If you’re from Northern California (or, as some, uh, hopeful folk would have it Jefferson State) and you watch any network TV, you’ve undoubtedly seen their commercials. The title of this review is the catchline of the spot – and it’s on the front of every menu.
Located in a strip mall in Redding is the place where, according to the jingle, East meets West. Tokyo Garden is an unassuming little spot right next to a locally famous MexiCal stop and right next door to a wine, beer and coffee bakery. A what? Yeah, anyway… The front is pretty non-descript and once inside, you’ll swear it’s every other ‘chinese’ food place in every other strip mall you’ve ever visited. It’s been a bit of time since it was last redecorated…probably slick Willie was still smoking cigars in the Oval Office when the last bit of paint or piece of carpet was applied. But, unless the surroundings are foul – which they are not – decor isn’t the reason most of us go out to eat.
It’s the food, idiot!
Yeah, and the little song is right – the food is best where East meets West. Darn good food.
So we get seated pretty quick – it’s around 4 in the afternoon on a Monday. Not a real busy time at most eateries. We get a decent booth, clean and bright, and the young lady hands us our menus. I don’t usually, or maybe ever, mention menus. This one bears mention, though. Nicely bound in a wooden cover, very clean and colorful, with excellent pictures of the food. Inside, it was not only clean, but (I’m 53 and eyes aren’t the best anymore) the print was bright and legible and the creator realized that Redding might not be a hotbed of Japanese-speaking people, so they made sure to include photos of most of the food along with clear descriptions. Sometimes, I think some specialty (like French or Japanese) restaurants like to try to seem more exclusive or perhaps impress someone by assuming the customer knows as much about the language as they do. I am not impressed by that. I’m put off.
Tokyo Gardens offers a wide array of sushi and other Japanese and Jap-Cal food. I guess that’s where east meets west. From chef’s rolls (around $10-18) which are large to regular sushi rolls (around $7-10) which are a bit smaller to a number of (what I assume, since I’ve never seen them at other Japanese restaurants I’ve visited) unique dishes. There’s also some bento boxes for the lunch crowd for around $10 and some group plates of mixed items ranging in price from $38 (enough for two people it says) to … $178 for a “boat” feeding 5-7 hungry campers. I’d hope so!
We hemmed and hawed for a bit before picking a chef’s roll with tuna, cream cheese and some jalapenos among the ingredients and a special of “Fire Balls”. These were a roll with tuna, shrimp, and hot spices, then cut and deep fried. More cream cheese and peppers in this one, too.
…or what’s left of it! Love the plating, but love the food a LOT more!
We’d been to TG one time before, several years ago. It was at the beginning of when I was willing to eat sushi and I was decidedly not impressed. The rolls (I don’t remember what we had) were HUGE and they offered us tiny little (like 3″ tiny) plates – each bite of the roll was larger than the plate! I wasn’t impressed by the food at the time, either. Part of that may have had to do with the fact that I couldn’t figure out how we were supposed to eat this. Take bites of the bites? That caused them to fall apart. Try to shove this enormous thing in my mouth? Er… On to the latest visit…
After what seemed like a long time given the small crowd, but was probably just us being impatient, they brought over the first dish – the Fire Balls. They were arranged more like a plate of sauceless meatballs than a sushi roll and had some rather delicious topping laced across them. And my goodness were they hot! So, so, so good. The second roll arrived, much more traditional in appearance but also just excellent! The Fire Balls were both spicy hot and deep-fried hot, the second roll just spicy hot. I can’t say enough how wonderful they were, though.
Yeah, should have taken the shot before we ate them!
You know how you can get a dish that’s hot, but not flavorful? The kind that stays with your mouth and lips for hours? These were not that. It wasn’t a matter of just grabbing the highest scoville rated pepper and dumping a bunch in the dish. No, this was flavorful hot, wonderfully spicy. I followed it up with a Japanese beer and the combo just sang.
Total for both of us, including a dinner salad, the two dishes, the beer and tip, was less than $50. Sure, could’ve gone to the Cantina next door and grabbed tacos, but well within the reasonable mark for the food.
We go up to Redding six or eight times a year. The Cantina is one of our favorites as is Dave’s Famous BBQ. Now we have a third fav – right where East Meets West. And the food is Best! Tokyo Garden!
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