Shokutei Kaiseki

"During my second visit, I still believe that the Shokutei Kaiseki under Chef Maeba is a restaurant with a real depth of gourmet experience. Its dish style is elegant, reserved, and effortless, without pursuing performances, interactions, stimulations, or conflicts. The restaurant's style is modest, tranquil, and consistent, located in an uncharacteristically quiet area of Shenzhen, without posing for pictures or resorting to gimmicks.

Chef Maeba himself comes across as straightforward and approachable, with his own aspirations without deifying them, reflecting a true craftsman's demeanor. After every visit to Shokutei Kaiseki, I am increasingly compelled to set off for Japan immediately, if only the great restaurants weren’t so hard to book on a whim.

I would not recommend this restaurant to all my friends because appreciating its quality is not easy and requires sufficient time and patience. Operating such a serene kaiseki in Shenzhen is certainly not easy. I believe the most suitable scenario for a visit is a leisurely sunny midday, slightly hungry, alone, without any expectations, just for a meal of 'simple food and tea.'

For lunch, they offer sets at 1280 and 2380, both of which I have tried and found to be sufficiently filling, but I recommend the 2380 set as it tastes better. This time I ordered the 1280. I didn’t write about the dishes last time, so this time I will briefly record the menu for friends who might be interested.

To start, a cup of Phoenix Single Bush Duck Shit Aroma tea, brewed with pomelo peel, hence a more complex fragrance. Then followed by the meal-accompanying green tea.

The first course, sea urchin sesame tofu. The tofu is quite sticky, repeatedly pounded with kudzu and other ingredients to achieve a delicate, non-sticky texture akin to mochi. Topped with horse dung sea urchin and wasabi, the style is plain and refreshing.

For the steamed dish, oyster. Somewhat like a chawanmushi hiding an oyster, but more delicate, filled with round slices of Shonai leeks, which gain a light spicy and sweet taste when cooked. Topped with grilled pomfret, accompanied by long strips of Negi leeks. I can usually tolerate using leeks as a seasoning, but I don't eat them myself. However, the leek flavor in this steamed dish is rather refined, and I could eat it.

For the boiled dish, Manila clam shinjo. The clam meat is diced and made into balls, with a hint of milky sweetness on top of the sea flavor, quite sticky, hiding cooked bee larvae below – a vegetable with a slight bitterness typical of early spring. The broth includes crushed Kabu turnips from the Sainte-Garde, topped with pomelo peel and spinach stems. Bee larvae are a classic Japanese early spring vegetable. I've had a tempura version at Tian Yi that was so bitter it was hard to swallow. I think Shokutei does it better, with more elegant and restrained seasoning, not just for the sake of seasonality.

For the next course, due to dietary restrictions, the sashimi was changed to Arctic shell. Arctic shellfish meat, paired with Japanese white udo (without any astringency, more like a moist radish), radish paste, vinegar jelly, with a base of kelp broth and a little orange vinegar, both sour and fresh flavors are very mild.

For the grilled dish, nodoguro fish and taro croquette. The croquette is fragrant and sticky, served with my favorite walnut and spinach salad - I never used to eat spinach...

The simmered dish, Sainte-Garde radish. A classic Kyoto vegetable, essentially a type of round white radish, paired with bamboo shoots and nori. The main dish, kamameshi rice pot with eel, fried scallop. The first bowl is eaten as is, the second bowl can be had with tea rice.

For dessert, a hidden small piece of tiramisu, paired with fruit, as well as strawberry milk jelly, ice cream. The meal ends with hand-ground matcha by Chef Maeba.

The inspiration drawn from kaiseki, I believe, is most applicable to those fusion Western restaurants. Most fusion establishments are a mixed bag of chaos, gradually falling into a vicious circle of 'performance, interaction, stimulation, conflict', resulting in a saturated market of homogeneous competition within just three to four years (although perhaps they all believe themselves to be unique). But I understand the reason is not because chefs don't cook well or lack talent and dreams, but largely because there isn’t a sufficient platform to teach chefs what good fusion cuisine is. The most famous molecular gastronomy chef schools only teach techniques, like how to foam sauerkraut fish, but not the philosophy - why to add

foam to this dish, what flavor of foam should match this ingredient, whether guests like to eat foam, what the key elements are to make this dish well, and if there are better evolutions.

In other words, the concept of 'eating in season' may have taken root in the hearts of high-end restaurant chefs, but defining what 'in season' is, and how to express it in a place like Shenzhen where there's hardly any sense of seasonal change, isn’t simple. In 30-degree Shenzhen, eating a wild quail and imagining the hunting season in North America, or laying a pile of red maple leaves on the table to evoke the scenery where maple leaves and snow contrast against the Yunnan White Horse Snow Mountain, seems a bit far-fetched.

What is the seasonality of early March? The set of kaiseki by Chef Maeba, with its tender, moist, and slightly bitter vegetables, instantly reminds me of Japan in March years ago - that crisp, bright, and quiet early spring feeling.

What mainstream patrons like now, at this moment, may not be seasonal, but rather 'explosive umami' and 'rich aromas'. Yet, as the technology for industrial flavor enhancement continues to develop, when many capital chain stores can each have their own 'explosively tasty' dishes, how will high-end restaurants stand out? After all, the market changes very fast. It may only take 1-2 years for a customer with no experience in high-end dining to gradually develop their own preferences and perspectives, as visiting ten to fifteen high-end restaurants can help complete the market education from 0 to 1. Therefore, what is popular with mainstream customers now may be reshuffled in two years. Western experiences can no longer be fully referenced, as China moves at its own sweeping speed. How to draw 'slowness' and 'restraint' from kaiseki, to really accumulate 'Eastern philosophy' on the plate, I believe, is the subject that dreamy Western restaurant chefs should focus on."