Souka

Souka (蒼菓)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍰 Dessert / 📍 Nishi-Azabu

📓 Visits: 1

A great start with tomokoroshi soup, tomato jelly and clear candy.  Not too sweet.  Next duck egg pudding made without milk or cream and a kamo nasu "ice-cream".  Both were delicious, the pudding very nearly perfect, much richer and denser than a normal pudding.  But they didn't work well together: the flavours cancelled each other out so you had to eat them separately.  Next raw peach with a peach jelly and plum sorbet.  The peach was very high quality but how much you like this dish will depend on how much you like peaches.  Next sakuranbo with fromage blanc and a sakuranbo extract.  Again, high quality fruit and I loved the super sweet extract.  The next dish was my favourite of the course, a mango mille-feuille.  The mango ("Koipotorin" from Miyakojima) was melt-in-your-mouth soft and full of perfume, the pastry warm and very well-made, the small amount of creme pat adding richness and the pineapple sorbet adding another dimension.  Next Okinawa cacao ganache and a cacao jelly.  This was extremely rich and the portion a little large.  I didn't think I liked cacao jelly, but this was delicious.  Penultimately, melon shortcake.  I don't really like Japanese "shortcake" and this didn't change my mind.  Finally a financier and an Asian lemon butter cream biscuit.  The financier was better when left to cool a little but even so, I prefer my financiers with more almonds and less butter and sugar.  The butter cream biscuit was the best version of this I've ever had.  Normally they are cheap and sickly.  This was high quality, the lemon cutting through the richness of the cream.

There were eight plates in total and seven teas, the last being hot and refilled on demand.  I'm not really into expensive teas but I could appreciate the quality of them and they did seem to be matched well to the food, though I'm skeptical about how much there really is to "pairing" drinks.

None of the staff really spoke English.  A thoughtful two-page description of the teas (which are all supplied by a single other business) was provided in native level English.  I recommend you try to taste the characteristics of the tea before you read the descriptions and see how close you get.  An English food menu was provided but all the verbal explanations were in Japanese.

Although I had no intention of going again, I asked about making another reservation at the end of the meal and they said "OMAKASE only" but they released a single slot for the whole of August making your chances of nabbing a seat very small.  So it's very difficult to get in first time and if you want to return you're going to be disappointed.  Why is it so popular?  It was created by the chef from Ao Nishiazabu, a restaurant that's been popular ever since it opened and which won a Tabelog Gold Award this year.  Most seats are going to regulars at Ao.

There's no doubt there is plenty of expensive Japanese fruit used here and the tea pairing is high quality.  The level of sweetness was just about right for an eight course experience.  Some of the dishes were quite rich and I recommend you treat this as a complete meal and don't have a regular lunch beforehand.

If you want to eat the best versions of quintessentially Japanese desserts and you like expensive teas you're probably going to love Souka, but literally neither of those things are my cup of tea and the only complete dish I'd want to eat again was the mille-feuille.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130703/13297330/ 

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 (nothing really to fault but just not for me)

📱 Booking: 🟥 No more than a handful of seats released irregularly each month via Omakase only.  Add them as a favourite to get notification the day before seats are released.  Cancellations also announced via Instagram story.

📍 Location:

3F Art Silo Building, 4-2-5 Nishi-Azabu.  1 minute South from Nishiazabu crossing.  Same location as Atirom and Nanahiro.
Map data ©2024 Google 

📶 Free WiFi? ✅ Yes

📅 Visit July 2024

Mr.Hifumi in Shimabara made Corn "Dolce Dream" Mousse

From Kameoka Nanaya Duck Egg Pudding
From Kamigamo Kamonasu Eggplant Ice Cream

Furuyama Orchard Peaches "KOUKI"
Oishiwase Japanese Plum Sorbet

Cherry "Juno Heart" from Saito Farm in Aomori Fromage Blanc Mousse

Mango "Koi Potrin" from Toriko Farm in Miyakojima Island Freshly Baked Millefeuille and Pineapple Sorbet

Gelée extracted from Okinawan cacao pulp
Ganache made from Cacao and Soft water from the Shirakami Mountains

Mr.Kageyama in Hamamats made "Amane Muskmelon" shortcake

Freshly baked financier
Butter cream sandwich with Asian lemon 

☕️ Jinxuan Refreshing Aroma
☕️ BB Jinxuan
☕️ Light Acid Jinxuan
☕️ Rose-scented black tea, Taiwan
☕️ White tea, Nepal
☕️ Gyokuro, Irie Tea Garden, Fukuoka
☕️ Dayuling

💴 Damage: 16,500 inclusive
⏱️ Time taken: 1h20m