The vinyl floor is gone. The sunny yellow bar tile has been replaced through textured wood paneling, and the area (remodeled through Studio-Gram designers) has been softened with Japanese carpets and noren curtains.
It’s Joybird 2.0. When Broadsheet enters Shosho on opening night, the dimly-lighted room is particularly different from its predecessor; Warmer and bolder, I say more mature, the new izakaya district is a dinner less casual than a tricky place to eat, and at first glance fits its Hyde Park setting.
“We know that Shobosho serves the food that other people need to eat, and that the environment is noisy and izakaya,” the restaurateur Simon Kardachi told Broadsheet. “We need to take this to the suburbs with a little more decorum.”
But it’s not Shobosho 2.0 either. Loyal consumers at Leigh Street Restaurant will recognize the fingerprints of chefs Adam Liston and Yumi Nagaya on dishes such as tuna tataki with ponzu and wasabi (served in Shobosho with salmon) and udon noodles with blue swimmer crab and dashi crab butter, which are stars. Shobosho menu But the emphasis here is firmly on temper: crispy and lightly beaten vegetables and seafood, adding green beans (or “poor fish” as the menu calls it) with grated egg yolk, onion rings with caramelized onion sauce and seafood rarely stained on local menus, such as the total coral shrimp Array austromerluza and prawns from Australian supplier Fins Seafood.
Aleven, though Liston admits that he had hesitated to bring tempura to a high-capacity dining place on the outskirts of Adelaide. “Before Covid, I used to move to Japan once or twice a year. I’ve been in high-end tempura positions, and historically it’s only 8 to 12 high-ranking positions,” he says. “While this turns out to be an undeniable concept, it is difficult to get the right elements consistently. I tried to do some tempura in Shobosho in the first few days, but we stopped doing it because we didn’t have the setup.” … However, here we have set the kitchen to make it easier, with traditional pots and water jets ».
The former Joybird steakhouse has been reused for meats such as char siu pork, served with a potato and kimchi dauphinois. These sophisticated French elements spice up the menu: there is a “Béarnaise miso” and a pancake with shallots enriched with creamy cheese from the laughing cow. Also on the menu: boiled dough balls, wontons and a cheeseburger with tea pickles, smoked tomato and tempura nori. But the star of all this may be the crab head filled with a tasty and fiery combination of blue swimmer crab meat, tapioca and white pepper sauce, majestically topped with tempura pasta shavings.
As for drinks, there’s a wine for the palate (and wallet), from delinquent breakable space wine to a $299 bottle of Charles Heidsieck Brut Vintage, along with Japanese beer, sake and umeshu.
shosho.com.au