Eat Like it’s 1830 at This Tokyo Restaurant
Nanko Resthouse is reviving Edo-era recipes
On the edge of Tokyo’s Ginza neighborhood that’s renowned for shopping and dining, Nanko Resthouse, an unassuming restaurant in the Imperial Palace gardens, offers a menu of 100-plus-year-old Edo era recipes.
Opening each layer of Nanko’s three- or four-tiered Edo lunch boxes reveals a treasure trove of brightly colored, snug-packed dishes, most of which are bite-sized. Arranged in a line like a rainbow, goshiki-dengaku, or grilled tofu with five-colored toppings, playfully explores tofu’s versatility as an instrument for flavor. The red-topped tofu, covered in a paste of umeboshi, is mouth-puckeringly sour, while the orange-topped one, a blend of sea urchin, is earthy and rich.
Other dishes are more familiar, yet exceptional. Unlike the typical watery takeout stuff, for example, the warming bowl of miso soup served alongside the lunch box delivers a hearty umami punch almost meaty in its savoriness. Nanko uses miso produced by a company established during the Edo period that still follows the same centuries-old recipe. In presenting these dishes, aesthetics also are as important as flavor: In spring, for example, slices of octopus are arranged atop a bed of steamed rice to resemble fallen cherry petals.
