Senshin

Senshin (せん心)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ / ⭐⭐

🇯🇵 Kaiseki / 📍 Higashi-Azabu

📓 Visits: 2 (2022-2023)

Owner/chef Tatsuya Tsushimato previously worked at Uchiyama which held a Michelin Star from 2008 through 2018.  The restaurant occupies the premises vacated by Higashi-Azabu Sugiyama, which didn't last much longer than six months.  The finish of the interior isn't the most expensive and doesn't appear to have been renewed but, as it's been relatively unused, everything (apart from chef's whites) is clean and it feels like a new restaurant.

First imushi, ginnan, yurine, uni.  A relatively large portion with high quality uni.  8.5/10.  After katsuo katsu the owan.  This was packed with vegetables and two iwashi tsumire.  The soup was so packed with ingredients it was like eating nabe.  If you ate a large bowl of this as a simple meal you'd be very happy.  10/10 for this dish, 9/10 for the dashi itself.  The dishes that followed I'd score 8.5-9/10 until we got to the rice.  First a tasting of plain white rice.  This was not the highest quality rice and strangely salty.  6.5/10.  Next shake and ikura gohan.  This was shake cooked separately and served on the same plain white rice rather than rice cooked in a stock.  The ikura was a little small in diameter and a little hard and you could really taste the fact this was not king salmon.  Just 7/10 for this.  Next hamo and maitake takikomi gohan.  The second serving was better than the first which tasted a touch oily.  7.5/10 for this.  The final carbohydrate was a ramen made with seasonal mushrooms.  This was probably the best of the shokuji but still at most 8/10.  Pickles were very good and akadashi excellent.  Dessert was a little lacklustre: the ice-cream needed to be richer, the 'wonton skin' had an oily flavour and the jelly was not made from the best wine.  7.5/10.

Tsushimato-san does all the cooking single-handedly.  All cooked elements are prepared in a back kitchen so he often disappears behind a curtain.  An assistant attends to guests.  Chef and his assistant were friendly and initiated conversation.  No English is spoken.

On my visit I was the only diner so I got an extra large portion of the katsuo and my meal finished relatively quickly.  I felt sorry for the chef in having to prepare two separate rice dishes.  Two bowls of each was as much as I could stomach.  Chef was going to give me the rest as onigiri but there would have been a kilo of rice to take home, which would have gone to waste, so I asked chef to just give me two of each type and share the rest with his assistant.

Since November the restaurant has been open for lunch.  Previously it was the case that if you book at least a day in advance you can reserve an 8k lunch course or the same 15k dinner course but if the restaurant had no lunch reservations on a given day it would open for a 2k teishoku lunch limited to 8 diners.  Since 31st Jan you can now reserve the 2k lunch as well.  I went without a reservation on my lunch visit, arriving at 12 when the restaurant opened.  There was one other diner initially and 3 more joined at 12:15.

Food came out after about 10 mins.  The meal comprised niku jaga, nameko, meiji maguro, buri wrapped in pickled daikon, mentaiko, miso soup, rice, pickles, kuro goma mushi yokan.  The meat was 95% fat, all of which I left.  The buri was fishy and the meiji maguro generic.  Rice can be refilled but was poor.  This was very disappointing and a completely different experience from dinner.

It's unlikely I would have gone back for dinner if I'd had the 2k lunch first.  I really wonder whether this lunch will draw people back for dinner as intended, or have the opposite effect and turn them off.  I believe I was quoted JPY 15,000 for dinner when I booked and indeed, online, the course is advertised at JPY 15,000 including tax.  In the end the bill came to JPY 19,800 including one non-alcoholic drink which is still excellent value but 2-3000 yen more than I'd expected even if you factor in 10% service.  At this price you're not going to get the most expensive ingredients but the quality of the cooking was excellent and you shouldn't leave hungry.  As there was nothing stunning in the meal and bookings are easy I did not immediately book again.  I go for kappo and sushi more often than I eat kaiseki and have a long list of kaiseki restaurants I'm yet to visit.  Had the final bill been the expected 16K or under I would certainly be planning to go back in another season.  That not being the case and with a poor experience at lunch I'm not sure when, if ever I'd go back but I'd recommend a visit for a proper course at Senshin if you're on a budget, looking for value, or looking for somewhere easy to book.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1314/A131401/13273934/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.1 (dinner, value: 4.5) / ⭐⭐ 2.5 (lunch)

📱 Booking: 🟩  Easy.  A day in advance for a course should be sufficient.  Book by phone, Tabelog or via TableCheck.  No English spoken.

📍 Location:

1-17-15 Higashi-Azabu.  5m North-West from the Nakanohashi Exit of Akabanebashi station.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.
Map data ©2023 Google

📅 Visit January 2023

Teishoku lunch

💴 Damage: 2,000 (cash only)
⏱️ Time taken: 30m

📅 Visit September 2022

Imushi, ginnan, yurine, uni
Katsuo katsu
Owan: zuiki, kinoko, iwashi tsumire
Otsukuri: Meichidai, kuruma ebi
Hamo kobujime shirayaki
Kamasu
Kinoko, sendai gyu nabe
Shiro gohan
Sake, ikura gohan
Akadashi, pickles
Hamo, maitake gohan
Ramen
Milk ice, shine muscat, kyoho, wonton kawa, wine jelly
Kurogoma mushi yokan

💴 Damage: 19,800 incl. water and one non-alcoholic drink
⏱️ Time taken: 1h40m