Dining out Japanese-style has never quite been the same in Salt Lake since the Kyoto Restaurant opened a few years back in a small residential neighborhood.
Before the Kyoto, local aficionados of Japanese cuisine had been accustomed to frequenting restaurants that featured small private tatami rooms. Kimono-clad waitresses obsequiously bent before shoeless customers who were taken as much with the style as the substance of the food.As the influence of Japanese culture continued to grow in the West, restaurants that featured teppan yaki style cooking found their way into Salt Lake City. Instead of the subdued quaintness of a tea house, diners sat, often family style, around a large open grill and watched chefs slice, dice and cook traditional Japanese dishes. Again the emphasis was more on style than substance.
But the Kyoto added a new dimension, a new choice for diners. The essential elements of Japanese cuisine - teriyaki, tempura, sukiyaki - were still offered on the menu. The bill of fare also included sashimi and sushi reflecting on the area's growing sophistication (if not tolerance) for Japanese specialties. The Kyoto did away with private rooms and showy chefs and presented superb Japanese food with a combination of both style and substance. The decor was simplified though nonetheless elegant.
For about a year, the Sagano Restaurant in Bountiful has been offering diners who seek the same essential pleasures of Japanese cuisine a replica of the Kyoto. The menu is the same, the ownership the same, as well as the same pleasant service and cleanly appointed interior.
While most restaurant replications usually have something lacking, that certain touch from the kitchen such as the distinctiveness of a sauce, the only disappointment we experienced during our recent outing to Sagano was the lack of sushi or rice cake specialties on the menu.
The other dishes we sampled, including two appetizers and several combination plates, embodied the quality that has made the Kyoto such a well-deserved success.
Both the kushi ebi teriyaki ($3.80), two skewers of broiled shrimp with pieces of green onion with teriyaki sauce, and the agedashi tofu ($4), deep-fried soybean curd with ginger soy sauce, were wonderfully prepared. While not everyone is a devotee of tofu, a tasteless blob of gelled soybean curd that is often overlooked even in health food stores, this preparation could convert the uninitiated. The cooking adds a chewy crust to the outside and literally melts the inside to a creamy custard consistency. When combined with the sauce, it has a delightful flavor, highlighted by small flakes of ginger.
Other appetizers include yakitori ($3.80), broiled chicken on a skewer with a special sauce; gyoza ($4), Japanese-style pot stickers; shishamoo ($6.85), broiled Japanese fresh water fish; tatsuta age ($7.50), seasoned fried chicken; sashmi ($9), raw fish with green mustard; and yudofu ($4), boiled tofu with a special sauce.
The dinners, which come with green tea, steamed rice, misoshiru (a flavorful soybean broth with slics of scallions) and a green salad topped with a creamy dressing, range in price from $7 for the vegetable tempura and nabeyaki udon noodles, to around $12 for the dozen or so combination dinners.
We sampled two of the combination dinners, the ebi tempura and salmon teriyaki and the chicken sukiyaki and ebi tempura. The tempura shrimps were succulent and served hot; unfortunately the vegetables with the tempura were lukewarm. The salmon was moist and tender. The chicken sukiyaki was the most successful of the dishes. Not only was the portion a large steamy bowl, but the pieces of chicken meltingly tender. The thin yam noodles and chunks of vegetables were also nicely prepared.
Other dinner selections include pork and beef cutlets; yose nabe, assorted seafood and vegetables in a special sauce; steak, chicken, salmon, pork or beef teriyaki; various tempuras; and sanma shioyaki, broiled mackerel with salt. Children's dinners are also served, priced around $5.
While leaving the Sagano we encountered some friends whom we knew lived much closer to the Kyoto than to the Davis County restaurant (though the ride from Salt Lake City is hardly 5 minutes.) Frustrated by the weekend waits and crowds of the Kyoto, they soon discovered the advantages and strengths of the Sagano, as of yet not quite as busy as its sister in Salt Lake City. Wasatch Front residents should appreciate both these surprisingly consistent restaurants.
Rating: (SS)(SS)(SS)(SS)
Sagano Restaurant, 541 W. 500 South, Bountiful. 298-0808. Open for lunch, from 11:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. and for dinner, from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m.; until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday. Major credit cards and checks with guarantee card. Reservations accepted.