, with clean and gentle flavors. The chicken breast here, like chicken breast everywhere, is sometimes dry and unappealing.

But there are other paths through the menu.
Our favorite main dishes are the Teriyaki Cod and the Ginger Pork, each $12.95. The cod stays on the teppan for a long time, getting glazed and re-glazed with teriyaki, achieving a deep brown- caramelized sweet chewiness on the outside and flaky-moist flesh within.

The pork is teppan-grilled together with slivers of fresh ginger and Japanese vegetables, then hit in the final minute with Tokyo's outstanding soy-and-ginger dipping sauce, which thickens nicely. Our recent pork finished a touch drier than perfect, but the delicious double punch of ginger made up for it.

Because the cod and pork are less expensive than other choices, we often add an appetizer to our order and sometimes, giddily, two. The Imported Soybean Appetizer — fresh young soybeans boiled in their shells (edamame) — is a nice beginning, $4.50. Use your fingers to nudge the nutty, creamy beans from the (inedible) shells and on into your mouth.

The Hibachi Scallops are also nice: slow-cooked and daubed with sauce, they leave the teppan denser and meatier than most, $5.95.

For dessert, get the good red bean, green tea or Japanese plum ice creams. The plum is the most refreshing, the red bean the most fun.

When we last wrote about Tokyo, in August 2005, we focused on lunch — and especially on the wonderful donburi dishes: big bowls of fresh-cooked, clingy Japanese rice with succulent toppings of chicken and egg, fried pork cutlet or tempura-battered shrimp with savory sauces. These are still our first recommendations. Oyako Don — with chicken and egg — is one of Audrey's favorite dishes in all the world, $5.95.

Also exceptional is the Tempura Udon, $6.50, with crisp shrimp-and- vegetable tempura half- submerged in a bowl of yielding udon noodles. The coating melts slowly into the good broth, adding flavor, body and comfort.

Perhaps on a second lunch visit, try the Tonkatsu, $6.95, a boneless pork cutlet coated in panko bread crumbs, deep-fried and served with an addictive black-brown sauce. The Tsukanos' recipe is secret, but tonkatsu sauce usually features tomatoes, apples, onions, Worcestershire and often garlic and ginger.

All lunch entrees include salad and green tea.

Jeff likes to stick with the appetizers at lunch, starting with the complex earthy flavors of the traditional miso soup, $2. The tempura shrimp with vegetables is a good choice, $4.95, as are the pan-fried gyoza, their soft fillings of minced pork suffused with garlic, $4.50.

And the chicken wings! Yoshimasa skins them, marinates them in his soy- ginger dipping sauce, then dusts them with cornstarch before deep-frying. They emerge looking old and sad, with cracked, thin, pale crusts that let some soy- darkened meat peek through. But they burst with soft, hot succulence and flavor.

Order them for friends and watch the smiles light up.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.