Bistro Sanya in Sangenjaya — As Seen In Japan

It was White Day last Saturday, and that means it was Eriko’s day. We went to lunch at Brisk Stand and visited the Sompo Museum, and that night, it was time for a fancy dinner. We knew exactly where we wanted to go: a cool new Italian restaurant that had moved in right by our house. We see it every time we walk home from the train station, and we’ve been dying to try it.

Bistro Sanya: a cozy high-end restaurant in Tokyo

Bistro Sanya is located in Sangenjaya, part of Tokyo’s Setagaya City, and where our dog lives. It’s on a quiet side street, next to Film Coffee & Things. They spent a long time renovating the space, and we’d been curious as to what kind of restaurant would be moving in. We’d assumed the restaurant was named “Sanya” as a nod to the name of the neighborhood, but it turns out there are two other locations, and the similarity of the names is just a coincidence.

They don’t post a menu outside and have little online presence. All they do is place a chair outside during the day with some business cards on it that have QR codes on them. There’s no online reservations, so you have to call. We called on the Thursday before White Day, and they had a spot open, but informed us that if we canceled less than 48 hours beforehand, they’d charge us 5,000 yen.

The restaurant is quite small: there’s four counter seats in front of the kitchen, and a four-top table in the window. Upstairs, there’s a single 6-8 person table and a small table in the corner, which is where we were put. We really liked the decor, the lighting was low and romantic, and there were flowers on the table in a wine bottle with a cool logo. Plus, the fancy knife (which reminded me of the kind at bistros in Paris, WHERE WE HAVE TOTALLY BEEN) had a little bug on it.

There’s a set menu, but we avoided it and focused on the a la carte options. There were also some special appetizers, though they were unfortunately out of the strawberry bruschetta, which to me seems strange given that they don’t have many seats. Couldn’t they have planned ahead for how much bruschetta they’d need?

There were a lot of little things like that making the experience strange. At the big table on the second level, there was a group of three guys and three girls who Eriko suspected of being a singles meetup party. It’s rough for dudes when their singles meetup has Gregg in the background, since all men look ugly in the presence of my unmatched beauty. Better luck next year, guys.

Drinks and sausage at Bistro Sanya

There were quite a few non-alcoholic options on the drink menu. Eriko got "Alps 100% Natural Juice - Fully Ripe Orange" and I went with the Craft Chai. Her juice was really tasty, but such a tiny pour that it seemed like a prank. My chai was basically flavorless, super white with hardly any spice to it, and definitely not worth 1,100 yen ($7).

Then, we waited. And we waited. And we waited. We had arrived at 9:30, and I think it was 10:15 before our first appetizer came. We saw later that it was just one guy making everything down there, but with so few customers, you’d think they’d be able to stay on top of it more. Gordon Ramsay would be mad.

The first appetizer was one of the special ones, a sausage with mushrooms and mustard. As a child of Wisconsin, I am super picky about my sausage. A sausage should EXPLODE with juices when you cut into it. This one was rightly brown, but only had a mild explosion. Inside, it was mealy, which is what happens when you put too much other stuff in there rather than meat. Eriko liked it, but I wasn’t impressed.

But then she told me to try the mushrooms. I hadn’t gone for those because normally I despise mushrooms. They are gross. But on her recommendation, I tasted them. Soft, salty, delicious. We battled each other to get at those mushrooms. They were incredible. Made up for the sausage. The mustard was also okay but nothing special. Overall, an okay dish we probably wouldn’t get again. But if they had just those mushrooms, we totally would.

Beef Achilles Tendon sautéed in escargot butter and high-hydration bread at Bistro Sanya

When we were informed that they didn’t have the bruschetta, I quickly looked at the menu and blurted out, “How about ‘Beef Achilles Tendon Sautéed in Escargot Butter?’" Eriko said sure. We ordered it. It sounded weird. We imagined a tough, chewy tendon that tasted like snails.

Right away when they brought this thing, we were intrigued. The green on top told us the escargot butter thing was no joke, and there were lotus roots in there too, which is a thing we like. The fatty tendon was crisp on top. How would it taste?

Folks. FOLKS. I need you to understand how good this was. It was salty, creamy, savory, slutty, eye-gouging, incredible. The lotus roots were fine, but compared to the tendon, they were nothing. You could taste the escargot butter, and the tendon absolutely melted in the mouth. I would never have thought something like this could exist.

If you go to Bistro Sanya, you must order this. It shows the level of mastery on display here. There are a lot of Italian-ish restaurants in Japan, and a lot of them just churn out same-old Italian fare, or worse, Japanese “twists” on Italian cuisine. This is not something any old chef could create. It takes a real level of knowledge and creativity to come up with this. We DEVOURED this thing, incredulous about our good fortune.

We saved the last couple bites of the tendon for our bread, which we thought would pair nicely with it. The The High-Hydration Bread from Kyoto Wheat Laboratory costs 370 yen, and the server asked if we wanted two, meaning it was just one piece of bread each. When it was finally brought, I thought they were screwing with us. Two teeny-tiny pieces of bread.

This special bread was quite fluffy, but felt squishy on the inside. Paul Hollywood might have notes. It was also the exact wrong bread for the beef tendon. The squishy bread overwhelmed the fatty tendon so they didn’t go well together. We opined that we wished we had some baguette to spread it on. I’d say skip the bread at Bistro Sanya.

Shibaura Bolognese (Offal Bolognese) at Bistro Sanya

The pasta course was an excellent opportunity to teach Eriko the word “offal.” This is one I wasn’t that excited about: I am generally not a fan of bolognese. But when they brought it, the plate looked gorgeous. The sauce was a light red, and there was plenty of meat on top.

Tasting it, I saw that I’d lucked out. This did not taste like a normal bolognese. The sauce was more of a tomato sauce, and the meaty bits added a nice variety in flavor. The noodles were pretty good, but it was really the sauce that made this thing. We scraped it up off the plate until there was nothing left. This is another one I’d say you absolutely have got to try if you come here. It’s great.

Charcoal-grilled Marl beef and a little mistake

Next up was our main. We had ordered the Serared Ishiji Fresh Bluefin Tuna with Raspberry Soy Sauce, as Eriko was really intrigued by the notion of raspberry soy sauce. Imagine our surprise when they plunked down a plate of beef and vegetables.

"We ordered the tuna," we said.

"Guuuuh?" said the guy. He informed us that they were out of tuna. Two mains on the menu, and they were out of one. We said we'd go ahead and eat the beef, since it was already there and looked good. And it's not like we had another option.

This was the Marl Beef "Shin-shin" Charcoal-grilled, which is a fancy was of saying steak. Apparently the cow had been killed that very morning.

You could definitely taste the freshness. The pieces we had weren’t fatty or highly-seasoned, but the charcoal flavor and depth of the beef really came through. The vegetables were also incredible. Everything on this plate was good, and again, we devoured it. I guess we’ll have to go back to try the tuna, but the steak was a perfect substitute.

Conclusion: will Bistro Sanya last?

A restaurant like this faces an uphill battle. It’s in an out-of-the-way location, they clearly spent a lot on renovations, and with so few seats and no lunch service, their profit margins can’t be exceptional. For it to work, it’s going to need to generate some press or word of mouth.

With us, they definitely accomplished that mission through the food. The sausage was just okay, but the beef tendon, bolognese, and steak were all top-tier. We agreed it was probably a 4.5/5 by our estimation, only marred by the service hiccups.

“This is definitely a place I would come back to,” I said.

“When?” said Eriko. “When are we coming back?”

She liked the food so much she wanted a hard date for our return. That’s a pretty good review for this place right there.

I hope Bistro Sanya makes it, because it’s nice having a quality restaurant so close to our house. Our food would have worked out to about 11,000 yen ($68), which is more than you’d want to spend on a random day, but cheap for a special occasion.

I say “would have,” because when we went downstairs to pay, we found out that they hadn’t charged us for the steak we hadn’t asked for, meaning the total was only 6,900 yen ($43) for that incredible food. FIVE STARS. THAT’S HOW YOU GET A PERFECT REVIEW.