Located smack in the heart of the well-travelled salaryman bar-hopping circuit, Kamata offers a healthy antidote to all that drinking – hearty, healthy traditional Japanese cooking with plenty of character. It’s the most unpretentious of settings, with laminated menus, TVs tuned to game shows, and towel warming machines plastered with stickers for Yebisu beer. But this Shinbashi restaurant is also home to some serious cooking. Chef Kamata works magic with a range of ingredients including daikon radish, konnyaku, tofu, soft-boiled eggs with blood-red yolks, kombu seaweed, and a legion of minced and steamed fish cakes.
These items are soft in texture and subtle in taste; a dashi broth and the use of bonito flakes gives Kamata’s cooking a distinctive flavour. Oden is typically eaten in winter, and Kamata will certainly get busier as the days grow shorter and colder, but when the cooking is of such a high calibre and low price – individual items cost just ¥200 a piece – this is a worthy year-round destination. And, in case you were wondering, you don’t need to pause your bar-hopping to visit – a range of beer, sake and shochu is available.